TWO people watched foresters systematically setting fire to dense undergrowth under heavy gum trees on hillsides surrounding their home. The fire burned strong and clean, leaving the big trees on smooth hills broken only by smoldering fallen timber that the fire had now exposed. Later, the husband set dry branches against the smoldering logs to keep them burning. With several days of regular stoking, these heavy logs would be completely consumed. Through the years the hillsides had been steadily cleared of ugly fallen timber in this manner.
The experience of the new student of Christian Science often resembles the fire's swift action on the forest undergrowth. The human mind, with its so-called knowledge of both good and evil, may be likened to the hillside of strong, fine trees, with the useless and often dangerous undergrowth concealing stubborn logs. But Christian Science reveals that there is in truth one consciousness only, God, divine Mind, knowing good only, including no single ugly evil element, evident or hidden, and that this divine consciousness is individualized in spiritual man, who reflects, or shows forth, the mental and spiritual characteristics of this wholly good, pure Mind, or Spirit.
In the healing inspiration of a new found understanding of God and man, the accumulated undergrowth of human problems—fear, confusion, sickness, unhappiness —is commonly early swept away in the new student's experience. In time he may join The Mother Church and a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, happily undertaking church work. He thinks and lives with some originality and inspiration. He has become a Christian Scientist. But can he develop the full might of this Science for himself or maintain a maximum contribution to his church, to his community, and to the world with only the more evident undergrowth of faulty mortal consciousness destroyed?
