In much literature, including the Bible, rivers are strong symbols of communication, protection, supply, and purification. Through the Garden of Eden, as Genesis 2 describes it, ran a stream that branched into four rivers. At the end of Revelation, where heaven is represented by spiritual consciousness, symbolized as the city of God, the four rivers have become one mighty current, issuing from the throne of God in purity and perfection, sustaining life and producing an environment of healing holiness.
In the Glossary of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy opens her definition of "river" with "channel of thought." Science and Health, p. 593; And she further hints at the type of thought-force represented by each of the four rivers mentioned in Genesis: Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, Euphrates. Of these the Pison offers specific illumination to the Christian Scientist who seeks to understand how, through prayer, to help heal the world of ugliness, depravity, and deprivation. The Bible says of the Pison: "That is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good." Gen. 2:11, 12; And Science and Health interprets it as "the love of the good and beautiful, and their immortality." Science and Health, p. 593;
As I thought about this river and what it meant to me, I saw that God, Soul, expresses goodness and beauty as elements of man's nature. Divine Love is reflected in man's love of the good. Immortal man is not born of matter, is not subject to birth, time, space, destruction. The good and beautiful in man's makeup— the gold—are not subject to accidents of birth, to formations of gene or chromosome; they are not dependent on personality, environment, education. Beauty can be seen as an element of God's self-expression in man. Good is an eternal element inherent in the essence of divine Life, which evolves and environs us all.
