CHAPTER VIII.--A SECOND VISIT TO THE COTTAGE.
The next Sunday evening when Carol entered the shoemaker's cottage, he was not alone as before.
"This is my daughter, Mrs. Scott, Master Carol, and her little girl," he said to Carol. "We thought, maybe, you wouldn't object if she listened to the reading too. She cannot often go to church, because the little girl has been subject to epilepsy since she was two years old. She's just turned eight now. I told her mother what you told me last Sunday, and she'll be right glad to hear more."
"That I shall, Master Carol. I know something of hip-disease, and if you could be cured of that, I'm sure my little girl could be cured of the fits."
"Why, of course she could. You will be able to help her ever so much only by knowing that God never created fits; they belong to the mist which we read about in the second chapter of Genesis. I am going to read that chapter to Mr. Higgs to-night. Then you'll understand. I will begin at the fourth verse, because the first three verses belong really to the first chapter, which is an account of the first creation, when God made everything that was made and it was spiritual and perfect. No one could ever alter or undo God's perfect work; it remains, and always will remain, perfect. When we understand this, and realize it, the mist will disappear, and all the things which belong to the mist--sin, disease, and death."
Father and daughter looked at the boy with wonder and perplexity. Opening the Bible he read:
"These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." He continued to the end of the chapter. "Now do you see how different this account of creation is from the first?" he asked. "Who was the Lord God who took the dust of the ground and formed man over again, after God had already created him, and pronounced His work very good?"
The old man shook his head. "I can only say, as I said last Sunday, Master Carol, in all the sermons I've listened to that has never been explained to me. I don't think I should have let it slip, if it had. It's just the first time I've ever known there were two creations."
"There were not really two creations, though it reads as if there were, because there are not two creators. The sixth verse explains it, 'There went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.' That mist covered everything which God-Spirit had created--all the host of them; birds, beasts, and flowers, mountains, seas, lakes, rivers, even man: God's own image and likeness. Because the mist is over everything we do not see the world and man as they really exist. So people have come to believe that God made man from the dust; for the mist that is spoken of is not a mist like we see rising from the sea, or in the fields of an evening. It means false belief, misunderstanding of God and His spiritual creation. But, my cousin has told me, there is a woman in America who once caught a glimpse of God's real creation as she was passing through the death valley. And that one glimpse restored her to health. Then she devoted her whole life to learn more of the truth that she might teach others how to see through the mist, and to shake off their old beliefs. She has written a book called Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which explains all that she has discovered. Simply reading and studying that book has made hundreds of people well."
"Where could we get a copy of it, Master Carol? I'd like to know for my little girl's sake," Mrs. Scott asked.
"I do not quite know, but there are Christian Science churches in London. If you were to write there perhaps someone would tell you. I wish I had a copy to lend you. I have written the Scientific Statement of Being from memory. I am sure it will help you. I am trying to realize it for you, and for the little girl. Think always of that first chapter of the Bible. In the beginning God created everything that was created, and it was very good. None of the things we want to get rid of could be included in God's very good, could they? Jesus came to teach men to understand God better, and he said, 'that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.' So all that came from God and all that still comes is spiritual. If you could quite realize this, Mr. Higgs, you would soon lose your rheumatism. I am only telling you what has been told me so many times; and I know it is true, because I was very ill when my cousin used to teach me, and I grew better as I began to understand. She helped me, because she saw me always as God's perfect child, and knew that He had never created hip-disease, therefore it never was created; it belonged to the mist, and it would disappear under the light of Truth as hoar frost disappears when the sun shines upon it."
"It is wonderful and strange what you are telling us, Master Carol, I've never heard the like before, but somehow I can't doubt it. I call to mind what the Bible says, 'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings God ordains strength.' I'd dearly love the girl to be free from those dreadful fits. My rheumatiz is very bad, but I'm an old man, and can't expect to 'scape one o' the signs of old age."
"But you must not expect. You must know that it is not a sign of old age in God's man. You must always remember the man whom God created in His own image and likeness."
"I've heard those words many times before, Master Carol, but somehow they never seemed to come home to me as you put it. Why, of course I ought not to suffer with rheumatiz if I am God's image and likeness. But what about all the poor dwarfed and stunted creatures that are crippled from infancy? There's a little hunchback in the village. He was dropped when he was a baby, and his back grew crooked, so that it's a hump now. How can he be God's image and likeness?"
"The hunchback is not the likeness of God, but the real child--the spiritual child is, and God sees His child as He created it." The boy put his hand over his eyes a moment, realizing that of himself he was not telling these simple-minded people anything. Then he said:
"Suppose a great sculptor carved a beautiful statue out of a block of marble. Before he began his work, he would have in his mind the form he wished the marble to take. Gradually, as he worked at it, the marble would become what his thought of it was. Then one day he would see it finished and perfect--just what he intended it to be. Then he would work no more at it. Afterwards, suppose some one came by, and took clay and mixed it with water into a paste, and then daubed the beautiful statue all over, till the limbs looked crooked, and the beauty of the face was spoiled. But it wouldn't be really spoiled, would it? The statue would still be the work of the great sculptor, finished and perfect; the clay and the marble would be quite separate and distinct. Nothing could make them one. So when we read the chapter I have just read to you--the Lord God took the dust of the ground and made man--God's man was already made, finished and perfect, and the dust, like the clay, could only seem to hide the perfect creation. But we have to know this and to realize it, if we are to get rid of the dust, and the clay, and the mist. When my cousin was explaining all this to me one day, she said, 'It is not known how or when the belief in a Lord God who made man of dust arose; but from that false belief came sin, sorrow, disease, and death. Jesus came to teach us the way back to God; to teach us to see ourselves as the children of God, not of the dust; and he said all who believed in him, in what he taught, would never see death.' The day will come, my cousin said, when all men will so believe in Jesus the Christ, and will so understand and realize that God is their Father, that death will be overcome. Every case of sin and disease which is healed by this knowledge--by the Truth--is bringing that day nearer."
The look of bewilderment deepened on the old man's face. Surely, the boy was throwing a different light upon words with which he had been familiar all his life. "We'll think over what you've told us, Master Carol--me and my daughter. It sort o' goes to me that it's true."
Again the words came to him, "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings."
The church clock chimed the half-hour. Carol stood up to go. "The time has gone so quickly. I must not stay longer now. I will come again next Sunday, and all the week will you try to know that God's work was finished and perfect in the beginning, and everything that seems to have been added to it--rheumatism and fits--has no right to be?"
"We will, Master Carol, we'll just think of the marble statue and the clay. It will help us."
"I will hold the right thought for you and the little girl, and I know that soon you will find that both the afflictions, which seem so real, belong to the mist."