The Frozen River

Have you ever prayed and prayed and saw no evidence of healing progress?

Don't give up. Truth is always the victor. Ills may appear intransigent and unyielding at times, but they will crumble and dissipate into their native nothingness. God's law of progress is always at work moving us in a healthy direction.

Here's a legend that was reportedly read in Mary Baker Eddy’s home many times at her request that addresses the obstinate belief and restores hope of inevitable cure.

Once the river flowed free and easy over its rocky bed, but one night the temperature of the river dropped a dozen degrees or so, and continued dropping all the next day, and by night it had formed a thin coating of ice under which the river flowed.

Accepting the best of it, the river flowed on under the ice, but that night the coat thickened, crowding the activities of the river further down. This went on until at last the river was a frozen mass. “O dear,” said the river, as it tried to move and couldn’t, “was it ever possible that I was free and could move and will that day ever come again?”

A south wind passed by and said, “If the sun would shine on you it would help you!” and the next day the sun did shine on the river, and the river was glad and full of expectations. “Now I shall flow and be free, but after shining all day nothing happened, and that evening the river was very despondent. But the sun, who had more persistence than the river, came again and shined all day. But nothing happened, and so this little drama went on day after day and week after week, and the river became very discouraged and almost knew it would never flow again, never would be free again.

But the sun kept on shining. And one day the river felt a little loosening. It couldn’t tell just what, but that night, it was solid again, and the river lost hope, but the sun came again the next day and it loosened again—and again at night it froze stiff. “How disgusting” said the river. “Every little bit I gain, I immediately lose it.” But the sun kept shining.

At last the ice broke up into great chunks and floated away so swiftly that the river was all of a quiver. How easily it had all departed.

So with the obstinate case, the first day’s treatment may not melt the ice, nor the second, nor the third,--and at night (in doubt or anxiety) it may freeze up again, but when faithfully followed, and the sunlight of Love is applied untiringly, the change does take place.

Judge not from appearances, neither the first day’s sun nor the last melted the river of ice. It took them both and all the days in between to overcome the condition that had been growing and intensifying for months and years.

It took seven times around the walls of Jericho to reduce them to dust, and who will say which was the most effective trip—the first or the last?

Spiritually, man is already free, and if he can get this established firmly in his thought and hold to it regardless of appearances, the demonstration is made.