Independent Christian Science articles

The Restraining Guide

From the May 1906 issue of the Christian Science Journal by

And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying. This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.—Isaiah, 30:21.

The Master has left the assurance that the spiritual way is strait and narrow, and every disciple who starts to walk in it soon finds this assurance confirmed. It is simple direct; so plain that “the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.” It is only when we stop to consider some of the innumerable ways that diverge from the King’s highway, or when we may be beguiled into, heeding the suggestion of some guide who plans according to worldly ways and means, that there can or does come any complication or uncertainty. Then, when a confusion of thought or an errant impulse may succeed in diverting the pilgrim for a moment, there will surely be given some warning token that will be to him the guiding word, saying, “This is the way, walk ye in it.”

If the disciple is abiding close in the conscious presence of the guide, the consciousness of the spiritual idea that directs the way from sense to Soul, the guiding and restraining word will come as a spiritual impulse and intuition as a spiritual sense that at once restrains and directs, and thought will be corrected and rightly directed before it has been manifested in some mistaken word or deed. Thus to follow our guide will be to find the unerring direction of Science it will mean that every misleading thought or erring impulse will be discerned and destroyed before it has turned the Truth-seeker’s feet from the way; but if the wrong word is spoken, or the wrong deed is done, there will come the unerring rebuke. The warning voice will be heard and the disciple’s safety is in promptly heeding it.

It is noteworthy that this assurance of the restraining word is that it shall be heard “behind thee;” and it immediately follows a statement in the preceding verse that “thine eyes shall see thy teachers.” All through the Bible, in its promises and in its history, there is given the assurance of a guide to go before. This was given to the journeying Israelites as a pillar of cloud and fire, and an assurance that God’s angel should go before them to bring them into the place divinely chosen. The Discoverer of Christian Science has written,—”So shall the spiritual idea guide all right desires in their passage from sense to Soul, from a material sense of existence to the spiritual, up to the glory prepared for them who love God” (Science and Health, p. 566). The spiritual guide is always before. How, then, is it that the word shall be heard “behind thee”? It is not because our eyes shall not see our “teachers;” it is not because our spiritual guide shall be withdrawn, but that in turning to the right hand or to the left, in turning out of the way, the disciple has turned away from his “teachers,” has turned his back on his guide. Then, as restraint or rebuke, will come the “word” which will rectify the mistake.

If the disciple’s walk is close and clear enough in the presence of Truth, if thought is holding and abiding steadily and steadfastly in the consciousness of the spiritual idea, the gentle restraint will be given in the premonitory sense that tells him he is diverging from the way of harmony. If the disciple is blinded and diverted by a wayward impulse or obtuse belief, then the “word” will come as a strong rebuke, chastening and consuming the erring, sinning sense.

The Bible holds many a record of good men who in an unguarded hour went astray, and through gentle leading or through great tribulation found their way back into the way of peace. The night of futile effort on the Sea of Galilee, when the disciples toiled all its hours and caught nothing, marks one brief turning aside from a divine commission to a human resource to fill what seemed to be irksome idleness and waiting. The story of Jonah, whether fact or parable, is true in its moral, and marks the folly and disaster of attempting to evade a divine commission or shun a divine responsibility. David stands as a pre-eminent example of a great and good man who went astray in an evil hour, and who through great tribulation atoned for his error and gained again the pathway of peace. These are typical examples of the rebuke that chides and chastens the erring sense, the divine Word that will be heard as it is saying, “This is the way, walk ye in it.”

This divine Word is the spiritual idea that reveals and enunciates the divine law of being, the law that is written on the mind and graven on the heart of the spiritually illumined man. Every deviation from the way, however slight, means a conflict in human consciousness with the unchanging law of harmony; and the chiding or chastening that comes when a false step is taken comes as a necessary and legitimate result for violating the eternal order and fitness of things. There is an inevitable relation of cause and effect between the wrong thought or deed and the disturbance or suffering that follows. This is the law which requires that sin shall punish and destroy itself; and so in each erring experience the law brings its effective rebuke and restraint. It is a monitor, saying, “This is the way, walk ye in it.”

In the examples we have noted from sacred history the working of this law can be easily traced. The disciples, under the lead of the impetuous Peter, went fishing, apparently because they wanted to be doing something and had not learned to wait upon God,—to wait for the divine impulse and bidding that must come before success could crown any effort. It was evidently a wayward, human, impatient impulse that overtook Peter when he broke out, “I go a fishing,” and the other disciples when they followed. It was an effort that held no worthy purpose, no noble impulse, an effort that was a distinct turning away from the lofty ideal that had been given them, an endeavor that must go unrequited. Only when the Masters voice gives divine sanction and direction to their effort, and they accept this in a prompt obedience, is there a reward for their toil. Then follows the lesson on the shore, when it is made clear to “Peter what it is to mean if he proves that he loves his Master more than his fishing. So when Jonah flees, shrinking from the task laid upon him, it is to find that the obedience which is prompted by fear only leads into greater fear, and that in an unquestioning following of the divine direction is safety and peace.

So, too, David reaped the results of his sin with Bathsheba—results that followed him all through his further career. Nathan’s declaration that “the sword shall never depart from thine house” was a foreseeing and foretelling of the legitimate sequence of guilt. A crime had been carried out by others at David’s bidding, and its evil example and effects had gone out into relations that were beyond his recall. And it was without doubt in this train of influence that lay the impossibility of David’s ever bringing his reign up to a point where his dominion should be established in moral and spiritual supremacy and war should cease. David had come to the kingdom because he had a glimpse of the fact that God is the only power. From the time that he first comes into view as the stripling who overthrows Goliath without arms or armor, his whole career is that of one whose trust is in God and not in material resources. When he came to the kingdom, according to his understanding he utilized the resources at his hand, in overthrowing the enemies of Israel and in establishing his kingdom. We must remember that he was dealing with a people who were little more than beginning to emerge from the crudest beliefs of life, substance, intelligence, and power in matter, the belief of the necessity of physical force and war, the belief that formulates codes of vengeance and cruelty. With such mental conditions as these David had to deal,—conditions out of which he himself had only partly emerged. So it is not surprising that such a man as Joab should have come to the front as David’s lieutenant, the leader of his forces. Joab’s code taught him courage, belief in the divine authority of David’s kingship, and loyalty to that authority. These qualities, representing largely human belief rather than divine understanding, were nevertheless qualities which for a time were useful in overthrowing the grosser beliefs of unrighteousness abroad and disloyalty at home. But Joab had no vision of the ideal of David, an ideal that looked to the establishment of a kingdom whose power should be God, whose law should be righteousness and love.

So, if Israel were to be lifted up to a higher plane of consciousness, its leaders must be men whose ideals rose above warlike motives and methods, and it is not difficult to see what moral and spiritual ascendancy was needed by the ruler who was called to solve such a problem. It was evident that David had forfeited this spiritual supremacy. In his one sin David had lost the respect and confidence of every warlike follower, he had rudely violated the code of honor that should have bound him to every soldier of Israel. When Nathan declared to David that because of his sin the sword should never depart from his house, it must have been because upon the plane of human sense David had started a course of influences that would entail this by a relation of cause and effect, and these are some of the relations that seem to lie plainly on the surface in the record.

When David confessed his sin, he saw the folly and falsity of that which had led him astray, and as an element of his own consciousness the error was eliminated, forgiven; but the results of the wrong against another and the crime against moral order could not be thus lightly atoned. The sin in his own consciousness could be destroyed in one supreme moment of moral and spiritual awakening and renewal, but the removing of its results was a burden of travail for the years. It enforces what our Leader has enjoined in her article on Fidelity: “Carelessly or remorselessly thou mayest have sent along the ocean of events a wave that will sometime flood thy memory, surge dolefully at the door of conscience and pour forth the unavailing tear. . . . One backward step, one relinquishment of right in an evil hour, one faithless tarrying, has torn the laurel from many a brow, and repose from many a heart” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 339).

These instances are concrete examples of how the law of Truth works in its rebuke of the erring sense which turns the pilgrim from the spiritual way. In Christian Science we understand that every suffering which follows and must follow a misdeed is in fulfilment of the law that a man shall reap what he sows. It is not a special penalty pronounced by Deity, but a legitimate sequence of the error. A mistake must be seen to be a mistake, before it can be corrected; and it must be seen that the mistake will and does entail suffering and loss before mortals are willing to take the trouble to correct it. The primitive mistake is the belief in matter, the belief that here is life, substance, intelligence, good, apart from God. Mortals must come to see this mistake and then correct it; and this means correcting and eliminating a multitude of mistaken beliefs, judgments, and motives which have sprung from this one fundamental error. The way that leads out of these false beliefs, up to the understanding and demonstration of the allness of God, is the way in which we are given the promise of spiritual guidance.

Were the pilgrim wayfarer always spiritually awake, were the disciple always in possession of a clear spiritual sense, and if this sense were always faithfully followed, there would be no wandering from the way; every onward step would be in the line of divine harmony, freedom, dominion. Mankind in general have had to awaken to their mistakes by suffering for their mistakes. Even after the awakening which reveals the unreality of matter and its conditions, after the illumination that comes in discerning and acknowledging the allness of God, the disciple has a long upward way before he shall pass the hill-crest. There will be many a stage on the journey where he will have to learn that old beliefs which he had thought were entirely right and good hold an element of error. Again and again he will be warned and awakened to the nature of the subtle forms of sense-belief by the suffering which they entail. The way is necessarily an unerring walk in the line of spiritual understanding, or else an experience that drives us back to that way by the suffering, the chastisement, which waits upon every mistake, every sin.

The only safety is in steadfast watchfulness and prayer, an alert heeding of the monitions of our spiritual guide. The farther we journey on the way, the greater will be the interests involved, and the graver will be the consequences that will wait upon our acts; but every day’s progress likewise brings us into a clearer spiritual consciousness, where the awakened sense can with finer discrimination and greater certainty discern the way of Truth, and hear and heed the voice which says: “This is the way, walk ye in it.”

The Unreality Of Evil

From the May 30, 1908 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel by

Mrs. Eddy has indicated that “the cardinal point of the difference” between Christian Science and other systems is this: “That by knowing the unreality of disease, sin, and death, you demonstrate the Allness of God” (Unity of Good, p. 12). The denial of the reality of evil is supported by the simple logic that it has no origin in God, who is the only cause and creator. Since God made all that was made, and it was good, evil is no part of the divine creation. The practical confirmation of this teaching is in the results that follow its consistent application. Every healing, every reformation, every spiritual transformation that has come through the work of Christian Science, has come in demonstration of this simple statement of the truth.

The logic of this position is so obvious as to be self-evident. No thinking person believes that God made or makes evil, yet, What or whence is evil? is an age-long, world-wide problem. The experiences of mortal existence urge an aggressive testimony that it is here; and the Bible is full of the story of the evil that seemingly had to be encountered by those who loved and trusted the good. In the face of all this, how are we consistently to believe that evil is unreal?

To our human sense there is such a long interval between the conditions of mortal experience,—its perils and privations, its vexations and disasters, its iniquities and wrongs, on the one hand, and the divine ideal of perfection as the only reality on the other,—that it should not be an unexpected thing if the objection is raised that “it is a condition which confronts us—not a theory;” but this is just what Christian Science frankly acknowledges. It teaches and insists that evil is not an entity, but a condition, and a negative condition; that its whole foundation is a false belief, and that thus it is unreal.

Furthermore, Christian Science shows clearly how the whole teaching of the Bible converges upon this one point; how, as men came to realize the power and presence of God, evil was overcome and dissipated, as a thing powerless and unreal. In thus demonstrating the all-power of good, the allness of God, Jesus destroyed the belief in any power or presence of evil, and so not only destroyed “the works of the devil,” but likewise destroyed “him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.” Paul says of Christ Jesus that he “hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

The manifestation of evil is only the working out of a belief and a false belief, but it is a fundamental law of thought that whatever is accepted as an unquestioned belief has to the human sense all the semblance and seeming of a reality, until the belief is disproven. “According to your faith” in good, or according to your belief in matter and evil, will the measuring unto you always be determined. Between mortal sense and the radiant reality of the divine creation there has interposed the belief in matter and evil, and this belief with the results which it imposes is what Isaiah calls “the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations;” but this “vail is done away in Christ.”

If we turn to the early records in Genesis, we find that in the introduction of evil upon the sense, its unreality is implied at the outset. The opening chapter of Genesis is the account of a finished, perfect creation, wherein was nothing but good. In the second chapter there is an account which is generally acknowledged to be purely allegorical in its form, but the statements of which set forth the primal elements of the human problem. This account brings upon the scene a man and woman, to whom there comes a temptation whose essence is to enter into the knowledge of good and evil. But, according to the record, this man and woman were brought forth in the midst of a creation where all was good; how, then, was it possible for them to know evil, where there was no evil to know? Is it not the evident, necessary intention of the narrative that we shall understand that the knowing of evil was what procured the evil? and that the way, the only way, to be rid of the evil is to unknow it? In other words, this so-called knowledge is false knowledge; not really knowledge, but a belief which the truth destroys. The whole teaching of the Bible is simply given to show what is the truth that destroys error, and how evil must give way to good.

In its practical bearing, this statement of the unreality of evil seems, at first impression, to fly in the face of all our previous experience. In the round of affairs that makes up the sum of earthly existence, evil, at times, seems even more real and aggressive than good. Confronting all of this, to ask one to believe that evil is unreal, essentially non-existent, seems at first like contradicting and denying the most obvious facts of existence, and yet, in the common round of human affairs there is much that goes to indicate and illustrate how evil is without any rational cause, origin, or existence.

For instance, let it be supposed that a schoolboy is to find the sum of eight and seven, and he assumes it to be thirteen. We know that the sum of eight and seven is not, never was, and never will be thirteen. This is obviously a false belief,—it represents an unreality. This error does not inhere in any mathematical principle or law, is no part of mathematics, nor is it a product of the boy’s mathematical sense. The boy has the sense to perceive that “the whole is greater than any of its parts,” and that “the whole is equal to the sum of all its parts,” or he would not have proceeded to the conclusion that he did. But the mathematical faculty that was capable of grasping these two axioms was equally capable of applying them; in other words, the error was no inherent part of the mathematical equipment of the boy, but a failure to utilize that equipment,—a negation.

Such a mistake in other relations might entail grievous results. If it were the error of some accountant, it might involve a loss of thousands of dollars if not discovered and corrected; and what would it all be but a mistake working out its own results. Or, suppose it to be the error of some architect or engineer who is computing the elements that must enter into some great structure. Such a mistake might involve a structural weakness that would some day bring calamity and disaster in human experience; yet what would it be but a mistake builded on a mistake.

And now we need to note again, that such an error is not a part of the mathematical law and order of God’s creation, nor is it a product of any one’s mathematical sense. The failure of the accountant, of the engineer, properly and adequately to exercise his own mathematical sense, means at that particular point a negative condition of that sense, a lack of its due expression; a sense of its lack, when it is not lacking; and so in its place there intervenes a false sense which brings and is the trouble. But this false sense is always a false belief, an unnecessary, unreal thing.

Or we may take another illustration from human conditions, one that comes into more vital meanings, an illustration intended to show how a false belief may work untold evil, and yet be based entirely on a supposition that is at bottom a negation. Here, we will say, are two wedded hearts and lives, pledged in lasting fidelity and affection. All is well until there comes a time when on the part of one there is a failure to give the wonted attention, the wonted expressions of kindness and affection. This may be simply through care, preoccupation, neglect. It is purely a negation, a failure to express what is really there. Presently the other begins to wonder what this means, and doubts arise. Doubt brings suspicion, suspicion breeds jealousy; and when jealousy has come we know exactly what will occur. Nothing that the other may do will be seen aright; to the jealous sense all will be reversed. The jealous thought will seem to find a confirmation of its worst fears.

Shakespeare, that wise commentator on human frailties, makes Iago say,—

Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs on holy writ;

and more than one of his dramas is founded upon some such experience as this,—an experience which every one knows is, in some guise, being repeated day after day. Now, when such a condition has wrought its worst, when it seems that the hopes of two lives have been blasted and a home has been wrecked, if you go to these two, tell them this is all a mistake, a needless, false belief, it will seem to them that you mock at their calamity; but let the situation be seen as it really is, turn the light of truth in upon it, and all the discord, dissension, division will vanish like the baseless fabric of a dream. So let the light of eternal Truth, the light that was reflected “in the face of Jesus Christ,” shine into the innermost depths of human consciousness, and all the evil will vanish, like the dream that it is, and “leave not a rack behind.”

Any reasoning we can do, any illustration we may find or bring, can only at most do this: it may help to dissipate the insistent feeling that we are doing an irrational thing in denying the reality of evil. That which brings abundant proof and produces vital conviction are the practical results which appear in applying the truth that is behind all this. In the awakened sense of the presence and omnipresence of God, there comes the conviction that in this omnipresence of good evil can have no place. Then, laying hold of the loving sufficiency of our God, steadfastly adhering to the reality and allness of good, and denying any reality to evil, we see the evil sense—be it sin, sickness, or death—disappear, and the divine allness stands revealed.

Christian Scientists are at the threshold of their demonstration. They prove the unreality of evil just in proportion to their growth in the understanding of Truth; but every demonstration made in the work of Christian Science is made upon this basis, that every release it has ever brought from sickness, sorrow, or sin has come through declaring and demonstrating the nothingness of evil, the allness of God.

Elijah

From the October 22, 1904 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel by

Among the whole procession of worthies whose history the Old Testament records, none stands forth with more dramatic interest and meaning than does the Prophet Elijah. His career comes to a focal point and a climax of significance in the experience on “Horeb, the mount of God,” where he had fled from the consuming wrath of Jezebel. Here, on ground consecrated by the older revelation to Moses, Elijah is met by the question from Jehovah, the challenge of Truth, “What doest thou here, Elijah?” To see the significance of this question at this time, we need to see how Elijah came to be there.

This prophet’s record is that of a wonderful career. Many of Jesus’ miracles have their prototype in his work, and among these was not only the bringing of the dead back to life, but the final triumphant consummation of his own earth-experience when he himself passed hence, not through the gateway of death, but through the opening portals of eternal Life. The event which directly preceded Elijah’s flight to Horeb was the memorable one on Mt. Carmel, when, in the presence of assembled Israel, Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to prove the power of their God by the fire consuming the sacrifice, and gained this manifestation of power from Jehovah, when the worshiper of Baal had entirely failed.

We need not dwell on the details of this picture as it is given in graphic strokes in the Bible narrative, but we note its result in the awakened and reclaimed conviction of the people and the shout of acknowledgment: “The Lord, he is the God; the Lord, he is the God!” Faintly we may imagine the relief and joy of this stern prophet of Jehovah when, after years of patient waiting in the midst of a people turned back to heathen customs, after years of hiding for his life, he sees this baneful spell broken, and his people turned back again to God.

And now comes Elijah’s mistake, — a mistake that came from a wrong notion as to the nature of evil and the way to handle it. Falling on the prophets of Baal with the sword in his own hands, he executes them, — not one is suffered to escape. The explanation of this act is apparent; viz., Elijah had come down to the very plane of thought and action with the error he sought to destroy, and thus he was laid open to the counter-attack which sin always attempts to make on its destroyer. After the signal defeat which these prophets of Baal had suffered and the marvelous demonstration of divine power through Elijah, Baal’s influence would have been, for the time being, dead, and his prophets would have been discredited men; Elijah could have walked forth unmolested, and the moral and spiritual influences that he had evoked would have gone on to accomplish their transforming work. Elijah had thus far broken no law, human or divine; but when with bloody hands he becomes an unauthorized executioner, it could be certainly foreknown that Jezebel’s message would quickly follow: “So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to-morrow about this time.” Elijah had to flee for his life; so he rested under the juniper-tree and asked to die; and so it was that he finally stood on Mt. Horeb and met the divine demand: “What doest thou here, Elijah?”

To understand what followed we must recognize the elements which had especially been invoked and involved in Elijah’s previous relations and demonstrations. His first introduction to us is when he comes to Ahab with the assurance: “As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.” Now as Baal was supposed to be especially the god of natural forces and the productive power, this was a direct challenge of the heathen deity’s power in what was supposed to be peculiarly his own domain.

Was Elijah causing a famine in this? By no means. What he did was to announce that a famine already existed in the consciousness of king and people; such a famine as another prophet describes later as being a “famine … of hearing the words of the Lord” (Amos, 8 : II). Elijah’s bold utterance simply uncovers the real nature of this condition, and its logical result in the manifestation of the elements. That universal thought does stand in an immediate relation to the elements, a relation that involves in itself a law of cause and effect, is a fact clearly assumed and asserted in the Scriptures. In Jeremiah we read, “But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone. Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the Lord our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his season: he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest. Your iniquities have TURNED AWAY these things, and your sins have WITH HOLDEN GOOD THINGS from you.” A further and, if possible, clearer statement of how and why evil comes is stated in the following chapter: “Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the FRUIT OF THEIR THOUGHTS, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it.” So, if the prophet precipitated this condition of a drought, his words were the cause of it only as they uncovered the nature of this condition in Israel’s thought as a false belief, — a claim that could and would be broken and removed only when the belief in Baal as lord was broken, and the God of Israel was seen as the one source of all power and good.

It thus becomes clear that it was a work in mind which Elijah had wrought. As a symbol of the unseen, the fire that had consumed the sacrifice on Carmel was only the outward type of the fire of divine Love that was to consume the error which had been cherished by this people, and which was now being sacrificed — completely surrendered; and the rain that fell came likewise only as an outward manifestation of the showers of grace that would and did come as soon as the barrier of “sins” which had “withholden good things” was removed from the people’s thought.

Now it is obvious that, up to this point, Elijah had been dealing with moral and spiritual forces only. His work had been to turn the confidence of the people back to God, and open their thought once more to receive and to express the spiritual idea. If, following this mighty event on Carmel, Elijah had still trusted to the same moral and spiritual forces which had wrought their mighty work thus far, the people would have been again established in the faith of their fathers, and even Jezebel on the throne would have had no power to harm him. What Elijah did was to make error personal; and in attacking Baal’s followers, it is clear that he believed God to be manifested in destructive forces, as well as in those which come to refresh and renew, such as the dew and the rain.

Having thus invoked these destructive mortal forces, with the surging elements of human thought still sweeping through his own consciousness, and filled with a sense of Jehovah as “a man of war,” a mighty destroyer of the wicked, Elijah now stands on Mt. Horeb and hears this summons: “What doest thou here, Elijah?” even as to his great progenitor, Adam, had come the call: “Where art thou?” To the implied reproach of the question there seems to be a touch of defiant reproach in the answer, as though Elijah had done his part, and God had not done His: “I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left: and they seek my life, to take it away.”

Now Elijah is bidden to “Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.” Here amid solitary heights, with rocks and elements as actors, is presented in mighty, dramatic setting, what in varying degree takes place in all human consciousness, what indeed was then taking place in the consciousness of Elijah and his people; viz., the appearance of the spiritual idea to awaken and transform. Elijah was thus taught in a mighty object-lesson, wherein he saw his own moods and thoughts externalized, what is the nature, what the mode of Truth, and how they differ from the lawless moods and modes of material sense. Our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, has indicated this in the opening lines of “No and Yes,” —

“To kindle in all minds a common sentiment of regard for the spiritual idea emanating from the Infinite, is a most needful work; but this must be done gradually, for Truth is as ‘the still small voice,’ which comes to our recognition only as our natures are changed by its silent influence.

“Small streams are noisy and rush precipitately; and babbling brooks fill the rivers till they rise in floods, demolishing bridges and overwhelming cities. So men, when thrilled by a new idea, are sometimes impatient; and, when public sentiment is aroused, are liable to be borne on by the current of feeling. They should then turn temporarily from the tumult, for the silent cultivation of the true idea and the quiet practice of its virtues. When the noise and stir of contending sentiments cease, and the flames die away on the Mount of Revelation, we can read more clearly the tablets of Truth.”

This seems to be the process indicated in the narrative. When human thought awakens to perceive and receive Truth, the new idea arouses tides of human enthusiasm and impetuosity which sweep through the mentality of the individual and of society with all the rushing force of a mighty whirlwind, overturning old, weighty, rocklike human opinions in their way. “But the Lord was not in the wind.”

Then as Truth works deeper in thought there are earthquake upheavals, old imbedded convictions are disturbed and displaced; but the upheaval and disturbance, the action and reaction is in the human sense, whose old beliefs are being jostled before they vanish away, and not in the spiritual Truth whose presence and power brings always peace. “And after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake.”

As Truth, through the divine idea, works still more deeply and effectually, there comes the baptism of fire, the transfusing and transforming of divine Love, fusing the stubborn and refractory elements that even the wind and the earthquake could not reach; burning up the dross that is alloyed with the precious metal, and “melting and purifying even the gold of human character” (Science and Health, P. 565). But it is only to the false human sense, to everything unlike itself, that Love is a consuming fire. In its own nature Love’s appearing is with joy and peace. “And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire.”

“And after the fire a still small voice.” Now Elijah hears the message, and understands its spirit. Hereafter we find him anointing another prophet, and his career henceforth seems to have been largely that of a teacher of truth. Taking the law no more into his own hands, he abides in the confidence and consciousness of Spirit and spiritual power as all, and so by peaceful methods, with weapons which are “not carnal,” he reaches the final triumphant demonstration of life eternal.

The bearing of all this history, its meaning and its application to our own present-day conditions, is not far to seek. It is evident enough to us that the people’s infatuated following of Baal was entirely the pursuance of a false belief, the working of a lie. All that was to be destroyed was the belief in this lie. That it was supported by kingly power, that it had an elaborate ritual, a powerful priesthood, and that it carried a mighty influence made it no less a lie. That its rites were seductive and even licentious made it all the more an obvious evil, and yet did not alter its character as a false belief, as essentially nothingness; and to show its nothingness it only needed to be seen as such. This could be done only by revealing and bringing into demonstration the power of Truth. To see evil as anything more than a lie, to make it real or personal, forfeits the ability to estimate it rightly and handle it scientifically.

The old Baal worship was only an attempted mythical explanation of the elements cognized by material sense, an impersonation of certain seeming forces of nature. Baal was supposed to represent the masculine basis of the productive and reproductive forces of nature. Elijah raised his mighty protest that Jehovah, the spiritual deity of Israel, working not materially but spiritually, is the one perfect Principle of being; and by this understanding he wrought his work and gained his reward. Our work is to-day essentially the same. We have to meet conditions that are given different names. Baal worship has given place to a belief in physical force and material law. But the followers of God are called upon to declare anew that all true force is spiritual, the direct power of divine Mind working through spiritual law. This entails an uncovering of the character of the lie by demonstrating the spiritual fact which is the truth. And in this our own safety and success will always be assured as we see God as infinite Spirit, the one source of good, and evil as neither personal nor real.

Elijah’s career tells its own story and points its own moral. Once only did this intrepid man of God fly before error, and then it was the inevitable result of his own mistake. Elijah had to learn the lesson that should give him a proper estimate of the nature of evil and a true understanding of God. Entering into the belief that error is personal and is to be personally resisted and destroyed, the prophet stepped down from the vantage-ground of Truth, and on the plane of error’s own action and reaction he was reached by its threat, and only by fleeing into the wilderness did he avoid its blow.

Equally mistaking the nature of God, good, he made his Jehovah a man of war, who might lead his people forth to vindictive slaughter. Only when, apart from the wind, the earthquake, the fire, he came to hear and know the “still small voice,” did he learn, “through pangs unspeakable, how to divide between sense and Soul” (Science and Health, p. 240), and find that God is Love, terrible to the sin, but infinitely loving to the repentant sinner.

The name Elijah means, My God is Jehovah. Honest, earnest, courageous, and true to every conviction, he wrought his Master’s work, he learned by his mistakes, he profited from his failures. Ready to act when the time for action came, his mistakes were only the mistakes of a zeal that outran knowledge, and however much such an one may mistake the divine demand, or fail to divide unerringly between the behest of error and the summons of Truth, it will be written of him finally, that —

Perplexed in faith, but pure in deeds,
At last he beat his music out.

Thus Jehovah, the tribal ruler, the man of war, passes, and Eli-Jah, — My-God-Jehovah, — Comes to mean, My God is Love.

In the New Testament the prophet is given the Greek form of the name, Elias. The significance of it is given in our text-book, thus: “Prophecy; spiritual evidence, opposed to material sense; Christian Science, whereby to discern the spiritual fact of whatever the material senses behold; the basis of immortality” (Science and Health, p. 585).

These elements thus defined are the elements Elijah finally apprehended and radiated in consciousness; these are the things by which the world was and is better for his having lived in it; and these are the spiritual revealings and resources by which he finally gained the full demonstration of life eternal.

Love is the liberator.