The Disfigured Picture

The account of the creation of man given in the first chapter of Genesis, ending with the statement that “God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good,” and Paul’s exclamation, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” present so much of incongruity that they seem to point to some great change having taken place somewhere. One is led to ask, “How can such a change have come about? has God altered His method of creation?” The Bible reveals to us a God “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” We cannot therefore believe that the change is in Him: that in the first instance He created man in His own image and likeness, and now creates men mortal sinners, subject to sickness and death; that in the first instance He gave man dominion over all things, but has since taken from him that dominion, leaving him so unprotected that he is subject to every evil chance, his very life (may be) at the mercy of a pin prick. But if God has not changed, what has? Is it man who has so changed that he has lost the likeness to his Maker with which he was originally endowed?

Some years ago I had an experience which made a deep impression on me at the time, and it has been of value to me since coming into Christian Science in helping to clear up this question. I was visiting in the house of a relative who had but recently added to his already large collection of beautiful pictures three of especial interest and value as being the works of so-called “old masters.” After his acquisition of these pictures the authenticity of one of them was questioned, and in order to satisfy himself as to whether or not the picture was really a genuine example of the great artist’s work, an expert was called in to pronounce judgment upon it. This gentleman had made such a close and exhaustive study of the works of these old painters that he was capable of discriminating between the true and the false and of detecting spurious imitations with unerring skill, his judgment in such matters being considered final. It was my privilege to be present when he inspected the picture, and as I recall the incident the whole scene comes vividly before me, the studio, with the usual artistic properties and implements about, an empty frame or two, a few unfinished sketches, and untouched canvases of various sizes and shapes leaning against the walls. On an easel alone in the middle of the floor, with the light from the large north window falling upon it, stood the picture under consideration, while its owner and one or two friends and members of the family, a little apart, anxiously watching the keen and eager face of the expert, silently awaited the verdict.

After some minutes’ close examination he looked up with a smile and said, “It is all right the picture is all right you have here a really fine specimen of the work of Sir Joshua Reynolds!” “But this bit of coloring,” began my host, stepping forward and pointing. “Oh, Sir Joshua never painted that,” interrupted the expert. “And this dark shadow in the background?” “Was added later,” came the immediate answer. And then, after discussing the various points in the picture which had been called in question, he told us how it frequently happened that a great work of art fell into the hands of one who was not educated to appreciate its beauty, and who thought it would be more pleasing to the eye with a little added color here and there, and who gave it to some one equally ignorant of its real value, to deal with as directed.

A later owner might think, perhaps, that the picture would show up better with a darker background; another might put it away in a dusty attic, and it would be many years before it was again brought to light, and then a coat of varnish was added which fastened all the dust and dirt upon it, blurring the fine outlines and obscuring the delicacy of its coloring, after having passed through such treatment as this, it required the eye and the understanding of an expert to discriminate between that which was true and false in the picture, between the work of the master hand and the touches which had been added by ignorance and lack of taste. His hand passing tenderly and caressingly over the surface of the canvas before him, the great connoisseur ended by saying, “Let me have the picture for a little while; let me clean it, and erase from it all that does not rightfully belong to it, and there will no longer be any doubt as to who painted it. The picture is all right, but in its present condition you cannot see it as it really is.”

Does not this little story teach its own lesson? and does not its teaching coincide with that of the Preacher in the book of Ecclesiastes, where he says, “Lo, this only have I found. that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions”? Have we not indeed reason to be grateful that there exists one whose thought is so closely in touch with the one master Mind, the cause and creator of all, that in spite of the accumulated rubbish of false beliefs which have fastened themselves upon humanity through generations of wrong thinking, she has been able to trace the work of the supreme Artist? In spite of the false lights and shadows, the darkened background, the dust and dirt and the superficial varnish, she has seen through “the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations,” has rediscovered “the radiant reality of God’s creation” (Science and Health, p. 110), and been able with authority to proclaim, in the scientific statement of being which she has given to the world, that “Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; is spiritual” (Ibid., p. 468).