Article April 20, 1912 Issue

THE WIDER VISION

MARTHA BURR BANKS.

Among the many blessings which have come to the world through the knowledge of a scientific Christianity, there is nothing perhaps that has given more peace, hope, joy, and courage to the human heart than the change in thought which is brought about by this knowledge in regard to what is called death. In spite of brave efforts to find comfort and cheer in the old views of a future life, everything connected with that life has seemed to most of us vague, unsubstantial, and unsatisfactory. As thus described, heaven was desirable only as the best thing that offered itself under the circumstances, and the friends who had been apparently separated from us by the dark valley of the shadow, seemed to our consciousness unfamiliar, unreal, and far away, even if we did not feel that they were lost to us altogether.

In the unfolding of spiritual facts in the light of Christian Science we are, however, gaining a clearer, truer concept of the hereafter, and are beginning to grasp somewhat the meaning of Mrs. Eddy's words in Science and Health, "When our friends pass from our sight and we lament, that lamentation is needless and causeless" (p. 386). We are learning that life goes on, and that individuality and identity are never affected by death. Mrs. Eddy tells us that "mortals waken from the dream of death with bodies unseen by those who think that they bury the body" (Science and Health, p. 429).

These thoughts were recently illustrated for me by a simple incident. One Sunday morning, after the church service, I stepped into a drug-store to wait for the trolleycar which was to take me to my home. At one side of the shop was hung a narrow mirror which reflected the activity of the street below the shop, so that any one who glanced into the glass might see when the special car for which he was looking was at hand. As I gazed at the reflected copy of the life behind me, I became interested in watching various figures which came toward me and at a certain point vanished from my sight. They had not faded away in the distance; they had not turned aside from their course; but to my sense of things they were all at once nothing and nowhere, although I knew that if my eyes should wander to the large window by my side, I would find them still going on their way, undisturbed and unchecked,—still in God's air and sunshine and under His care and guidance.

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