Editorial June 3, 1905 Issue

The Abode of Mystery

John B. Willis

He who feels and rightly interprets the "witchery of the woods" these fragrant days, will have no difficulty in understanding the power of that spell which has rested on all primitive peoples as they have observed the phenomena nature and of human experience. The unnumbered things about us which excite surprise and astonishment, and which suggest the nearness and activity of something unseen,—these inevitably beget a sense of questioning wonderment which often drifts far afield, and which is subject to consciousness of demonstrable truth alone. In the delightful nature tales of "Hiawatha" and kindred folklore epics, we may see how credulous expectancy stimulates the imagination in ways that have ever brought the untutored under the bondage of superstition,—a bondage whose hereditary influence is seen to-day in the fascination for the many of anything that is weird or abnormal. It is not difficult to find even cultivated people for whom strange faiths and philosophies seem to have an irresistible charm, and the rebuke which Paul brought to the itching ears of the Athenian Agora is demanded by an impulse which is very common, and often so religious as to fairly revel in the signs and wonders of a "mysterious Providence."

In common usage the word mystery signifies that which cannot be explained. It is the definitive characteristic of an effect for which no cause can be assigned or even conceived, and as thus understood it manifestly does not pertain to truth. Every statement and manifestation of intelligence can be understood, otherwise it were not of intelligence, and the appeal of mystery is therefore limited to the mentality of those who have not yet reached spiritual insight. To such, even the manifestations of divine law can but seem inexplicable, just as the formulæ which express the unsullied logic of a Laplace or a Bowditch, are unintelligible to all save the advanced mathematician. Paul speaks to Timothy of the greatness of "the mystery of godliness," and in writing the Ephesians he rejoices in his call to make men see what is the fellowship or participation of this mystery "which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God." Elsewhere he declares that we are "stewards of the mysteries of God," and in all it is clear that he is not referring to unexplainable facts, but to those deep and saving truths, "the unsearchable riches of Christ," which are revealed to aspiring hearts through him.

The unintelligibility of godliness to mortal sense, is seen, in Christian Science, to result from ignorance of Truth and its expression (Science and Health, p. 145). The only abode of mystery is that false sense which objectifies its own false products, and which would attach them to the manifestations of Truth; and this impulse of error in human consciousness has marred our sense of the fairest things. Even the miracles of our Lord have been declared to be inexplicable though true, and that by Christian people. Indeed we are yet tempted to consent to the claim that there is a certain effective factor in personality, or formulæ, and the clearness and continuity of our understanding that the consciousness of Truth, the "Christ in you," is the only mediator, is ofttimes disturbed in this way. Against the subtilty of this error we all need to guard by knowing that the healing of Christian Science is the result of right understanding, and that in its every phase and aspect it conforms to divine law. This realization establishes faith in the declarations of truth, and protects from the mesmerism of superstition.

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