Article September 16, 1905 Issue

A False Sense of God Destroyed

SAMUEL GREENWOOD.

IN pursuing his study of Christian Science, the beginner is sometimes conscious of a sense of bewilderment in his thought of God. The outlines of his old belief respecting God become less and less distinct, until there is only a confused blur where before had been a definite mental picture or concept. The idea of a perfect creator and a perfect creation, existing apart from matter and evil, in dawning upon him has disturbed his satisfaction with what he had formerly been taught to believe; although, like the blind man whom Jesus healed, he may not at first have a correct apprehension of the objects seen. In this transition from the old to the new, when the awakening thought is rising from its fading dream and but dimly discerns the things of reality, the student seems at times to stand with neither foot on solid ground. The former things have receded from him, leaving an apparent void, and in his perplexity he may feel that he has lost his God, or that Christian Science has taken Him away.

Mary mourned in much the same sense at the sepulchre, when her material concept of the Christ seemed lost to her and before she discerned him in the spiritual or resurrected sense. It was then she uttered that plaintive lament which is sometimes repeated by those who, like her, have gone to the sepulchre of matter, where they had buried their Lord, to find that Christian Science has rolled away the stone, and that he is not there. When Mary found that the Christ was so much more than a mortal, material man, her false concept disappeared, and she gained the true idea, the Messiah which was to redeem the world.

Christian Science finds each of us with more or less imperfect or erroneous ideals of God. Paul said, "When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away;" and in like manner the imperfections and errors in our sense of God pass away before a more perfect knowledge. If this process has advanced so far as to erase our contentment with past beliefs, while we are yet too timorous to wholly accept the spiritual idea as presented in Christian Science,—while, like the women at the sepulchre, we are affrighted at the angel message,—we may think that our God has been lost to us. But with the gaining of a little more courage we may perceive our risen Lord,—waiting by the sepulchre; and lo, all life begins anew for us.

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