Article July 27, 1907 Issue

THE DIVINE IMAGE

EVA A. H. BARNES

In no one thing perhaps has the interpretation of religious thought by Christian Science brought greater spiritual illumination, as well as corresponding beneficial results, than in its concept of man created in the image of God. Under the old thought of personality God appeared, as one minister put it, "like a big policeman, whose chief office was catching people doing something wrong;" while the definition in the Westminster confession, "without body, parts, or passions," gave, I fear, more confusion than enlightenment to the average thinker. In many cases the statement that man is the divine image conveyed to thought a humanized concept of Deity,—God made in the image of man.

To Christian Scientists just emerging from the thought of the old theology, this new concept of God and of man in His image seems hard to grasp; yet it is to my mind one of the most important as well as the most practical thoughts in the demonstration of the truth. The inventor who would make a locomotive must first hold the mental concept of a perfect engine in thought. His next step usually is to make a working model to illustrate his thought. This model is not for use on the railroad; it is only a small engine used to illustrate the thought of the inventor, and being always available for this purpose, he is not obliged to hold his concept of an engine in thought to the exclusion of all other images; he may therefore go about his other business, confident that if called upon at any time to use this model, he has it ready and perfect. On page 266 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy says, "Man is the idea of Spirit ;" and on page 492, "For right reasoning there should be but one fact before the thought, namely, spiritual existence." If eternal life is dependent on the demonstration of the truth, we as Christian Scientists ought diligently to seek the most practical means of attaining this end. We should so order our thought with relation to a perfect creator and a perfect creation that in all emergencies or unforeseen manifestations of error we involuntarily and without conscious effort turn for deliverance to our working model, or highest mental concept of a declaration of Truth, as made known to us in Christian Science. It is only by habitually making this divine idea our dominant thought that we find ourselves rich in resources when called upon to preach the gospel and heal the sick.

As we emerge from the shadow of the old thought and bring every problem of life to the standard of Christian Science for solution, we may find it very hard to drop the personal sense of our friend, much more our enemy, and to think instead of man in God's image and likeness ; but in no other way can we fulfil the law of Love or obey the oft-repeated command of Jesus, "Love one another; as I have loved you." We must remember that the discordant manifestations and conditions which seem to belong to the individuality of our brother are but transitory beliefs in error, which are bound by spiritual law to disappear before the divine light of Truth. The child that has covered itself with mud seems impure; yet we know that the mud is not the child,—we are aware that this is simply a temporary calamity. Our work, clearly, is to remember constantly that man is free from all that is not in accord with the Divine ideal, remembering always that our responsibility ends when we have, through our scientific mental attitude, opened wide the door through which the healing power of divine Love may enter.

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