Article January 4, 1908 Issue

"ABOVE THE CLOUDS."

PORTER BOLLES JORDAN

If God is All, how shall we account for evil, which seems so apparent all about us? This is a very familiar question to the student of Christian Science, and its answer may be found in the following experience. Late in the afternoon of a warm day in August a little party began the ascent of one of our high Southern California mountains. After an elevation of a few hundred feet had been reached, they paused and looked out into the broad San Gabriel valley. The parched soil looked arid and sun-baked in the subdued light of the closing day. A serpentine line of white sands marked the dried-up bed of the San Gabriel River. The canons about were brown with dust-covered bushes and their sterility recalled the desert.

The trail was steep and narrow at times, yet constantly interesting as it led around from one canon to another, winding upward all the time. After a while a brook was heard chattering joyfully somewhere beyond, and in course of time the trail met the brook and took its course for awhile. Here by the refreshing water the travelers paused again; then starting onward, welcomed with gladness the trees and vegetation which arched the way. The timber-line was reached, and the verdure, increasing in beauty and variety, added its inspiring charm to the journey. The sunshine had hardly left the skies when the soft, calm light of the moon, finding its way among the giant timber, cast helpful beams here and there along the path. Looking from under the dense foliage across a deep canon, a higher eminence could be seen, and the little party would hasten on, wondering whether this were the summit; but upon arriving there they would find beyond, though unseen before, a higher peak towering above them. So peak after peak was confronted and surmounted, until at last they found a new light appearing. The sun burst forth in all its glorious effulgence; the summit was reached, and what a place this was. The birds were singing cheerily, the sunlight greeted the happy, upturned faces of the myriad flowers, and the calm, peaceful quiet of praise could tell one only of the harmony of heaven. But where was the valley, the sunbaked earth, the arid soil? A thousand feet below, expanding into infinity, was a veil of spotless purity, fitted in so carefully about the mountain-tops that whatever was below it could not be seen from above; no, not even imagined from this view-point above the clouds.

Thus it is that thousands of grateful hearts are to-day thanking God for the revelation of Truth to this age, as found in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, which in God's own way has come to teach men how they may successfully and actually journey up and away from evil,—sin, sickness, and death,—until they may lose sight of it by leaving it far behind.

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