Article December 2, 1911 Issue

SUBSTANCE

HELEN W. BANNON.

THE following thoughts were suggested by a passage from Deuteronomy which occurred in one of our Lesson-Sermons: "There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky. The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." This declaration of God's omnipresence and of His power to help and sustain His children in any situation, however dangerous to material sense, should comfort and assurance to every Christian Scientist, who can prove, and indeed has proved, that divine Mind is a God at hand and not afar off. These verses seem especially applicable to the case of those daring men who are endeavoring to sail their craft through aerial regions in defiance of the material law of gravitation, and the words seem also to convey a promise of ultimate success in this field of exploration.

The belief has been expressed by some writers, from the fact that carvings resembling winged ships have been discovered on some of the Mexican monuments, that the navigation of mid-air was not quite unknown to the ancients. On the other hand, the verses quoted may be prophetic of our own day, for there are passages besides these which clearly promise that mankind shall not always be earthbound. Isaiah says: "They that wait upon the Lord shall ... mount up with wings as eagles." A case in point was that of Philip, who, after baptizing the eunuch some-where in the desert country south of Jericho, was caught up by "the Spirit of the Lord," and was afterward found at Azotus. This wonderful experience certainly implied great spiritual growth in Philip.

Years before hearing of Christian Science, the writer used to enjoy attending the lectures given at a well-known institution where experiments were made which have now become commonplace, but the remembrance of them has often helped to make clear the Principle of divine Science. Some of the demonstrations showed that there is no such thing as a material substance. A block of steel, so solid in appearance, was proved to be an aggregation of molecules, no two touching one another. Certain chemicals, fluid or gaseous, when brought into contact with their affinities, immediately changed their conditions or disappeared. Throughout the whole round there was no stability or permanence.

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