Article May 6, 1911 Issue

THE DIVINE PRESENCE

HENRY LEIGHTON UPTON

The writer's boyhood days were passed on an island, and one of his amusements was to go to the seashore to watch the little fishes as they darted to and fro in the pools that were left by the outgoing tide. The water was their native element; it was around, about, and above them. Its presence determined their very existence, and on the nutriment obtained from it they seemed to subsist. Try as hard as they could, it was impossible for them to escape from the presence of the water. To them it was everywhere. Recently I witnessed the flight of an aviator as he was trying for altitude at the close of a clear autumnal day, just as the sun was sinking to rest. His biplane was bathed in the golden sunlight at a height of nearly a mile, and he seemed but a speck against the clear blue sky. The cool air of the fast-approaching evening surrounded him entirely, and supported and sustained him in his flight. He could not sail out of the atmosphere even if he so desired, for it was boundless, endless, unlimited.

The foregoing brought vividly to consciousness the vital truth, taught in Christian Science, that God, divine Love, is everywhere present and the only real presence. As the fishes were inclosed on all sides by the water, or the aviator encompassed by the air, so man lives forever in the presence of divine Love. The Scriptures are full of proofs that the upright shall dwell in His presence. When Moses was commanded by God to bring up the children of Israel out of the house of bondage, he felt his own human weakness, and looked outside of himself for help. To his inquiry of the Lord whom He would send with him, the Almighty replied, "My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest." The assurance of this governing, sustaining, guiding, and guarding influence of the divine presence gave Moses the strength, ability, and courage to lead his people out of Egypt and into the promised land.

The same divine presence that was with Moses accompanied Jacob on his journey toward Haran, and when he "awaked out of his sleep," he realized this presence and exclaimed, "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not." David in his conflict with the Goliath of materiality must have had a clear sense of the unseen divine presence, for "the sweet singer of Israel" voices the omnipresence of divine power throughout the psalms. He declares that there is no place where God is not, that it is impossible to get out of His presence, whether one be in heaven or in hell, "in the uttermost parts of the sea" or in darkness. The Hebrew captives were saved from the fiery furnace, and Daniel was delivered from the lions' den, by their confidence in God as all powerful and ever present.

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