Article June 3, 1911 Issue

ILLUMINATION

JOHN ASHCROFT

In Science and Health (p. 454) we read: "Love inspires, illumines, designates, and leads the way;" and in no one thing is the truth of the above statement made more apparent than in our study of the Bible. While studying a Lesson-Sermon the thought presented itself that even if there were no healing of inharmonious physical conditions in Christian Science, its illumination of the Scriptures would still make it "worth while;" but a moment's reflection showed that one could not appreciate this illumination without experiencing something of the healing power of this truth.

The brief, graphic narrative of Jesus' walk to Emmaus with two of his disciples, culminating in his disappearance from their sight, formerly conveyed to me no more than the suggestion that the Master used some mysterious power which he possessed to remove himself from their view; as when at Nazareth we read that "he passing through the midst of them [his enemies] went his way." But, as we learn to discern spiritual things spiritually, we see that Jesus was exercising the dominion which God gave man in the beginning, and which He has never taken away, and we perceive, if but faintly, that the bread which he brake and gave unto them was the truth, opening their eyes that they might indeed know him and lose their finite sense of his personality.

In the Love-illumined thought which we bring to the study of the sacred records, we are enabled to realize in measure that in the final scene near Bethany, when the great Teacher had opened their understanding "that they might understand the Scriptures,"—even as the loving thought of another has opened ours,—the blessing he gave was the illumined consciousness, from which their material sense of him vanished in their spiritualized perception of the Son of God.

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