Article July 29, 1911 Issue

LIGHT AND SHADE

GEO. S. HADDOCK.

As the path winding up a mountainside leads, oftentimes, to an opening where the eye finds refreshment in the view, and then into the darkness of the wood; only to come out farther up and find revealings of greater beauty, so the journey out of material sense, with its doubts, fears, unsatisfied desires and unattained ideals, into the harmony and peace of Soul, is marked by periods of light and shade. The light is the dawn of Truth upon darkened sense; that which seems to be shade is the appearing of the suppositional opposite of truth and good, to be met and overcome, and in this overcoming the firm ground of understanding is reached.

In "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 57), Mrs. Eddy says, "By the law of opposites, after the truth of man had been demonstrated, the postulate of error must appear." As warm sunbeams, after the rain, search out the dampness, causing it to rise in vapor to go into nothingness, so in the operation of the law of divine Love the children of God are liberated from bondage to material conditions. How loving, yet certain and strong, is this process of liberation. The error of belief must come out. There is no escape for it. And in coming to the surface, before the revelation of Spirit in Christian Science, it does so to go into oblivion. Thus we see our best good is ofttimes being worked out in the experiences which seem the most trying, and if at such times we stand strong, doubting not, clinging to the light of Truth and Love, the way will clear and greater freedom than before be ours. If this were more generally understood, there would be less turning back in trepidation and fear when one should be standing firm.

As the revelation of truth in Christian Science dawns, there is the joy of "the wide horizon's grander view;" the hand of Love draws aside the curtain of sense, and the enraptured eye gazes for a moment upon the glories of the Father's kingdom. The divine command, "Let there be light," is fulfilled. Are we not to rejoice and stand firm and steadfast, even if this light brings from under cover the lying belief in a power apart from God? And though the test seems severe, the way heavy and dark, do we not see that the dross is being burned, impurity chastened, the weak place in our armor strengthened, and that there and then we are finding the freedom that will bring us peace? At such times it is a joy to know that the darkest thing in our path reversed is the brightest in heaven.

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