Editorial March 30, 1912 Issue

AWAKENING

Annie M. Knott

In both the Old and the New Testament we find many calls to awake to the truth of being, a beautiful passage in Isaiah bidding those "that dwell in dust" to "awake and sing." Paul summons earth's sleepers to "awake to righteousness," and in his epistle to the Ephesians we read: "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." Now sleep is always more or less associated with dreams, and these shadows of the night are very apt to linger until dispelled by the light of day. Mrs. Eddy answers in the negative her own question, "Is there any more reality in the waking dream of mortal existence than in the sleeping dream," to which she adds the statement that "the spiritual, real man is immortal" (Science and Health, p. 250). In other words, he is not a dreamer; and the psalmist says, "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness."

In Luke's account of the transfiguration we are told that the disciples were "heavy with sleep," but when they were fully awake they saw the glory of immortal manhood, reflected by Christ Jesus. Even after this, however, a cloud overshadowed them, and Matthew tells us they were "sore afraid" until their Master aroused them, saying, "Arise, and be not afraid." Their experience prefigured that of many who come to Christian Science. At the call of Truth they go up into a high mountain, far above the mists of mortal belief, and there they have a vision of spiritual reality, a glimpse of the deathless man of God's creating. It is little wonder that they desire to remain in that same mental state forever. They would fain make tabernacles for their yet imperfect concepts of the divine ideas, and when they would thus limit the manifestation of Truth a cloud seems to separate them from the divine presence and they begin to be afraid, although one of the first lessons in Christian Science is that fear is needless, since God is All and governs all.

Those who accept Christian Science no longer admit that disease can be communicated to them by infection or contagion, but they are not always as scientific in holding to the eternal fact that there can be no mental contagion, since evil has neither principle nor reality. Our text-book tells us that "divine Science, rising above physical theories, excludes matter, resolves things into thoughts, and replaces the objects of material sense with spiritual ideas" (Science and Health, p. 123). This being admitted, the student of Christian Science must guard against stopping at the statement that things are thoughts; he must see to it that material thoughts—thoughts of fear, disease, and sin—are all replaced by spiritual ideas.