Article May 25, 1912 Issue

SPIRITUAL VISION

HENRIETTA PHELPS ELNOR.

Mrs. Eddy tells us that "as mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before were invisible, will become visible" (Science and Health, p. 264). A clearer understanding of this teaching enhances the value of everything about us that is beautiful and harmless in its significance to our spiritual life.

Some time since, while visiting a country house where a large party had assembled for the summer holidays, I was seeking a quiet retreat for my daily study of the lesson, and hit upon a sheltered nook at the end of the garden. Here was peace and rest, a veritable "holy place." I was suffering at the time from great mental stress because of my inablity to overcome certain errors which had presented themselves to my thought as insurmountable, but a passing swarm of butterflies, all activity and happiness, and a bird singing overhead, directed my thought to the reality of God's ever-presence, and as I sought for a clearer realization of "the beauty of holiness" I was further attracted to a spider's web above me. It was a marvel of beauty. It was illumined by a shaft of sunlight so that the colors reflected on each tiny strand of it, perfect in symmetry, were beautiful beyond description. It was a perfect vista of gold, blue, yellow, crimson, sapphire, which lifted thought to the source of all that is good and beautiful. Having completed his work, the spider rested contentedly in the center of the web, apparently oblivious of all about him. But his lethargy was only in the seeming, for when he caught sight of an oncoming danger in the form of a huge leaf which, drifting with the wind, struck and became fastened to his web, instantly he darted along his slender pathway, and though the leaf was fifty times his size and to mortal eye practically immovable, the little fellow undauntedly commenced to detach it bit by bit and cast it to the ground. I noticed other leaves and particles which he as carefully and methodically removed. Nothing seemed impossible to him; whatever the danger that seemed to threaten him, he acted promptly, and "as one having authority."

The lesson was indeed valuable. Surely these were the "invisible things of creation" revealed from the altitude of spiritual vision; and in passing through so-called "dark days" of mental or physical trouble, could we but always realize the omnipotence and omnipresence of good, the creative Mind, and know that nothing is impossible to Spirit, God, therefore nothing is impossible to His idea, man; nothing so large but "Love can remove,"—then indeed should we as God's sons and daughters act as those who reflect the authority of Truth. Beholding and understanding God's creation, we see "all the glories of earth and heaven and man" (Science and Health, p. 264).

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