Article July 20, 1912 Issue

"AN OPEN DOOR"

HENRY E. HEWITT.

"Behold , I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it." "These things saith he ... that hath the key of David." Thus spoke the heavenly messenger to John in Patmos; and who is not, in some way, seeking this door to happiness and long life—a door which is open to all good? We read in the Bible of the "valley of Achor for a door of hope:" a place for those who sought God; also that "a great door and effectual is opened" unto man. This promise is for all time, and there is a place where harmony reigns, here on earth, for those who seek God in the way the Master made plain. There were many at the time of our great Wayshower, Christ Jesus, who followed in the way he pointed out and through obedience found the "open door" to life and happiness.

All that he and those who believed on him did is possible today, and one does not have to grope blindly through sin and suffering to this door of salvation, for the way which Jesus marked out is illumined in this age by divine Life and Love, with signs following. It requires only willingness and obedience to see the right way and go on to possess all good. Eternal life and true spiritual happiness are not to be found in worldly riches or achievement. The doors of human hope give no permanent happiness,—as the seeker often learns to his sorrow. Hate, lust, dishonesty, and selfishness lurk about them and they would hold men in bondage to sin, sickness, and death. The one door to freedom, here and now, is left open to mankind, for "Truth has furnished the key to the kingdom, and with this key Christian Science has opened the door of the human understanding. None may pick the lock nor enter by some other door" (Science and Health, p. 99).

How is one to reach this "door" and be let into the kingdom by this key? David's hope and trust in God, an absolute reliance upon Spirit, was the key to his inheritance; the word of God, in all Christ Jesus said and did, was the key to eternal life for him. Today the open door of hope, trust, and eternal life is reached through Christian Science, which breaks down the barriers of ignorance, pride, and prejudice. Before this inpouring light of Truth everything unlike God is destroyed, and one gains a concept of God as the giver of all good—a door of hope to all who put their trust in Spirit and walk therein. This higher and better concept of God as Mind and wholly good, reveals to the human understanding things spiritual and eternal. The human, with its seeming reality of worldly pain and pleasure, loses its identity and becomes powerless in the presence of divine Mind. The false and undesirable belief of sorrow gives way to the peace and happiness of Truth; sickness and suffering take their departure as one learns their nothingness, because the one Mind, God, is All and knows no such thing as sickness and suffering,—thus the body manifests the truth of being, health, and strength; sin loses its hold on man, for divine "Mind governs man" (Science and Health, p. 222), and no wrong desires originate in this Mind, which knows no evil.

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