Article June 21, 1913 Issue

DIVINE EVER-PRESENCE

LUCY HAYS EASTMAN.

One evening two friends were looking at the glories of the stellar display. One was a student of astronomy, the other an uninstructed admirer of the heavens. As the constellation of Lyra was pointed out to the latter she inquired the name of the dim star in the triangle. "You mean the double star," said her companion. "No," she replied, "the single little star." "Take my place at the eyepiece and tell me how things look," said the students, as he made way for his friend at the telescope before them. Looking through the instrument, the other exclaimed, "Why, I see two stars just where that dim little one appeared to be; and just think!" she added, "they have always been there, but not until the telescope was invented was the truth about them even dreamed of!"

This incident is one of many which might be cited to prove how sadly so-called material sense is in need of something apart from itself whereby to gain a knowledge of things as they actually are, for if it cannot discern the facts concerning material objects, how can it behold the realities of being? Yearningly the Master cried, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me?" Despite, however, our human ignorance of Truth, there is ever at our side, "nearer than hands and feet," a divine ever-presence, and though unseen by material sense, all down the centuries human consciousness has dimly felt this presence. Since it has believed that the actual can be known only through the medium of the material senses, it has been forced either to put off a knowledge of this presence to an uncertain, unknown future, or else to grope blindly in faith without daring to hope for a satisfying apprehension.

But why should we yield to such ignorance? Why should we permit sense lethargy to deprive us of recognizing the infinite good that forever envelops us? Why let it close our eyes to the spiritual idea of God and His universe which is with us "alway"? Surely it is not God's purpose to withhold from us a knowledge of His presence, any more than a loving father would prevent his children from being closely associated with him. Nay, now is the time to cease declaring God to be afar off, and instead, to behold Him in our very midst, for it is written, "They shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them." It is indeed a present possibility for human consciousness, even while still wrestling with the beliefs of the flesh, to behold God, at least in part, if it will but put aside material thought processes and look out upon the universe through the lens of Spirit.

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