Article April 4, 1914 Issue

Good Always Available

EDITH B. M. YOUNG

The people, seated in tiers in front of what was apparently a blank green wall, were assembled to see a panorama; but to one who had never witnessed anything of the kind, it was difficult to imagine that all the wonderful things which were promised could be forthcoming. It was doubtless all true as reported, but certainly present conditions promised little of interest or profit. Suddenly, however, there was a click. A rift appeared in the seeming green wall, and speedily it was rolled up out of sight, and a beautiful scene presented itself; sunlight on blue sea water, and sunlight on the shore; green fields, dotted with trees and peaceful farmhouses, stretched away from the water's edge to the far horizon, where earth met sky in a soft line, blue and unbroken. All this and more was behind that blank wall which seemed so solid, but yet had never been anything more than a mere curtain.

To the initiated it was only a simple incident, but with the raising of the curtain, the words in Revelation respecting the passing of all materiality, even the material concept of heaven, came to my thought,—"departed as a scroll when it is rolled together." As the material obstruction on the stage was removed by some hidden agency, so the unseen good destroys in human consciousness the barrier which the material sense of existence seemingly erects between us and the glories that are promised to God's children when they keep His commandments and obey His law. In that moment of insight, the material sense of self was rolled up out of the way, and the green fields of God's creation stretched fair and far, a safe abiding-place to all who love Him. Those green pastures had always been there, but they were invisible while we believed that material sense is something, and we are therefore shut off from the pleasure that is rightfully ours, so long as we hold to that belief. Material sense is a curtain, a wall to hide the real when we trust the testimony of the senses rather than the word of Truth that never fails.

Sometimes the faithful worker will reach a place in experience where his progress seems to be stopped by a blank wall of circumstance; but never is this more than seeming, and we may safely trust Truth to deliver us, to roll the false sense of life, substance, and intelligence in matter out of the way and open a plain path before us. No matter how blank or how solid the wall which mortal mind rears behind it, the sun of God's love is always shining and the green fields of truth are a blessed reality.

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