Article July 18, 1914 Issue

Reflection

C. L. BOSTWICK

We shall all agree that "few persons comprehend what Christian Science means by the word reflection" (Science and Health, p. 301). None of the definitions of natural philosophy as given in the dictionary, nor any of the more extended explanations thereof elsewhere, are satisfactory or complete in answering the question, What does our Leader mean by reflection? As the word appears many times in our text-book, we are stimulated to inquire into its true meaning.

In our human experience we know that the more perfect the mirror the truer and more accurate is the reflection, and that bent and imperfect mirrors give back imperfect and distorted reflections. For centuries mankind have been looking into the mirrors of theory, creed, and dogma, so-called orthodoxy, and have there beheld that which they have been taught to believe is the true man, though fallen, sinful, depraved. The continued contemplation of this reflection, together with the remembrance of that verse from the account of man's creation as given in the first chapter of Genesis, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him," has caused humanity to have confused and contradictory conceptions of Deity. God has become to them a corporeal, manlike being, sometimes angry, sometimes loving, unable or unwilling to control or prevent evil,—at least permitting it. And all this because they have been looking into an imperfect mirror, where they have beheld discord, sickness, sin, and inharmony of every sort, and have never really seen the true reflection of God.

God has never changed. He is "the same yesterday, and today, and forever," and since man is created "in the image of God," it necessarily follows that man is also unchanged and unchangeable. The fault must lie, then, not with God or with man, but with the mirror that has been used so long. In Science and Health (p. 515) Mrs. Eddy says, "Your mirrored reflection is your own image or likeness. ... Now compare man before the mirror to his divine Principle, God. Call the mirror divine Science, and call man the reflection. Then note how true, according to Christian Science, is the reflection to its original. As the reflection of yourself appears in the mirror, so you, being spiritual, are the reflection of God." Divine Science being the perfect mirror, gives back the perfect reflection, revealing, as Mrs. Eddy says on page 259, "perfect God and perfect man."

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