Article July 25, 1914 Issue

"I will arise"

HELEN R. DEMING

"What's the use of learning the commandments and all these Bible stories? We can read them out of the book whenever we want to." Thus spoke a Sunday school pupil, a youth of still unawakened thought. The teacher explained that if we thoroughly learn these things so fundamental to all right doing, they become so much a part of our thinking that they even unconsciously control our actions. If we become familiar with the Bible statements and stories interpreted in the light of Christian Science, we gain a stors of spiritual truth which may be drawn upon at times when reading would be quite out of the question; for instance, when we are walking along the street, standing in a car, or busy with our daily occupation. At such times these vital truths are always available if we have previously made them our own. Most of us have doubtless had many experiences where help and healing have come as a result of the quick summoning of some one of these loving messengers of Truth. The writer recalls an instance where the need was urgent, and the healing swift and sure.

A great ship lay tossing on the ocean. The storm beat heavily, and the winds dashed the huge waves madly against this house at sea. In a cabin lay one who was suffering from the too common sea malady. In dumb misery she tried to brush away the dream which material sense had put upon her, and longed for the time when there would be "no more sea." She would have liked to turn to the Bible, or to that other dear book, Science and Health, which holds the "Key" to its treasures, but she could not sit up, nor did she think it right to turn on the light while her companion slept. But the "angels of His presence" (Science and Health, p. 174), who are ever near if we desire their ministering, sent her the thought of the prodigal son, and as she mused over it, she saw how she, too, had taken a "journey into a far country," material sense, and had responded to belief in physical law. She, too, had suffered from "a mighty famine," the lack of a realization of spiritual harmony. And what was the remedy for it all? This: "I will arise and go to my Father." She knew that she belonged in her Father's house, and her one desire was to find herself there again. Suddenly she sat up, an exertion she had not been able to make before without extreme discomfort. A light seemed to fill the cabin,—the light of Truth. The dreams of sense disappeared, and had it not been late at night, she would have arisen at once to enjoy her new-found freedom. Although the storm continued to rage fiercely without, yet within all was peace, and for the first time in her life she was able to move about in a tossing ship with no sense of discomfort.

Such was the experience of the writer a few years ago, and it has since occurred to her how typical this incident is of the passing of all phases of mortal thought with the dawning of the divine idea. The story of the prodigal son, spiritually interpreted, is indeed a true tale, divinely told. The younger son is he who, lacking in experience, desires all satisfactions without earning them through spiritual discernment. No wonder that he journeys "into a far country," away from the Father's house. He has his lesson to learn, and he learns it after much suffering. The waves of mortal sense beating upon him awaken him, and then there comes a recognition of his true selfhood. As this dawns upon him, he contrasts his own misery with the peace and plenty under the paternal roof; he begins to know what it means to be the son of the one Father and to dwell in that Father's house. O joyous recognition, O sacred birth of that sweet humility which sees its own shortcomings, the utter futility of all life apart from the Father!

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