"Escape to the mountain"

J. LILIAN VANDEVERE

The reader's clear voice gave the angel's summons to Lot, "Escape to the mountain," as a ringing call of today, individual and imperative. Startled to alertness, one of his hearers began to ponder the connection of Lot's warning with personal experience. At once came to mind the sense of uplift which one feels on a mountain top,—the purer air and wider outlook,—and the words of one of our hymns (Hymnal, p. 4) gave expression to the glad sense:—

The freer step, the fuller breath,
The wide horizon's grander view.

A mountain top finally reached, and the panorama scanned with an exultant thrill, we look back at the winding path of ascent. No one knew better its tortuous trails and precipitous steeps than did our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, and she voiced the prayer of all who follow it when she wrote, "Shepherd, show me how to go" (Poems, p. 14). Believing that Jesus was the Wayshower, even as he had said, she sought that way diligently, not with the despairing cry, "How can we know the way?" but with a certainty of success that made the search, as she has said, "buoyant with hope" (Science and Health, p. 109).

In the Master's words, uncomprehendingly repeated for ages by Bible students, Mrs. Eddy found definite direction and illumination, and to these ideas, gained in an hour of physical extremity, she gave expression. Some read with wondering scorn; others, awakened by the challenge, tested the verity of her startling statements, and to their joy found them true. The Bible promises were fulfilled when implicit reliance and understanding made demand and the healing power of Truth was manifested. The call of Christian Science is ever for elevation of thought, and the figure of the ascending path and the mountain, found so often in Mrs. Eddy's writings, illustrates her constant plea for spiritual perception and attainment.

As one follows the Bible narrative, he is impressed by the number of great events which transpired upon mountains. Meditating upon divine law while his flock grazed on the slopes of Horeb, Moses beheld the burning bush and became the divinely appointed ambassador to Egypt. Later, on Sinai, his thought grasped that law so clearly as to be able to voice it for the guidance of his fellow men. On Carmel, Elijah watched the attempts of Baal's prophets to evoke the believed in power of matter, and finally overwhelmed them with a fiery proof of divine omnipotence that "licked up" the very altar stones. Beyond the bare fact of geographical altitude we note the sturdy spiritual ascent which made possible these demonstrations, and far-away history is thus linked to present need, these glimpses of His presence coming as of old to all who work patiently upward for an unhampered view.

In the life of Christ Jesus the mountain again figures conspicuously. The Master's Sermon on the Mount, an epitome of our relations to God and man, is the essence of right living and leads to complete human beatification. On Olivet were held those quiet talks with the wondering disciples; there too he came alone to gird himself for the world's resistance. Mankind scoffed and threatened, but in the kindly shelter of the olive trees the great Teacher wrestled with material existence. Again we read that, "seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain." Step by step through all the gamut of experience he rose above the turmoil of mortal thought to the final triumph of his ascension.

As the ancient temple was built on Mount Moriah, so our concept of Truth must be built on clear spiritual vision, and this is accomplished only as thought mounts steadily spiritward. Each victory over material law gains for us a higher altitude, and leads ultimately to "the Horeb height where God is revealed" (Science and Health, p. 241) and the consummation of life in divine Science is realized.

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