Article May 8, 1915 Issue

"If ye abide in me"

ROBERT NALL

There is nothing more beautiful in the Scriptures than the records of the Lord's supper, the spiritual breakfast, and the unfoldment of truth to the disciples on the way to Emmaus. "Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way"? they said to one another. These were times of refreshing from the divine presence. It is on such occasions that faith is uplifted and strengthened, that the "tabernacle of God" seems indeed to dwell with men, and that the asserted power of evil and sin wilts before the glory and goodness of infinite Mind.

One can readily suppose that these early disciples of the Master were thinking that if Jesus would only be with them in person always, guiding them by his example, his life, his words, his manifestation of power in healing, how easy it would be to follow him, and in the strength of the Spirit to be faithful, obedient, loving, and sincere sons of God! Yet how much better, after all, was his personal disappearance, since they soon learned by revelation and experience that the Christ, the Comforter and Wayshower, never left them! Their eyes were opened and they saw, and seeing, they rejoiced in spiritual ascendency and power, as we read time after time in the letters to the churches. Not spasmodic, not here today and gone tomorrow, but simply and surely, as the tithes of love and gratitude and fidelity and receptiveness were brought into the storehouse, the Father fulfilled His promises, full and rich and free, in making them valiant, Christly ambassadors, stalwart representatives of their Master's teachings.

Were these men more favored than we of today? Because Truth is always being revealed to humanity, are we not better able to apprehend many things relating to God and man? Each one who is gaining that consciousness of spiritual selfhood which is salvation from sin and death, is adding to the sum total of the only knowledge that can redeem humanity. This is the knowledge of divine Principle. Now it is impossible to conceive of Principle as being intermittent; if it were, then there would be moments when men would be hopelessly astray and the theory of an absentee God would be proved true. It is the glory of Christian Science that, humanly speaking, it has brought God nearer to men, and though the ministry of the divine allness and omnipresence is sometimes misunderstood, it is making its sacred appeal to the world with such an insurgent and joyous force that it must inevitably dispel ignorance, displace false concepts with truth, and ultimately transfigure every human purpose and endeavor.

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