Article May 15, 1915 Issue

Reaching the Hilltop

CAPT. GEOFFREY WILKINSON

Many of us have had the experience of climbing a hill and imagining, as each new gradation was surmounted, that the next would lead to the summit. The latter, however, evaded us again and again, until finally no further climbing remained and the highest point was reached. When passing through an experience of this nature last summer, the writer thought how closely it resembled one's onward progress in Christian Science, especially during the earlier stages. Just as the pedestrian sets before himself an imaginary summit as the goal of his endeavor, so the beginner in Christian Science has frequently one object alone in sight, namely, his own physical healing. Sooner or later this is achieved, but he finds that this is only a fraction of the work that must be done. Fresh problems present themselves, and in the solution of each he attains a higher point.

Again, in the same way that difficulties are met with from time to time in the ascent of a mountain, so in the student's progress from sense to Soul, situations are presented—such as the overcoming of some long-cherished sin or of some apparently deep-seated fault of character—which demand all the courage and determination he can bring to bear upon them. Left to his own resources, he would indeed be in a hopeless situation; but in proportion as he perceives and is obedient to the truth of man's being as taught in the Bible and reiterated in Science and Health, he is made free from the seeming thraldom of the senses. If at such times his progress should seem a veritable path of thorns, he will do well to remember the cheering utterance of the Hebrew prophet, "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me;" or to comfort himself with our Leader's timely reminder that "the warfare with one's self is grand" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 118).

"When the destination is desirable," Mrs. Eddy says elsewhere (Science and Health, p. 426), "expectation speeds our progress;" and if the climber is urged forward by the certainty of the glory of the outlook from the summit, he will find that obstacles cease to daunt him, and he will go serenely forward until at last he reaches his goal, and attains "unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." However dark and difficult the way may seem at times, if he has grasped in any way the spiritual fact of being, he will know that above it all is the eternal sunshine.

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