Article December 9, 1916 Issue

An Analogy

WILLIAM LLOYD

How often has a Christian Science practitioner been called to a home where he found the patient lying in a darkened room, a trained nurse by his side, with anxious relatives and possibly the doctor on guard at the door. From such a scene we pass to another of similar character. In the book of the Acts of the Apostles we read that Peter lay in prison, in the dark, asleep, with sleeping guards by his side. He was bound with chains, and other guards were at his prison door. Into his prison enters an angel, and with the angel comes light. On page 581 of Science and Health we are told that angels are "God's thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect." In this account of Peter's experience we read that the angel strikes Peter to awaken him, then bids him arise. When the chains fall off he is told to gird himself, to bind on his sandals, to clothe himself; and then, and not until then, is he ready to follow the angel out of the prison into freedom.

When the Christian Science practitioner enters a sickroom and finds the patient and the nurse asleep in the belief that man's life and health are bound up in matter, his very entrance brings light, for spiritual understanding is light; yet how often has he to arouse the patient's dormant thought with a statement of God's allness, love, and power that almost amounts to blow to material sense! Having once awakened the patient, he bids him rise at least somewhat above his belief of life in matter, and with the effort to obey comes partial release. The patient becomes in a measure aware of man's spiritual power; then comes the further command to gird himself for renewed effort. As in Peter's experience, this may mean, "Bind on thy sandals," reach out and put on the understanding of the omnipotence of Love. Then to the awakening thought the command is. "Cast thy garment about thee." "Clad in the panoply of Love" (Science and Health, p. 571), the next step is to follow the angel of light past the anxious guards, out through the prison doors, into the broad sunlight of health and harmony, into the consciousness of God's allness and man's indestructibility.

We should note that Peter had to do each of these things himself. The angel told him what to do and showed him the way out, practically held the prison doors open for him, but Peter had to walk through. If he had not done his part, would he ever have found liberty? Paul says, "Work out your own salvation ... For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

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