Article February 5, 1916 Issue

Day

SAMUEL JOHNSTONE MACDONALD

Words may be spoken of as links in chains of thought. Just as one link of a chain brings up another, so does one word bring up another. Scholars have invented a convenient word to designate this quality or characteristic of words, and accordingly they say that one word connotates, or connotes, another ; as, for example, father connotes son, parent connotes child, and so on. Thus the word day connotes many other words, among which will first appear sunrise and sunset. To complete the full idea of day one will recall many other cognate words, chief among which are dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, twilight. In such apparent progression and retreat does each earthly day round out its complete appearance, or brief cycle, and then seem to pass on; so that we speak of "days that are past" as if in some shadowy realm called the past each day was laid away in its appointed place, and could be recalled at will, like some obedient servitor.

The student of Christian Science, learning by degrees that the so-called material universe is only the shadowy apparition or poor counterfeit of the real universe, also learns that the earthly day is likewise a mere appearance and counterfeit and has no real and actual existence. What the real day is, he is beginning to learn when he apprehends in some degree the meaning of the psalmist's declaration, "A day in thy courts is better than a thousand." In pondering this statement he will first slowly rid himself of the educated belief that this is a mere emotional outburst, or a poetical expression of devotional fervor. The sooner this belief is discarded the sooner will he begin to understand that the Bible is really an inspired work and the word of Truth, not merely a compilation of tribal traditions and folk-songs. Thus he will gradually realize that its statements are exact, precise, and scientific, only awaiting our advancing comprehension, and that our revered Leader was no less than inspired when she discovered the name Christian Science for this wonderful and inexhaustible study.

The real day may be apprehended from this pregnant statement in Science and Health (p. 209) : "Mind, supreme over all its formations and governing them all, is the central sun of its own systems of ideas, the life and light of all its own vast creation ; and man is tributary to divine Mind." It should therefore be readily apparent that when we shall have overcome all sense of material need, we shall have real ized the perfect day,—"and there shall be no night there." It must follow, consequently, that our night is nothing but a mortal sense of the absence of light, or, in other words, a material sense of need. Now, when this night falls upon him, what does the student of Christian Science do? Does he not seek the courts of the divine Mind, which are ever illumined by the infinite central sun? And does he not invariably find, with glowing gratitude, that "a day in thy courts is better than a thousand"?

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