"A way in the wilderness"

SAMUEL JOHNSTONE MACDONALD

UPON a Sunday evening in August three friends, on their way to a Christian Science church, boarded a surface car at one of the busy transfer points in New York City. One of the three was a Christian Science practitioner, while the others were earnest students. All were very happy in the joy of loving fellowship and in the ever-expanding horizon of spiritual understanding.

When the car reached the corner of the street where the church was located and the friends got off, a stranger also alighted, and stepping up to the practitioner said, "You are going to a Christian Science church, are you not?" Upon being answered in the affirmative he added: "I was sure of it. I am a stranger in the city, having just arrived this forenoon, and did not know where to find a Christian Science church; but I saw you on Thirty-fourth Street and was sure that you were a Christian Scientist, and that if I followed, you would lead me to a church." Four friends now, instead of three, pressed forward gladly to "enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise," as the psalmist says.

In pondering on this incident later, one of the students began to see clearly that the occurrence was "not supernatural, but supremely natural" (Science and Health, Pref., p. xi). He saw and understood how it was the necessary and natural result of right thinking, and not a mere happening. It was not chance or good fortune through which this stranger upon the crowded streets of a great city could unerringly find the one who would guide him aright. It was as inevitable as is the operation of all other of God's laws.

In Proverbs we read, "In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." This is not a mere poetic utterance, a priestly mandate; it is the scientific statement of an unvarying law, the same law which the prophet Isaiah declared as follows: "Thus saith the Lord, which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters;... I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert." Having been in obedience to this law, the pilgrim from the West was sure, and must have known that he was sure, of guidance in the great city. He must have been calmly con fident that divine Love would make a way for him in the wilderness, through the mazes of mortal mind.

The other party to this little incident must also have been in obedience to divine law, as a result of which he became worthy of being a beacon upon the way, becoming one of the witnesses that "divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need," as Mrs. Eddy says on page 494 of Science and Health. In Isaiah we read, "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God;" and Christ Jesus stated the same truth in his own memorable manner when he said to his disciples, "Ye are the light of the world." This also is a law. A disciple who is lovingly and unceasingly striving to let that Mind be in him "which was also in Christ Jesus," becomes a light which "cannot be hid," even in a great city, and the spiritual discernment of the faithful wayfarer will unerringly reveal to him every needed beacon and guiding light.

Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 367): "A Christian Scientist occupies the place at this period of which Jesus spoke to his disciples, when he said: 'Ye are the salt of the earth.' 'Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.' Let us watch, work, and pray that this salt lose not its saltness, and that this light be not hid, but radiate and glow into noontide glory." Rejoicing that these manifestations of divine Love are now seen to be "supremely natural;" that through the clear light of Christian Science we are enabled to recognize and understand the unvarying law which manifests and controls them; that one single-hearted woman had the clarity of vision, the self-sacrifice, and the loving courage to lead the way; and that an ever-increasing number of disciples are reflecting the light of Life, Truth, and Love, gratitude and praise are ceaselessly overflowing unto Him who makes for us "a way in the wilderness."

It is also worthy of being noted, in order fully to complete this brief record, that the Scripture reading in the church that evening was from the forty-third chapter of Isaiah, as this indicates the working together for good of all things.

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