Article October 11, 1919 Issue

Pharaoh

ROSS S. PILLSBURY

The writer remembers how when quite a small boy he used to wonder at the story of the deliverance of the children of Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and especially why it was, after all the signs and wonders wrought by Moses, that Pharaoh repeatedly repented his promise and "hardened his heart." There came a time, however, when the sincere, prayerful study of Christian Science revealed the hitherto unseen lessons taught therein, together with their application to present everyday life.

It has been stated, and truthfully so, that if every copy of the Bible were to be destroyed, its substance would eventually be rewritten. That this would be the case is plainly apparent to the spiritually enlightened thought; for, spiritually discerned, the Bible but portrays the many and varied experiences of the human mind in its struggle upward out of the darkness of ignorance and bondage into spiritual understanding, freedom, and the glorious light of Truth. Time has not changed or softened the condition of those children of Israel who are still in bondage to the Egyptians—to material sense. The Pharaohs and taskmasters of to-day are no more and no less real than those of the days of Moses, and even as God, ever present good, heard the cry of the children of Israel and sent Moses and Aaron, so to-day has Christian Science come to reveal to mankind the way of deliverance from the cruel bondage of sin, sickness, and death, and to guide us into the promised land of perfect spiritual understanding.

It took many proofs of God's allness and power, and much self-imposed suffering on the part of Pharaoh, before he would let the children of Israel go up out of Egypt. Now we know that "Egypt" stands for materialism, with Pharaoh as the dominant power thereof; also, that the flesh-pots of Egypt, which the children of Israel longed for at times during their sojourn in the wilderness, were and still are neither more nor less than the unrestrained indulgence of the material senses, "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life." As plague after plague came upon them as the result of their unbelief and unwillingness to seek after God, Spirit, in the way of His appointing, it caused them to turn in their extremity to Principle, God, as represented by Moses, for relief and healing; notwithstanding which "Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them." In other words, after relief from the particular discordant condition had been obtained, Pharaoh, or the mesmeric belief of life and pleasure in and of matter, was allowed again to assume the ascendancy; and thrusting aside the good resolves and intentions, they dropped back to a life of ease in matter and the gratification of the material senses, until the self-imposed agony of suffering once more awakened them.

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