It is sometimes a matter of considerable surprise to the one just turning to Christian Science for help to discover that instead of being encouraged to talk to the practitioner about himself and his troubles the practitioner seems much more interested in talking to him about God. Now talking about God, he readily admits, is, of course, all right on Sundays and all other suitable occasions, but he cannot exactly see how it can have any particular bearing on the subject in hand. In fact, when he has left his business, and walked many blocks, and given up much valuable time for the particular purpose of talking about his rheumatism, for instance, it seems just a little disconcerting to find the subject practically tabooed.

His would-be helper allows him to explain his difficulties in a general way, but when he begins to tell how long he has had it, and what the last doctor said about it, and how it feels, and how the afflicted member looks, and how the ailment keeps him awake nights, and how his grandfather had it, he suddenly discovers that the conversation has somehow been gently turned in another direction. They are going to talk about God, it seems, whether he likes it or not; and yet as he listens, probably too polite to say what he really thinks, he does find himself, after all, getting somewhat interested in what he is being told about a God who is Love, who never wants His children to be sick or unhappy, and of man as God's dear child, never separated for an instant from the Father's tender care. It is all in the Bible, of course,—nothing really new about it; but as he wends his way back to his office, the only new and surprising thing about the whole proceeding is that he suddenly begins to feel better.

If there are any who are, perhaps, still puzzling themselves to understand what may be termed in popular parlance "the connection," the following illustration may be found helpful. Suppose a man were in a very dark cave, so dark that he could not see his hand before his face; and suppose, as he stood there, a voice at his side should say: "Right here in this cave are riches beyond your fondest dreams, wealth so fabulous that no human language could ever make you comprehend it. All is yours. You have only to step forward and take it. Now what will you have first?" As the man stands there irresolute in the darkness, hearing the voice, but seeing no one, would not his natural reply be, "Well, my friend, I hear what you say, and I am ready to believe it. But if all this is really here, and I am ever to get it, I think the thing I must have first of all is a little more light."

In the Father's house of many mansions, of which Jesus spoke, there are good things prepared for all of us, beyond the limitations of human language to express or the human mind to comprehend, a wealth of spiritual riches which far transcends anything that the world has to offer, such priceless jewels as peace and joy and happiness and work and usefulness and friends and love and health and home and heaven. This day, this hour, we are standing with all these things, and more, within our reach. Why do we not reach out and take them? Because, like the man in the cave, we do not see them. Even while the voice is telling us that they are here, and are ours, it is still so dark that we do not know which way to turn nor where to go to find them. More light is surely what a sad world needs, wrapped as it is in the Stygian darkness of its own material beliefs; and since, as the beloved disciple declares, "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all," it must follow that the more we know about God the more light we shall have upon our problem, whatever it may be.

The truth about God and man, intelligently brought to bear upon any situation, is what constitutes a Christian Science treatment. It brings the needed light, so to speak. One can readily see that the light does not put anything into the cave which was not there before, nor does it take away anything which was ever really there in the first place. It is precisely the same with a Christian Science treatment. It does not alter in the slightest degree the eternal facts of God's perfect creation: it only enables us to see them. As the coming of the light causes the darkness to disappear, so does the coming of the truth to human consciousness cause the "error," as it is called, to disappear,—the illusion, the lie, the rheumatism, or whatever one may call it for the time being; and it disappears just as naturally and just as inevitably. It is not a miracle any more than getting the answer to a mathematical problem is a miracle. Both are the simple, logical results of a principle understood and properly applied.

How do we do this? Just as Jesus did it, centuries ago. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 476) the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy, tells us, "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals." What a tremendous thing it would mean for all of us if we, too, would try to do this, at all times, and under all conditions,—to behold in Science not only a perfect man, but a perfect universe as well, governed by the one infinite and supreme intelligence called God. It is true that to attain this vision of heavenly reality may not be the work of a moment, for as we read on page 513 of our textbook, "To material sense, this divine universe is dim and distant, gray in the sombre hues of twilight; but anon the veil is lifted, and the scene shifts into light."

Surely, with the knowledge before us that it can be done, we can find courage to press on, even if the light does not seem to come as quickly as we might wish. To behold the perfect universe of God's creating entails much patient work on our part, much perseverance, fidelity, honesty, love, and consecration. It means many a struggle with self, with pride, with prejudice, with preconceived human opinion. It means the daily, hourly overcoming of first one thing and then another which is unlike God; but, oh, the joy of seeing the darkness, little by little, rolled away, and those good things appear which have been prepared for us from the foundation of the world,—just waiting. How perfectly simple it is for the man in the cave now to step forward and claim his own. As we think of this we begin to understand how important it is to learn, first of all, about God. The practitioner was not wasting time, then, when he led our thought away from the false testimony of the material senses to rejoice instead in our Father's goodness and love. The continual and persistent rehearsal of our troubles only intensified the darkness; that was why we were not encouraged in it. It was light we were looking for, and not more darkness.

What a beautiful thing it is to gain even a first faint glimpse of the eternal truth that man is the son of God, not a poor fellow crippled with disease. We begin to see that the less we discuss error, or contemplate error, or give error any place or power in our lives, the less important it grows and the less influence it has over us; while the more we think about God and His wonderful ways of caring for even the least of these, His little ones, the more consciously and understandingly we may claim His protection from all evil, right here and now. There is no darkness where He is, and He is ever present. On page 503 of Science and Health our Leader says: "In the universe of Truth, matter is unknown. No supposition of error enters there. Divine Science, the Word of God, saith to the darkness upon the face of error, 'God is All-in-all,' and the light of ever-present Love illumines the universe."

In this divinely illumined universe there is no problem so hard, so complicated, so involved, so seemingly hopeless, but that Truth already holds the solution. Then with courage and confidence let us turn away from that which has held our attention for so long to contemplate instead, in grateful relief, the ineffable glories of that limitless and omnipotent Mind which is ever expressing itself in right ideas, never in the sickly false beliefs of material sense, which constitute all that mortals know of so-called existence. Let us rejoice that we have caught at least a gleam of the light which "shineth in darkness," though the darkness comprehends it not. We know at least this much, that the world can never seem quite so dark to us again; and we also know that if we go faithfully and resolutely on, the one little gleam of light which we have already seen will continue to grow bigger and brighter and more beautiful, until it shall shine upon our pathway more and more "unto the perfect day."