Article May 17, 1919 Issue

Dominion over the Sea

CECIL HARCOURT-MORRIS

The sea has always played a large part in human affairs. Primitive man, uninstructed in modern ship construction, seamanship, and navigation, must have felt himself utterly at the mercy of any storm at sea, and his ignorance kept him in a state of awe and dread of it. To him the sea stood for all that was evil, and thus in the Bible we find it used time and again to typify that monster of inharmony, the great red dragon, or the abode of the powers of darkness. For instance, in the first chapter of Genesis we find the sea used to indicate the mental chaos which exists before the light of Truth dawns on mortal thought. Thus we read, "The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." This is, however, immediately followed by the cheering declaration that God is ever present even when error seems to fill all space, for the text goes on, "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."

The first recorded sea experience is that of Noah with the flood. In the Glossary of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 592) Noah is thus defined: "A corporeal mortal; knowledge of the nothingness of material things and of the immortality of all that is spiritual." This knowledge lifted him above the torrents of sensualism of his day. Mortal mind, being unable to comprehend anything beyond the cognizance of the physical senses, could conceive of this deliverance only as an ark lifted above the earth by the very waters which destroyed all else. The account of this ark is the first record we have in the Bible of any form of ship.

The next encounter with the sea mentioned in the Bible was that of the children of Israel with the Red Sea. Here a distinct advance was made in the warfare with error, as witnessed by the fact that through Moses' understanding they were enabled to walk right through the sea. Here again that which brought salvation to the Israelites spelled destruction to their enemies. Many hundreds of years later Jesus' understanding of the nothingness of evil enabled him to quell the storm and walk on the water, to trample error underfoot and make it serve the purpose of symbolizing the mastery of all things by Mind, thus proving the power of spiritual understanding over the suggestions of mortal mind. Side by side with men's increasing spiritual understanding has grown up a knowledge of shipbuilding and of all that pertains to the profession of seamen. It is a little over fifty years since Mrs. Eddy discovered Christian Science, which reveals the laws underlying the marvels recorded in the Bible. During this time much light has come into the world and much error has been destroyed. Mortal mind is dimly aware of this, but conceives of it merely as a most wonderful physical advance in the seafaring affairs of the world. Sailing ships have given place to steamships which are independent of wind or tide, and now even the manual labor of coaling and stoking is disappearing before oil fuel and the internal combustion engine.

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