Article February 21, 1920 Issue

The Way Out of Loneliness

G. HENRY BRUMELL

To be alone with God, to shut out materiality from thought, to contemplate the spiritual, is as an oasis in the desert, or wilderness, of material rush and strife. The writer well remembers many nights spent alone on the veldt of South Africa, when he lay on a blanket with a saddle for a pillow and with the glorious canopy of stars overhead, the stillness broken only by the cry of a night bird or the moan of the night wind through the bushes,—miles and miles away from civilization. As one looks up at the starry heavens, he forgets his loneliness in the contemplation of the heavens and in wonderment before the Mind that controls and guides the stars and planets in their courses. One forgets that he is alone, or where he is; his thoughts being far away in the vast beyond,—reaching out to God,—and divine Love seems very near, so there is no sense of loneliness. On the veldt a man thinks, thinks of the brilliantly lighted cities and towns which perhaps he has not seen for years; thinks of the frivolties, amusements, the rush for maintenance of existence, the glamour and unsatisfactoriness of it all, the insignificance of mortal man, "whose breath is in his nostrils," even in comparison to the mighty sense of mountains, veldt, and the star spangled heavens.

It is good for us at times to be alone. Have you, from a human point of view, ever been really lonely, desolate, solitary, "having no hope, and without God in the world," longing to get away from yourself and from your thoughts? Many experience this at some time in a greater or less degree as they journey from the material to the spiritual understanding of existence. Though one may not know it at the time, this very loneliness is helping to show mortal man the hollowness, yea, the nothingness of the material sense of things. It is forcing him to grope, to search, to look for something that will ease his heart, something—he may not know just what it is—that will heal and comfort him, will "minister to a mind diseas'd," will raise him out of his slough of despond and bring joy and happiness.

This almost imperceptible longing which has come to him in the darkness and misery of his loneliness, is the still, small voice, the gentle message from divine Love, his Father-Mother God. He is in "the wilderness," which Mrs. Eddy defines on page 597 of Science and Health as, "Loneliness; doubt; darkness. ... the vestibule in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence." If he only realizes this, he will know that there is no vacuum in creation, for Love is always present. Man cannot really be lonely, no matter what the seeming. God is Spirit, and God created man in His image and likeness; therefore man cannot be separated for an instant from his Maker, who is ever present, infinite Life and Love.

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