Article May 8, 1920 Issue

Seeing

PEARL E. KEELER

Throughout the Scriptures the word "eye" is frequently used to denote spiritual vision, as when Job declared upon gaining a clearer thought of God, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee;" and the prophet Isaiah exclaimed, "For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." Again he says, "Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off." Certainly they had no more intention of thus affirming the operation of a physical nerve than had Jesus when he said to Philip, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." On page 586 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy gives us the scientific definition of eyes: "Spiritual discernment,—not material but mental."

To the so-called mortal, the function of sight may seem finite, limited, and imperfect, manifesting frequently the impure images of a carnal existence wholly apart from spiritual experience. To this phase of belief, diseases of retina and optic nerve may seem consequences of the day's trials, while approaching blindness may be accepted as a necessity of increasing age. The healing of astigmatism and the various claims of mortal mind with reference to eyes is frequently the first proof to the student of the regenerating power of Truth, as taught in Christian Science. Such was the joyful experience of the writer when, after only a few weeks' reading of our textbook and the New Testament life of Jesus, glasses which for ten years had been believed necessary were laid away as entirely useless. Of course the metaphysical reason for such a transformation was not clearly understood at the time, but even then the vision of the Christ was growing clearer as consciousness manifest, while the scales of material belief were falling so rapidly that even the temporary acceptance of sight apart from good was reversed.

Seeing is a function of Mind, whose process embraces the full measure of Truth's unfoldment and is limited by neither time, space, nor law. As the activity of conscious being, sight reveals the riches of the spiritual universe, continually present in the consciousness of good. The true man, reflecting the harmony of spiritual unity with the beautiful, the pure, and the true, can have no fear of failing eyes or defective nerves. The sense of matter fades before the reality of Spirit; and the unselfish discernment of the omnipresence of good, manifested as Life, Truth, Love, Principle, brings a man into perfect communion with the one Mind, where all is peace, joy, and conscious power.

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