Article March 28, 1925 Issue

"The secret place"

GRACE M. PUTNAM

Many of us at some dark time in our experience have been told that God permitted sorrow and suffering for some good purpose; and although it seemed impossible to reconcile anything of the kind with a God of love, we were unable to account for the evil. This was the experience of the writer many years ago. Her heartfelt desire to have the problem explained to her, however, brought an answer; for a short time afterward she was invited to a Christian Science lecture, and there she heard the logical explanation. She saw clearly that it had been her wrong concept of God, our loving Father, which had caused all the difficulty, and that a correct understanding of Him would dispel the doubts and fears which had seemingly kept her out of "the secret place," outside "the shadow of the Almighty."

When the glorious truth that God is really infinite divine Love first dawns upon one, he naturally wishes to ally himself with those who can best help him along this new and untried road. Right there, however, error, the serpent which the Bible tells us is "more subtil than any beast of the field," seems to begin its arguments. It hints that friendships may be lost; that one may meet with ridicule, even with ostracism; that he may be called upon to relinquish pleasures, customs, and indulgences. But he who listens not to these suggestions soon finds he can lose nothing but false beliefs, and begins to realize a freedom such as he has never felt before. To appreciate this freedom in its fullness, however, he finds he must learn to speak the language of Spirit.

To one brought up to consider sin, disease, and death as stern realities, it may seem hard at first to speak of them as unreal. But let him once have the experience, as had the writer, of retiring at seven o'clock at night with every symptom of a so-called disease apparently evidenced upon his body, and after a quiet, illuminating talk with a friend on the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence of God, divine Love, of wakening at seven o'clock next morning perfectly free, and the truth cannot but begin to unfold in his consciousness. He will see that the quiet talk about God, about His allness, His all-power, His infinite wisdom and love, had banished the phantoms of fear from the only place where they seemed to hold sway,—the frightened human consciousness,—and that with the fear had gone also the fear pictures evidenced upon his body. Truth, taking full possession, had left no room for aught unlike itself, and so had given him calm, healing rest "in the secret place of the most High, ... under the shadow of the Almighty."

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