Article August 29, 1925 Issue

"A table in the wilderness"

ROBERT HARVEY TEEPLE

The human mind, so called, manifests all sorts of limitations. Having nothing on which to base its calculations except what the eyes are supposed to see and the ears to hear, the hands to handle and the feet to tread upon, its sense of things is wholly material and finite. On account of this limited sense of all things humanity is the victim of fear; for though the supply of any particular thing, whether of health, strength, sight, or provision for daily sustenance, may seem enough for to-day, there is apt to be a latent fear that sooner or later the supply may give out and suffering follow. Hence, if mankind were wholly dependent on the human mind's false material sense of things, it would be in a bad way indeed.

When the prophet Isaiah foretold the coming of the Messiah, or Christ, who later appeared in the person of Christ Jesus, he had this to say of him: "He shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth." In other words, the Messiah would not base his deductions on the deceptive testimony of the physical senses, or on external material evidence, but would penetrate to the very heart of things, to the motive behind every act, to the spiritual fact, to the reality of man, the image and likeness of God. Did one seem to be blind, lame, a sinner, a demoniac, or a paralytic, this was but the testimony of the physical senses, which Jesus positively refused to accept. He knew that man, being the image and likeness of the unchangeably perfect God, could not be sick or disabled, blind, dumb, or sinful; and this clear and vivid realization of the true nature of man was what enabled the Master to heal.

Mrs. Eddy, in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the textbook of Christian Science, makes this very plain on pages 476 and 477 of that volume. There she says: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick." Thus, whenever there seemed but a barren wilderness of material beliefs present, manifested as ill health, sin, lack, or disability, the master Metaphysician, because of his perfect spiritual understanding, was able instantly to overthrow this false evidence and replace it with the spiritual facts of health, strength, purity, and plenty, proving that God could indeed furnish "a table in the wilderness." It will be recalled that on one occasion a multitude of five thousand followed Jesus into a "desert place." They became greatly in need of nourishment, but no food supplies were at hand or available, except five loaves of bread and two small fishes; yet Jesus, completely annulling the external sense of lack, and governed by the spiritual understanding that there is no lack in God's kingdom, was able with the five loaves and the two little fishes to feed this great multitude.

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