Article February 4, 1928 Issue

"I am the light of the world"

ALICE MC CRAY MERRIELL

Few of us escape the experience now and then of human conditions in which we seem to arrive at an impasse, with no visible right solution. Often the world's opinion of our problem influences our thinking to such a degree that for a time we forget how shifting and undependable are the opinions of men in the light of the understanding of the all-knowing divine Mind. But we always find that the confusion clears away when this understanding is allowed to shine directly upon the problem.

In John's Gospel the beloved disciple relates the healing by our Master of one who had been born blind. Surely this blindness must have seemed to him who had borne it a condition from which there was little or no hope of freedom; for, as he afterward said, "Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind." As he sat and begged, however, "Jesus passed by;" and in a few moments his eyes were opened, notwithstanding that the general human belief about the impossibility of healing total blindness was still unchanged. "Jesus passed by." On pages 476 and 477 of our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy explains why his passing by was so often attended by marvels. She writes, "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."

There may have been other blind men in the paths the Master trod, some of whom were not healed; but the willingness to believe that he might be healed by the power of Spirit, however new and strange it seemed to him, opened the way for the light to shine in this one's consciousness. Also, he obeyed without question the simple demands of the Master, although to mortal sense they may have seemed quite unnecessary. After he had received his sight, he repeated the facts of his healing when he was questioned; and his steadfastness was rewarded by the commendation of Jesus: "Thou hast both seen him [the Son of God], and it is he that talketh with thee." Jesus thus made it plain that the Son of God, the Christ, is the perfect concept of man in God's image. What encouragement this must have afforded to his listener to rise to a higher understanding of his own rightful place in God's kingdom!

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