Article January 9, 1932 Issue

His Presence

[Original article in German]

MARGARETE KUNDINGER

"SURELY the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not." Thus spoke Jacob on awakening from a sleep into which he had doubtless fallen with a dreary outlook on the future. His departure from home had taken place under adverse circumstances. He had deceived his brother Esau, and was forced to flee from his anger. Unkindness, envy, and deception, these mortal deceivers, had claimed him as their victim, so leading him into sin, distress, suffering, and disgrace. In this mental state "he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows," lay down, and went to sleep. Through the angels—spiritual intuitions—which came to help and comfort him, his consciousness was changed, and he beheld heaven, the presence of God. What had been changed during the night? Was it outward circumstances, the place in which Jacob was lying, the solitude in which he found himself? Or was it not, rather, his thinking that had undergone a spiritualizing change?

Jacob was not satisfied with recognizing only a little of God's presence. He glimpsed the abundance of God, good, and with reverence exclaimed, "This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." Jacob's words imply that he had experienced profound mental uplifting, through which he had risen above the material evidence; and so we may well believe that he gained a great mental healing.

Those who are awakening from the dark night of materiality and from their gloomy dreams of sin, sickness, and death through the illumination that God, good, is ever present and omnipotent—they, too, feel as did Jacob. They, too, are being mentally changed, and with unspeakable joy and great comfort are recognizing that the seeming absence of good is nothing but a dream which the truth is surely bringing to an end.

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