Article April 2, 1932 Issue

"The salt of the earth"

LUCIA C. COULSON

The Master said: "Ye are the salt of the earth. ... Ye are the light of the world." What did he mean? He referred to illuminated spiritual understanding. It is the spiritual idea dawning on human consciousness that to human sense is the "light" and the "salt."

When in Christian Science the new birth begins, a process which goes on continually thereafter, there shines on the darkness of belief a great light; for the spiritual idea begins at once to dispel the dream of materiality, and does this sometimes more slowly, sometimes more quickly. Now the great thing to remember is, that however small and young this idea may seem to be, it is always and from the very first the dominant factor of the consciousness it illumines, for it is substance in the midst of shadow; it is light in the midst of darkness; it is intelligence or understanding in the midst of mere belief; it is that which is living, vital, dynamic, amidst that which is suppositional, and which therefore has no real life. It is Spirit dominating matter.

Our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, tells us that "the spiritual dominates the temporal" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 193). There can, therefore, never be a doubt as to which has the dominion, or which will conquer. There can in reality be no struggle between substance and shadow, between knowing and believing, between that which is alive and that which is dead. Even the faintest gleam of the spiritual idea in consciousness outshines the darkness of the world, even as a tiny candle will bring light into the darkest cave.

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