Article March 23, 1935 Issue

Striking through Appearances to Reality

GWENDOLYN M. L. THOMAS

It has been wisely said that just as Moses struck the rock in the wilderness and water enough and to spare came forth, so we ourselves, when feeling that life is sterile and dreary, may strike through appearances and find spiritual refreshment gushing to us where drought appeared to be. In plain words, when seemingly surrounded by circumstances so arid that we anticipate only want and frustration, there is some true desire in our consciousness through which may flow a glorious supply of all that is needful for us. The present writer, like many other modern men and women, would have laughed derisively to herself had such a doctrine been presented to her in years gone by. But that was because she had not given enough thought to spiritual things. Later she met and talked with a Christian Scientist, read and pondered over what she found in Christian Science literature, and learned how to strike the rock of Truth—how to find help.

It is because each individual consciousness seems to be straitly shut up within the bars of matter that we hold perverted views of the universe and feel imprisoned and helpless. Men have long worshiped matter, and gradually have come to consider themselves bound inevitably by its so-called laws to sickness, misfortune, poverty, and many other ills. In fact, a material, mechanistic view of everything and everybody is part of the enveloping atmosphere of our age. It is a gradually disappearing false sense of things, but it still appears to hold sway in the paths of daily life.

Christian Science is the antithesis of materialism, and teaches us to look deeper and to follow the example of the holy men of old whose word has been handed down to us in the Bible—mentally to strike through appearances and reach underlying truths. In fact, it bids us reject the outward sense of things, look to our origin, God, and appeal to Him as the great underlying reality that sustains and governs all He has created.

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