Article July 2, 1938 Issue

Lessons from an Object Glass

EDWIN STANLEY LEONARD, JR.

It was the privilege of the writer, one clear evening, to direct a powerful telescope upon one of the tiny specks of light which shone in the heavens, set in motion the clock-regulated machinery designed to keep this speck in the line of sight, and gaze upon the planet Saturn. There appeared in the object glass of the telescope, not a point of light, but a distinct globe encircled by a ring of light. So distinct and near seemed the planet, and so sharp the contrast between its appearance through the glass and to the unaided eye, that the effect was as if the observer were witnessing the sight, not from the earth, but from the midst of interplanetary space. This experience has since appeared to him as a type of that much more frequent experience which comes to the Christian Scientist when he refreshes his view by a deliberate turning away from the immediate testimony of the senses to contemplate the wider vistas of Truth.

The perception of man's true relationship to God, as this relationship is seen through the lens of Spirit, turns us away from the welter of false laws, false desires, false obligations, to our vision of that ultimate state—which we are proving is actually our true present state—into which the testimony of material sense cannot intrude.

How instant is the change, when we deliberately turn, even for a moment, to this celestial cognizance! How unreal are the claims of sense, which up to that moment may have seemed very real and insistent! How gloriously distinct and reassuring is the vision of reality when we turn to it! That effort may take the form of studying the Lesson-Sermons in the Christian Science Quarterly, reading a Christian Science periodical, or facing, determinedly and confidently, some lion of error which may have appeared in our path, and about which we may have been complaining, or which we have been avoiding rather than proceeding to destroy, as Christian Science teaches us to do. This turning may take the form of a moment's silent gratitude, in the midst of great outward activity, for all the good that has been experienced through the influence of Christian Science. Whatever form our obedience may take to the "still small voice" of Truth, which is patiently, quietly, at hand to guide us aright each moment of our experience, the result is more certain than that of the movements of the planets in their orbits. There is instantaneous light, often of such intensity as immediately to destroy some erroneous condition of thought which has been manifesting itself physically.

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