Article August 19, 1939 Issue

Enlightened Faith

LUDA F. CORLEY

It would be hard to imagine a more hopeless situation than that which confronted the children of Israel at the Red Sea—on each side a wilderness, behind them a horde of Egyptians bent on destruction, and a sea in front. The situation must indeed have seemed hopeless to their human sense. However, the divine command came, "Go forward." At God's directing, "Moses stretched out his hand over the sea." A strong wind blew the waters back until a way appeared through the sea, which had seemed a barrier to their progress. Over this Love-prepared road, the children of Israel went through the midst of the sea, traveling "upon the dry ground" into the wilderness, where they were to find again and again that God is "a very present help in trouble."

The hour of extremity affords the opportunity to prove that God is Love and all-powerful. Many recall experiences when some insurmountable barrier confronted them—that is, insurmountable to human sense. One may have been suffering from a malady believed to be incurable, or one may have been in dire financial straits, for which, according to perplexing laws of human economy, there seemed no remedy. In such extremity he experienced help, healing, deliverance, when he turned entirely away from dependence upon material means and methods to God, in that faith to which Mary Baker Eddy refers in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 153), when she says, "The scientific, healing faith is a saving faith; it keeps steadfastly the great and first commandment, 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me'—no other than the spiritual help of divine Love."

When one is wrestling with some difficult problem, the need is for a greater expectation of good, a clearer understanding of God, a faith made sufficiently strong "to look within the veil." Christian Science teaches that God, divine, infinite Love, is all-might and the only Mind. Faith, enlightened and strengthened with this understanding, recognizes the veil not as a real obstruction, but only as a disguise or mask with which the pretender, mortal mind, attempts to veil its purpose and to hide the manifestation of harmonious being. Enlightened faith, spiritual vision, refusing to be deceived, pierces this veil and sees the harmony which has always existed. Mrs. Eddy has written in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 410), "The more difficult seems the material condition to be overcome by Spirit, the stronger should be our faith and the purer our love."

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