Article August 10, 1940 Issue

World Salvation through Spiritual Illumination

NELLIE B. MACE

The Scriptures metaphorically represent God as "light," in whom "is no darkness at all." Light is also represented as the immediate result of God's command: "Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good." The Scriptures thus clearly establish the association of spiritual light and good. God's nature is pure and glorious; in Him inhere all wisdom, power, and love; and His nature, reflected in spiritual man, was exemplified by Christ Jesus throughout his loving ministry. Jesus, whose advent was recognized through light and heavenly song, declared of the Christ which he manifested, "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." His ministry was as a veritable noonday of spiritual light, and his aim was to bring to human understanding the beauty, the loveliness, of true being, and to call forth the native love of good into selfless expression.

All must eventually follow the Master into the light or understanding of good. Salvation for the individual and for the race is as a mental translation from the darkness of belief in material existence, with its various bitter strivings, into the realm of spiritual illumination, wherein reality appears. In human history, whatever has manifested some measure of permanency has evidenced the correlation of light and good, genuine progress having appeared in proportion to the enlightenment of the individual, the nation, the race. And wherever mental darkness—ignorance or sin—has obtained, the appearing of good or spirituality has seemed to be prevented or postponed. Christian Scientists, knowing the truth, rejecting any temptation to admit sadness or depression or defeat, should strive to rouse themselves to attain and maintain spiritually illumined thought, so that their faith in good may not fail, and they may thus defeat discord and eliminate it from their experience, and by this measure from the experience of the world.

Mrs. Eddy has written (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 510, 511): "Light is a symbol of Mind, of Life, Truth, and Love and not a vitalizing property of matter. Science reveals only one Mind, and this one shining by its own light and governing the universe, including man, in perfect harmony." Students of Christian Science know that each moment's realization of spiritual consciousness, gained by prayer and inspiration and love, exemplifies the divine illumination in which appear the verities of true being, and wherein there is no darkness of belief, no mist of sin or pain. They recognize this spiritual light as the coming of the Christ. And in moments of clear realization such as this, they have seen the manifestation of disease fade into nothingness.

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