Editorial March 31, 1945 Issue

The Verities of Vision

Margaret Morrison

"Where there is no vision, the people perish." Truth is eternally true, and this truth declared by wise men of old is true today and worthy of grave consideration. What is the vital vision needed that people and nations may not perish? It has often been said of men that they have big vision, the vision that opens up new countries, establishes a world-wide business, builds an empire. While wide vision is necessary and desirable to carry out any enterprise, this farsightedness which is based on the illusory substance of matter is not that substantial, spiritual vision through which alone comes the salvation of mankind. The vision which saves men from perishing is the revelation of the verities of divine Truth, which bring salvation individually and universally from the falsities and evils of the material senses.

The revelation which came to St. John on the Isle of Patmos is one of the profoundest visions ever given to mankind. So vital did Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science deem this revelation that she has devoted an entire chapter to it in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." On page 561 of that book Mrs. Eddy says, "The Revelator beheld the spiritual idea from the mount of vision." And later on the same page she says: "In divine revelation, material and corporeal selfhood disappear, and the spiritual idea is understood." St. John had been so close a follower of his Master that to him came the "Revelation of Jesus Christ," the vision which enabled him, in imagery, to set down the warfare of evil or matter against the supremacy of Spirit and the radiant vision of Spirit untouched by that warfare—"clear as crystal," the "new heaven" and "new earth" of divine reality. It can no longer be said as in the days of the child Samuel that there is "no open vision" (I Sam. 3:1), for through the spiritual interpretation of Mrs. Eddy the vision of St. John is found to prefigure the Science of salvation.

To many such vision has come proving its vitality and saving power: to Daniel, to whom it brought immunity from the ferocity of lions; to the Wisemen, who followed the star to the manager in Bethlehem, seeking and finding the Messiah; to Paul on the road to Damascus, whose obedience to the heavenly vision made him friend and counselor to all mankind. In his dramatic appearance before King Agrippa, as recorded in the twenty-sixth chapter of Acts, St. Paul describes the mission which was appointed to him in that vision: to open the eyes of men, "to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God." He concludes, "Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision."

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