Article February 23, 1946 Issue

"The man whom ye seek"

ALLENE E. THORNBURGH

The experiences related in the sixth chapter of II Kings, verses eight to twenty-three, graphically portray the ever-presence and redemptive power of God in the midst of the illusory human struggle with ignorance, fear, and hatred. When the Syrians were temporarily made blind in their attempt to seize the prophet Elisha and the Israelites, this great man said to them, "This is not the way neither is this the city: follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom ye seek." "But," the Bible narrative continues, "lie led them to Samaria." Arrived at Samaria, Elisha restored the Syrians' sight, bade the Israelites provide them with food and drink, then allowed the enemy to return to their own "master." The record concludes, "So the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel."

It seems obvious in the events of this chapter that Elisha's purpose in thus dealing with the Syrians and the Israelites was to expose the unreality of fear and hatred, greed and belligerence, by enabling them to feel the salutary effects of love. As a prophet of God, he wished to lead them to the understanding that the man they sought was neither Elisha the Israelite nor a Syrian, but the man of God whom he represented— the true selfhood, essentially loving, innately spiritual, eternally harmonious. In other words, Elisha exhibited both to the Syrians and to the Israelites the true nature of God and man in the divine Science of being. This was the same message which Christ Jesus, the Way-shower, later brought to the world. It is the message which Christian Science, the full revelation of Truth, is demonstrating in this age. It is the Word of God forever appearing unto men.

Under the lens of Christian Science the words of Elisha are fraught with meaning. Christian Science teaches that the way of life is the Christ-way: the city to be inhabited is New Jerusalem, divine Science: and the man to be sought is the real man made in God's image and likeness and forever governed by the divine Principle. Life, Truth. Love. In contradistinction to the age-old and still prevalent belief of man as material, subject to sin discord, disease, and death. Christian Science reveals man to be spiritual, immortal, perfect, divinely loving, entirely good, because he is God's reflection. It ha exposed the un-naturalness of fear, hatred, belligerence greed, revenge, and all other errors, and revealed the possibility and inevitability here and now of individual proof of perfection. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writing in the textbook of Christian Science. "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," makes this clear in a comprehensive definition of man as follows (p. 475):

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