Article September 28, 1946 Issue

Home Is God's Gift

JOANNA FRESHWATER

Jesus said to his disciples (John 14:2): "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." As a student of Christian Science read this promise, inspiration flooded her consciousness, for she found in it a new meaning, one that was an answer to a problem which confronted her.

She was living in a little house that had once been very pleasant, but now, with a larger family, it was crowded. The neighborhood, too, had changed, and the new elements encroached upon her privacy. As she read the Master's words, she thought: Why, Jesus speaks of mansions for us, not of inadequate dwelling places! The word "mansion" brings out the thought of abundant room, of calm and gracious living.

This woman was led to study in Revelation the account of the new heaven and new earth and the description of the holy city, together with Mary Baker Eddy's interpretation of these Biblical passages in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." One fact began to stand out to her, that the holy city, the perfect dwelling place, is mental and spiritual. After saying that the Revelator was on our plane of existence while yet beholding that which is invisible to the uninspired thought, Mrs. Eddy writes of the vision of the new heaven and new earth (Science and Health, p. 573): "This testimony of Holy Writ sustains the fact in Science, that the heavens and earth to one human consciousness, that consciousness which God bestows, are spiritual, while to another, the unillumined human mind, the vision is material. This shows unmistakably that what the human mind terms matter and spirit indicates states and stages of consciousness."

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