Article October 23, 1948 Issue

WALKING WITH THE CHRIST

MARY LOUISE GAMMACE

Probably nowhere in the pages of the Old Testament can be found a more convincing proof of the saving power of the Christ-presence than in the book of Daniel. Here is recorded the deliverance of three young Hebrews, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, from the flames of a fiery furnace into which they had been thrown because they refused to fall down and worship an idol set up by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

How, one may ask. were the men saved from the flames? And how did they emerge without even "the smell of fire" upon them? The key to these questions lies in King Nebuchadnezzar's remarks (Dan. 3:24, 25): "Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? ... Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God."

Mary Baker Eddy thus defines Christ in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 583): "The divine manifestation of God. which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error." Did not this fourth man, who appeared to the king as another person walking about in the flames, represent the saving Christ, "the divine manifestation of God." of which the three young Hebrews were so actively conscious? It was not the presence of another corporeal being that nullified the mortal belief in the power of flames to destroy. Rather was it the presence of the living, ever-present Christ.

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