Article February 12, 1949 Issue

Student finds limiting human beliefs disappear in the illumination of spiritual reality

"NIGHTLESS RADIANCE"

BURNETTA D. CARROLL

It is interesting to note in the first chapter of Genesis that the account of creation always refers to the evening as preceding the morning, on through the first six days of creation. In the account of the sixth day we read in part (1:26, 31): "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion... And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day" Then on the seventh day, spiritual perfection and completeness are established and blessed. "The heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made. ... And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it" (Gen. 2:1-3). Thus this sanctified, endless day of spiritual reality continues and is here now and forever.

Mary Baker Eddy defines "day" in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 584): "The irradiance of Life; light, the spiritual idea of Truth and Love. 'And the evening and the morning were the first day.' (Genesis i. 5.) The objects of time and sense disappear in the illumination of spiritual understanding, and Mind measures time according to the good that is unfolded. This unfolding is God's day, and 'there shall be no night there.'" The limiting human beliefs of chaos and darkness are dispelled as ceaseless spiritual radiance and its illumination are understood. Creation, perfect and complete, is evidenced with perpetual light.

With characteristic acumen, our Leader says (Unity of Good, p. 61): "Coming and going belong to mortal consciousness. God is 'the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.'" And in the next paragraph she adds: "The mutations of mortal sense are the evening and the morning of human thought,— the twilight and dawn of earthly vision, which precedeth the night-less radiance of divine Life. Human perception, advancing toward the apprehension of its nothingness, halts, retreats, and again goes forward; but the divine Principle and Spirit and spiritual man are unchangeable,—neither advancing, retreating, nor halting." The word "mutation" might be used to describe the daily experience of the student of Christian Science, for he is continually discarding mortal sense testimony—with its chaos and darkness, its limitations and insecurities, its heartaches and failures —for the glorious, eternal facts of spiritual being, which inform him that man expresses health, harmony, and abundance.

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