Article August 16, 1952 Issue

THE GREAT QUESTION

KATHERINE ENGLISH

In the Bible we are told of a voice heard in a garden, calling in the quiet evening, calling to the human consciousness, metaphorically named Adam (Gen. 3:9), "Where art thou?" And in this our crowded, troubled day the voice of God strikes again upon the ear of startled humanity. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy says (pp. 307, 308): "Above error's awful din, blackness, and chaos, the voice of Truth still calls: 'Adam, where art thou? Consciousness, where art thou? Art thou dwelling in the belief that mind is in matter, and that evil is mind, or art thou in the living faith that there is and can be but one God, and keeping His commandment?'"

In the familiar Scriptural allegory Adam typifies the mortal, material sense of man, supposedly made of the dust of the ground, doomed to fruitless labor, to sorrow, and to inevitable disappearance through death, back to the dusty nothingness from which it came. This ancient fleshly, erroneous concept of man must disappear before the recognition of the true concept, which Christian Science reveals, of man created by God, dwelling in Spirit, not matter, and forever keeping His commandments.

When the modern Adam hears that great question, "Adam, where art thou?" does not the old answer come: "I heard thy voice in the garden of the senses, and I was afraid because I realized my forlorn and unprotected condition. I hid myself among the trees of the garden—the theories, sophistries, the biology, physiology, psychology of modern speculations—looking for life, health, and happiness in the body, for security in the state, for wisdom and knowledge in the ever-changing theories of education, but finding only illusion, false hopes, disappointments, confusion, and conflict."

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