Article May 20, 1985 Issue

Holding crime in check

DOROTHY L. MACKINTOSH

The book of Second Kings records that the servant of Elisha the prophet went out one morning to find that the king of Syria had sent horses and chariots and surrounded the city by night. He was afraid and said to his master, "Alas, my master! how shall we do?" The disturbing news did not impress Elisha; he declared with conviction, "Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them." Then he prayed that the servant's eyes be opened. "And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha."^{See II Kings 6:8–17.}

What happened? Did the scene change materially or did the servant's view of it change? Through Elisha's prayer the young man was able to see things from the prophet's point of view—with the assurance of encompassing protection and strength that comes from the recognition of God's allness and nearness.

Do we look out on our city with fearful eye and see it beset with dangers—vice, immorality, crime—and are we in the midst of it, fearful, discouraged, wondering how we or others can possibly survive? Then, like Elisha's servant, we need our eyes opened. We need the prayer and Elisha vision which recognize that the truth of being, as revealed in Christian Science, is more powerful and real than the display of mortality and materiality apparently surrounding us. In a paragraph next to the marginal heading "Vision opening" Mrs. Eddy tells us, "To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear,—this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true."^{Science and Health, p. 428.}