Article December 14, 1992 Issue

Truth or illusion?

When we're seeking "just the facts" about something, we actually need to learn more about God, divine Truth.

Emily Wright Jaeger

A few years ago I decided to return to college to obtain a degree. During these college years I learned many useful lessons. In my marine biology class, one simple lesson taught me how ignorance of the truth can appear as an illusion, and how the truth uplifts one from the deception of the physical senses.

The biology class used microscopes to identify specimens of phytoplankton and other marine specimens. Inasmuch as this was my first use of a microscope since my high-school days, I was eager to renew my knowledge of the instrument. Each student had his own to use. After identifying a number of specimens in another's scope, I looked into mine and exclaimed, "Oh, what a beautiful shell!" After the student next to me viewed my findings, she said that it was not a shell; and the teacher confirmed that it was not a shell but a piece of broken glass on the edge of the slide that held the specimen. Unfamiliar with the magnifying power of this microscope, I was fooled into seeing a beautiful shell when it was really only an enlarged piece of broken glass. The illusion was in seeing the broken slide incorrectly; it was nothing more than ignorance of the truth. My ignorance in the use of a microscope led to a belief in the illusion. Students of Christian Science have likewise learned that ignorance of God and of man's spiritual relationship to Him leads to false conclusions, presenting pictures of sin, sickness, and even death.

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