You Can Be a Healer July 25, 2011 Issue

Our occasional series on how people have nurtured their public practice of Christian Science healing.

Lights leading to the practice

David Horn—Raleigh, North Carolina, US

The following hymn, written in 1871 by Philip Bliss, was inspired by a sermon he heard:

Brightly beams our Father’s mercy from His lighthouse
evermore,
But to us He gives the keeping of the lights along the shore.
Let the lower lights be burning! Send a gleam across the wave!
Some poor fainting, struggling seaman, you may rescue, you
may save.

The preacher told of a ship trying to enter Cleveland harbor on a dark stormy night. The captain saw the harbor lighthouse, but it was late, and the lower lights along the shore (from windows of private homes) had gone out. Trying to navigate without these lower lights, he missed the narrow channel, and his ship was dashed against the rocks. “Brothers and sisters,” said the preacher, “the Master will take care of the lighthouse. Let us keep the lower lights burning.”

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