ELISHA'S SERVANT

"Fear not;" answered Elisha to his servant's cry, "Alas, my master! how shall we do?" "Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them." And the narrative continues: "And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. 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."

The servant of Elisha is not alone in his query "How shall we do?" Human perplexity is ever seeking, ever needing, a way out of trouble, and humanity must change its point of view as did Gehazi if it would discover the help at hand. To the material senses the "hosts of the King of Syria," in the form of temptation and pain and disaster, may sorely beset him who is striving for right. Because Christian Science is in the world, however, to make plain and to establish the spiritual point of view, because it is here to repeat and to spread abroad Christ's glorious "Fear not," heavy eyes may by its means be opened and lifted to see the chariots of the Lord on the mountain-side, and to fear the hosts of evil not at all.

The material senses register only the evidence of matter. Mortals see, hear, feel, taste, and smell matter, in one form or another, continually. On the other hand, all that men know of hope, of love, of aspiration, of unselfishness and goodness, comes to them mentally, from an entirely different source and by an entirely different route than matter offers. Were there no love for righteousness in the world, no affection, no kindly fellowship, mortals could still feel and see and hear and otherwise know matter through the senses which cognize it; and when mortal man wants to know something other than the senses tell him, when he wants to experience things apart from matter,—things spiritual and mental,—he must look away from sense evidence to that which comes to him by the way of spiritual understanding.

What is it that promises deliverance from trouble, that stimulates hope, that fosters courage and patience and loving-kindness? Surely nothing that we see or hear about matter, for matter by its own so-called laws falls sooner or later into a despairing organic decay which gives every evidence of the destruction of individuality. If our knowledge of existence stopped with what we see happening to matter, we should know nothing of God nor of spiritual life, nor even of human feeling of the better sort. All that mankind knows, in fact, beyond matter, is gained from spiritual view-points and mental processes beyond and outside of matter. All discovery and all invention which defeat the limitations of material belief come by way of revelation and reason and from a direction mentally opposite to that of the testimony concerning matter. And surely all spiritual knowledge must originate in a source entirely unknown to the material senses.

This much granted, as it can be by every thinker, it follows logically that to open one's eyes to the spiritual point of view brings spiritual experiences within the individual's mental range. With no evidence before his physical senses but a host of Syrians bearing down upon him and his helpless servant, Elisha could exclaim, "They that be with us are more than they that be with them." The basis for his confidence lay in something unseen to the physical eye, something at the moment unseen by his servant; and Elisha's trust in God lifted the thoughts of his servant with his own, until both could know the presence of their deliverer and rely upon spiritual power. In like manner the Christian of today must rest his faith beyond his sight.

Whatever may have been the detail of Elisha's experience, the lesson learned by his servant is the thing which comes home to the Christian Scientist. Christian Science demands a continuous outlook upon the mountain-side whereon God's chariots assemble; an unshaken faith that help will be always at hand in the hour of need. Until the servant knew the nearness of divine resources, his terror prevailed; when he saw as did Elisha, new courage upheld him. So, too, the one who would be saved from believing in evil must spiritualize his point of view, until the heavenly hosts become real and abiding to him; then, in every encounter with his own temptations, the myriad wheels of evil roll back into the darkness from whence they came, and are no more.

On page 298 of her book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy writes concerning angels, that they are "pure thoughts from God;" and on page 581 she writes again that they are "God's thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect." She makes it clear, furthermore, that such righteous thinking offsets the evil thinking of the human mind; and it may be said in passing that this one statement alone proves Mrs. Eddy's right to call her book a "Key to the Scriptures," for such interpretation of the experiences of prophets and disciples shows to the modern disciple his angels, his horsemen and chariots, waiting upon the mountain-side, and teaches him what the vision meant to the Christian of old. If "pure and perfect" "spiritual intuitions" are angels to the awakened thought, then every individual who cherishes spiritual thoughts is assembling a host of helpers, and the multitude of them increases with every effort better to understand and love God. The lesson is logical. Every one, whether or not a Christian Scientist, will admit that the more his mind is filled with good thoughts the more good he has with him and about him. And every one, surely, sees the value of seeking and cherishing such a glorious company of gracious assistants.

Christian Science calls upon every one to see in this connection, however, that human goodness, even though it be a good belief, is not "the angel of his presence;" and that good beliefs must give place to the spiritual understanding of God's presence and power, as revealed by Christian Science, to bring about that quality of right thinking which really saves and heals. One readily grants that an amiable disposition, a generous nature, or a self-sacrificing life-habit, although they are traits which promote happiness, are not equal to healing the sick or destroying the vices of the sinner; and that fear and discouragement assail at times the innocent as well as the wilful human being, showing that human goodness alone and unaided cannot wholly resist evil. This being true, a kind of thinking which is higher than the human is needed, in order to subdue ills of human making. This spiritual thinking, or understanding, which rescued Elisha, which animated Christ Jesus at all times, and which St. Paul urged upon the early Christians, has been recognized by Mrs. Eddy as the reflection by spiritual man of divine Mind, omnipresent Love.

To think rightly means to think righteously; it means to think like Christ. Mankind may seem far away from such thinking, and indeed they are. They can begin, however, with just one Christlike thought to counteract one evil suggestion; and from this beginning their "angels" will multiply and eventually turn back the whole evil army. Elisha's servant saw more than the divine chariots; he saw that Elisha's point of view had been spiritual during the time his had been material; that the help is always at hand, only awaiting discovery by a spiritualized consciousness; and that in the same situation where he had seen disaster and would have had it, Elisha saw and had deliverance. Surely this experience is explained by Mrs. Eddy's statement on page 265 of Science and Health: "The truth of being is perennial, and the error is seen only when we look from wrong points of observation;" also to remember and to understand the rescue of Elisha and his servant quickens the heart of the twentieth-century Christian to a better understanding of the lines in Faber's hymn:—