New instruments of destruction have made provisions for safety in time of conflict a question of immediate concern for all peoples. Cities because of their apparent vulnerability need defenses. This search for security is not new, however, for all through the Scriptures runs a golden thread of seeking a city of refuge, from Abraham, who "looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Heb.11:10), to the culmination in Revelation of John's vision of the city foursquare. The light of Christian Science shows this city to be ever accessible.

God instructed Moses to command the children of Israel to set aside six cities as places of refuge, where one who had unawares and unintentionally slain anyone might flee and remain in safety. There were three such cities on the eastern side of Jordan and three on the western, so chosen as to make one easily accessible to all parts of the land. As long as the fugitive remained in the city, he was safe.

One of these old cities of refuge, Shechem, has been identified by some authorities with the Sychar of the New Testament. It will be remembered that here Christ Jesus was questioned by a Samaritan woman as to the right place to worship. Jesus directed her thought to the spiritual truth that true worship is not confined to any place, whether it be a mountain or Jerusalem, for it is a spiritual attitude. In this attitude of true worship, in spiritual awareness or consciousness, John later beheld the real city of refuge, New Jerusalem.

John's description of the New Jerusalem, because of its symbolism, has been passed over by many Bible readers as being too transcendental for practical use. Mary Baker Eddy, however, devotes a little more than five pages to a careful exegesis of the twenty-first chapter of Revelation in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Does not this indicate that its message is eminently useful? In the Glossary of Science and Health she defines "New Jerusalem" (p. 592) thus: "Divine Science; the spiritual facts and harmony of the universe; the kingdom of heaven, or reign of harmony."

The false belief that the kingdom of heaven is a future state has kept men earth-bound and limited their capabilities. The Revelator demonstrated, through his consciousness of the omnipotence and omnipresence of God, that each one of us may become a citizen of New Jerusalem now. Spiritual sense, rather than age or length of residence, is the requirement for citizenship. The citizen of this celestial city, the dweller in spiritual consciousness, is divine idea, not corporeal man, for John saw "no temple therein." Man as idea, not embodied in matter, never separated from good, cannot be sorrowful or feel pain. In this city man, the expression of Life, cannot lapse into inactivity or death. There is no night in which error may hide.

A testifier in the Christian Science Sentinel of June 26, 1948 (p. 1136), relates the inspiration he received, during the numerous air raids on the industrial section of the Rhine and Westphalia, from the sixty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, which tells of the condemnation of idolatry but also of the preservation of those who remain steadfast in truth. Through reading this chapter, he reports, he was freed from fear and suffered no injury and very little damage to his property. After reading his testimony I turned to the chapter mentioned. My attention was arrested by one of the topical headings: "The blessed state of the new Jerusalem." How natural and inevitable that through uplifted thought the student had found his city of refuge!

The consciousness of divine reality is God-bestowed, not humanly acquired. Truth interprets itself; it needs no help from another source. Radiant consciousness is illumined by the light of Love, which destroys impurity of thought, heals the festers of resentment and hatred, erases doubts, and outshines the shadow of death.

In that great city which Mrs. Eddy defines as "the spiritual facts and harmony of the universe," man experiences the freedom of Soul. Isaiah saw that the walls of this city would not be boundaries and limits, for he said, "Thou shalt call thy walls Salvation" (Isa. 60:18).

These walls withstand the beliefs of age, decay, or attacks from within or without, because salvation spiritually interpreted means "Life, Truth, and Love understood and demonstrated as supreme over all; sin, sickness, and death destroyed" (Science and Health, p.593). The foundations of the walls are precious stones, valuable qualities of thought, such as meekness and humility, which are requirements for spiritual progress.

The street of this city is the pathway of Life. It is pure gold, free from the dross of materiality. Zechariah saw boys and girls playing in this street; men and women of wider experience also dwelt there, indicating that time is no factor in the heavenly habitation. As our Leader encouragingly writes in Science and Health (p. 598): "One moment of divine consciousness, or the spiritual understanding of Life and Love, is a foretaste of eternity. This exalted view, obtained and retained when the Science of being is understood, would bridge over with life discerned spiritually the interval of death, and man would be in the full consciousness of his immortality and eternal harmony, where sin, sickness, and death are unknown."

The gates of New Jerusalem are described as being on all sides and always open, indicative of the availability and accessibility of Truth. If this consciousness of perfection seems far away and the gates of this heavenly city seem closed, this is so only to material sense. You have the keys to these gates in the Bible and the Christian Science textbook. Use them, and the gates will swing wide open. "And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."