Reflection

MARY TRAMMELL SCOTT

ST. JOHN wrote, "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all," and Jesus startled humanity with the declaration, "Ye are the light of the world," while we read in Science and Health that "the Ego-man is the reflection of the Ego-God" (p.281).

Prior to Mrs. Eddy's discovery that life, intelligence, and substance do not exist in matter, the Scriptural teaching that man is God's image, that he lives, and moves, and has his being in God, must have been treated as a metaphor, or figure of speech, not as a statement of fact. Students of Christian Science, however, are confronted not only with the fact of this statement of the relation between God and man, but with the responsibility of proving that what God is, man must be, by reflection. There was never a problem more important to prove; it is our life problem.

In the material state in which human sense finds itself, the very opposite of God, or good, appears. This sense will be found to be false, and through human desire, hope, faith, understanding, and demonstration, it will finally be seen that man is the reflection or image of Deity,—like expressing like. It is written that "God is light," and man's sense of being began with, "Let there be light."Through this creative demand for light, thought is destined to become more and more spiritual, until the mist of materiality is dispersed and that man is revealed of whom Mrs. Eddy says, "Man is the idea of Spirit; he reflects the beatific presence, illuming the universe with light" (Science and Health, p. 266).

Man, as God's reflection, was made beautifully apprehensible to me on one occasion when the sun was in eclipse. Just before starting to church on Sunday morning, I had looked through smoked glass at the large, red crescent, and while walking in the subdued, almost weird light, I was surprised to see on the ground where the sun's rays penetrated the leafy trees, that every reflection was a crescent. The whole way was strewn with half-moons. Startled, I exclaimed, "If the sun is eclipsed, every reflection of the sun presents an eclipsed appearance!" Remembering that "the Revelator symbolizes Spirit by the sun" (Science and Health, p. 561), I thought, If God were imperfect, His every idea would necessarily manifest imperfection. The science of astronomy teaches that the sun is untouched by an eclipse, and its light is as perfect as before; that the moon has passed between the earth and the sun, and the earth for the time being seems to have lost its pure light.

Material sense, clouded by the shadows of false belief, sees God in eclipse, and the result appears to be sinning, sick, and dying man. As the science of astronomy destroys the ignorance regarding the sun, so Christian Science is correcting the mortal misconception of Deity. God is no longer supposed to send sickness, sin, and disaster upon the inhabitants of earth. When thought becomes sufficiently spiritualized to dispel material mists, that which was from "the beginning, is now, and ever shall be," becomes apparent, God and His perfect idea, man. The divine beauty of the creator will be expressed in a universe of beauty.

Students of Christian Science have the greatest privilege that has been afforded the world since the disciples of the Master followed their inspired Teacher. They are learning the same idea of God that Jesus taught, the God whose presence, realized, heals the sick and reforms the sinner, the God whom to know aright is eternal life, who destroys all evil "with the brightness of his coming." Therefore, what God is, becomes the one important lesson, because as He is known, it is clear that man and the universe image perfect being; that in man, as in God, there is no darkness at all.

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