Illusions Dispelled

NATHAN S. DILS

Several years ago I was one of a small party camped in the mountains in the winter time. One morning we found everything enveloped in thick, whirling fog. Objects but a few yards distant were hid from view by it, while those just within the range of vision appeared in strange, changing shapes. Expecting the fog to lift soon, we started on a short trip. It was interesting to watch the changing of the grotesque shapes that the objects we passed seemed to assume when they were within the range of vision. A fierce looking shadowy shape would change to a snow crowned stump, a rock, or a bunch of brush as we approached it, and a towering, gesturing giant would prove to be a tree or a snag.

After we had walked for some time we came into bright sunshine. We reached the top of a hill that was above the fog, where we found ourselves under a cloudless sky, the sun shining brightly. While in the fog, the only object visible was the top of a hill about a mile distant on which there were a number of pine trees. It looked like an isle in a tropical sea with its grove of palm trees, while all around, the fog was rolling and tumbling in a way which would have been terrifying if we had not known it had no power to harm.

This experience furnishes a good illustration of an important chapter in my life. For a number of years before coming into Christian Science I wandered in a mist of personal sense, frightened by menacing thought pictures. It was said that heart action was not right; the doctor, an old friend, looked very grave when he finished his examination and told me things which did not bring peace of mind. There was also chronic stomach and liver trouble, as well as a number of minor ailments. Several doctors were consulted, and much medicine was taken; but I continued to grow worse, and thought man's dominion, recorded in the first chapter of Genesis, was a delusion.

At last a Christian Science practitioner showed me how to begin to climb the hill of spiritual understanding. I commenced this ascent and found as I advanced that these ailments were no more terrifying, when viewed in the light of Truth, than were the stumps, trees, and rocks which had looked so uncanny in the fog. When I began to understand their nothingness and something of the allness of God, good, their seeming power over me ceased, and I was healed of my illnesses. Then I began to experience in a degree man's Godgiven dominion.

The change from belief to understanding is making the passage from sense to Soul very interesting, and the right mental effort brings peace and health. On this journey the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, are faithful guides that show how every difficulty can be surmounted, how every foe can be vanquished, how every danger may be averted. All the authorized Christian Science literature is indispensable. The Monitor brings daily a clean account of the world's important doings, so written that it will help to promote right thinking on every subject found therein; the monthly and weekly messages in the Journal and Sentinel help in the understanding and working out of our daily problems; the daily study of the Lesson-Sermons prepares us for our Sunday feast. All are worth many times their cost, if we value spiritual understanding and the peace and health it brings and preserves. Love and gratitude to Mrs. Eddy is but natural when we realize how fearlessly she loved her way through the world's harted of Truth, in order that all might share in the blessings resulting from the discovery she named Christian Science.

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