Your Light!

[Written Especially for Young People]

HOW comfortable it may seem to sit down part way up a mountain and feel the solid security of one's resting place! But how undeniable that mere sitting, no matter how enchanting the view or how desirable the nook, will not bring us one inch nearer the summit ! And how simple it appears to trust in the understanding of practitioners and those who have prepared the path farther for the solving of one's perplexing problems!

Jesus knew that mortals have always been prone to borrow oil of their more provident neighbors, so he included in his great Sermon on the Mount a sentence which amply instructs this sort. He said, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

"Your light"! Genuine Christian Scientists cannot shine in borrowed glory. This applies as certainly to the Sunday school student as to the practitioner, teacher, or lecturer. It is not enough for us to acknowledge and admire spirituality in the lives of others. To admit that our spiritual understanding has yet much to attain is true humility; but to say that our grasp of Truth is inadequate, merely because we have not the desire to face the path ahead of us, may be laziness of the worst sort.

What of Jesus? What of Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science? Could those two valiant spiritual poineers have demonstrated the glory of God while depending on other human beings to make their demonstration for them? Could they have stood alone against an unbelieving world and have proved the presence of the Father while sleeping at their posts or delaying until tomorrow the work of today even in one smallest proof of Truth?

Mrs. Eddy reminds us on page 233 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" that "progress is the law of God, whose law demands of us only what we can certainly fulfil." "What we can certainly fulfil"—not what we with someone else's help can perhaps fulfill! Progress is the overcoming of obstacles; and when these problems come into our experience, they are meant for us to solve. Loving advice, counsel, and explanation from workers of experience are legitimate helps; but the mistake lies in lazy reliance on another's understanding. Until we are free through spiritualizing our own thinking, we are never really free.

Perhaps it is the mockery of fellow students that keeps us doing as Peter did in his night of fear and denying of the Christ. If worldliness and cynicism are the fashion, there is rich reward in being joyously different by holding steadfastly to one's spiritual judgment. Standing firm in the truth, consciously and deliberately, when ridicule or opposition flaunts its flimsy scorn, is entertaining angels and being aware of their presence.

Returning to the verse in Matthew, we see that Jesus was careful to specify that this light should shine. He called for no half-hearted or indifferent glimmer, and accepted none. Even when it does seem humanly necessary to borrow oil, one must first have a trimmed lamp, or in other words, a receptive consciousness, so that the light will not flicker out.

One more recommendation Jesus made is likely to be overlooked, so slight is its emphasis. "Before men," reads the Bible verse. What men? Any certain ones? Indeed, no! It means all men, not those we especially desire to impress with an appearance of goodness. Love does not demand a particular kind of audience for its expression. Only by letting his light shine all the time, before all men, in all circumstances, was Jesus able to demonstrate the fullness of God. Radiantly beautiful is the divine light which gleams through a purified human consciousness, one that is clear and unafraid in the midst of mental night.

Suppose it were discovered that a beacon light at an airport were sweeping only part of its prescribed arc across the sky. Would there not be a hasty adjustment so that it would sweep the entire space? If we realize that there are times when our beacon light of reflected love fails to pierce the farthest corner, it is possible to adjust this error at once. The reflection of divine Love is not forced; it is natural and beautiful. From a pure, prayerful, inwaed desire comes so constant, so exquisite, an outward manifestation in word and deed that humanity pauses, watches, then hastens to light its own torch and follow after the truth. In Christian Science we have no choice but to go forward!

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