"Hide" and "Seek"

JEAN SAUNDERS SCOTT

THERE is, perhaps, no game more popular among children than hide and seek. How joyous it is to think quickly of places in which to hide, and how difficult not to laugh when the seeker comes quite close to us and has to go away again without finding our hiding place because we have hidden so well!

Now these words "hide" and "seek" are frequently used in the Bible, and they can be used in the study of Christian Science. So perhaps the game will serve as a helpful illustration of "hiding" and "seeking" in their higher meanings. For when we are able to hide in God, we shall be able to recall many times when error tried to do the seeking, and we were able to laugh joyously because we were so well hidden in the truth that error could not find us.

In the book of Psalms we read, "Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies: I flee unto thee to hide me." What do we need to hide from? Only from wrong thinking. So there is really never anything to be afraid of. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy says (p. 86), "Mortal mind sees what it believes as certainly as it believes what it sees." This, then, the false believing of mortal mind, is what we must hide from; and we accomplish it by putting the truth in the place of the error in our thoughts.

In what form does this wrong thinking seem to come? In many forms. Just as in the game of hide and seek different players in turn do the seeking, so we find in Christian Science that it is not always the same kind of wrong thinking from which we must turn away. If we look back over a whole day, we may find that many different seekers, different servants of mortal mind, have come out after us. Perhaps one has disliked some special subject in his school work because he could not understand it as others did. Then, has he remembered that he reflects infinite Mind, and that this Mind does not give to one more, nor less, than to another? Does someone seem to have been unkind, or to have fallen short of our idea of playing the game? Then let us remember that good is present just where that false sense seems to be. Or does someone not like part of the gymnasium exercises lest it be not done satisfactorily? Then let that one remember that Mind's ideas do not make mistakes. Each spiritual idea is always in its right place, and "underneath are the everlasting arms."

We must be alert in the practice of Christian Science if we wish to recognize error as error, and not accept it as the truth. One way of being alert is through diligent study of our Bible Lessons in the Christian Science Quarterly and the regular use of the "Daily Prayer" (Manual, Art. VIII, Sect. 4), which belongs just as much to children and young people as to those who have left Sunday school and become members of The Mother Church.

Not only do the Psalms speak of God as a "hiding place," but they also describe the safety and satisfaction of those who dwell "in the secret place of the most High." Here God, divine Mind, is spoken of as a dwelling place. This larger understanding is what we gain by daily using the channels provided for us by our Leader, Mrs. Eddy. Then we begin to find that, wheras we used to think of God as the all-seeing, all-knowing Mind to which we could turn in time of need, now we know Him also as omnipresent good from which we need never depart.

The game of hide and seek is begun by hiding and continued by seeking; and in Christian Science, though we often begin by turning to Mind to hide in only in time of need, we must continue to advance our understanding by seeking the truth that now seems hidden to us until we are able to dwell in Him continually. Is not this what is expressed by our Leader in her beautiful hymn (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 389;

Poems, p. 4), "Seeking and finding, with the angels sing: 'Lo, I am with you always,'— watch and pray"?

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