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Mary Baker Eddy
— The Window
Mary Baker Eddy was the window
for the light of the Second Coming of Christ. She wrote:
Everything done to
Jesus and to me which could in any way harm us was a
conspiracy against the welfare of him who did it and
against the human race. It darkened the light that
otherwise would have been reflected and would have shone
for all. The individual who did this injured himself more
than he did the Master a million times, and will live to
learn this and see just how it was done and suffer until
he destroys in himself the evil that caused him to do it.
Even if it takes millions of corrections, it must be and
will be accomplished. I have sometimes seen that eternity
is scarcely too long for this consummation in certain
minds; hence, the Scripture, 'They shall go away into
everlasting punishment prepared for the devil and his
angels;' that is, the tenacious human will made manifest
through lust, envy, revenge and hatred, and the messages
these evils are constantly pouring into the false
consciousness called mortal mind, will produce and
reproduce itself in himself and in others until the fire
it kindles of sin and suffering can be extinguished only
when the earth is burned up —
that is, not until all the mortal consciousness is
utterly destroyed. The Scripture saith, 'He that being
often reproved hardeneth his neck, etc.' His salvation
can come only through the slow processes of seeing every
sin he ever committed and suffering for it until he
gladly escapes by repentance and reformation from the
hell it brings. In this terrible struggle his sins are
found to be a hard master and when he would reform he
cannot, for this old master having long had dominion over
him will not resign his power and release his captive
without a desperate, prolonged, fearful warfare, a
struggle and despair which eye hath not seen nor ear
heard, neither hath it entered into the sense of a mortal
to comprehend it, for it goes on with invisible pangs so
much beyond the apprehension of this sense through any
visible token, that it can never be told and never known
only by him that has endured it.
Here is the love of God
—
that this divine Principle sends forth through the
universe its divine idea and some person will be found
fit to reflect it to such an extent as to become the
window for the world in every age and clime.
Through this window God
pours in His light and blessings upon mankind.
But if they try to
darken this window, to break it or to misrepresent it,
and even to believe themselves that it is not the
transparent medium through which the light shineth and
turn in their dungeon to the opaque wall of their dark
mind to let in light, can you not see the
consequence?
Or if their blows at
this kind window of God should so mar it that the
reflection it gave was deflected and the image it gave
forth inverted or even its light shut wholly out, would
this be cause for rejoicing? Would the perpetrator of
this finale of sin—as
when Jesus was crucified —
go and hang himself and thus be rid of the awful
penalty consequent? No! He could not thus easily escape,
but must master his own relentless master, must overcome
in himself the terrible sins that caused his evil deed.
And how? In his dungeon with the rays extinguished that
came so kindly to cheer it and show him the way out of it
and on to the enthroned bliss, would not he remember the
awful mistake of putting out the light, the tender
warning, the fervid remonstrance, the solemn assurance,
yea, the light or the life of love that so long patiently
struggled to save him?
Yes, he would and more;
he would have to repent of this sin which is designated
in Scripture as never to be forgiven, the sin of striking
down your best friend, your God-given guide, of sinning
against the light —
and how? He must repent in dust and ashes, in
darkness and in nothingness. No light, no substance, no
Soul rays, to yield one prop, to give one reflection of
hope and help. Without hope and without God in the world,
for he had sunken God's idea through which the divine
Love could reach him and inasmuch as he smote the person
reflecting God's idea, he had done it to the divine
Principle and hidden from his understanding the Truth and
Love that alone can save him. The window is gone, the
reflection no longer shines for his guidance, the pillar
and cloud pass not before him. He is alone in the desert
an alien to the commonwealth of Israel and a stranger
traveling, drifting he knows not whither.
Oh! What would he not
give now for the light from the window, but how can he
obtain it? What? Where? How? When? is all unanswered, for
the spiritual idea is gone and his material beliefs are
darker, harder, stronger than ever before. Why? Because
with malicious hand ye have slain the Lord.
Does this poor sinner
remember his boast: I have labored three years or
perchance many more to change the superstitious views of
the people as to this window for the ages, as to this
person born among us whose mother was woman and now I
begin to see the effects of my work. I thought I saw a
crack in the window and so had hoped to break it, but
alas! I find it is of strange material. I can neither
break nor destroy this window only to myself and to my
own destruction. It will still be the true idea and I
must come to it and if I had not marred it in my own
belief, it would have lighted me on as it does others.
Mine is the mistake, mine the darkness. Oh! How can I
retrace my steps and enter now? The door is shut, the oil
is not in my lamp, and yet the bridegroom has come, the
spiritual idea could have been wedded to me if only I had
seen it, if only I had not tried to shut out the light
from God's window and shade His reflection and deflect
the true image and likeness.
What is so kind as
reflection? It is not a fraud, for it knows its light is
crowned. It is not hypocritical, for it gives forth only
the substance and idea of its substance and this is God.
It is not unjust, for justice is its eternal objective
state and it cannot shadow forth what is unlike its
original. (Essays on Christian Science Ascribed to
Mary Baker Eddy, p. 68)
A student recorded Mrs.
Eddy's statement:
God has worked through
one in this age because He could. The light will come
through the window because it will let it, while the wall
will not; it would shine through the wall if it could.
God is no respecter of persons. Then would you say the
wall can let in the light the same as the window? No.
Then does one person let in as much light as another? No.
Can the one who lets in the light see what is best for
the others better than the one who does not? Yes. That is
the trouble with those outside (the wall); they think
they can run things just as well and a little better than
I can (the windowpane). How do you know I am a windowpane
for the light to shine through? By the works.
In a letter, Mrs. Eddy
wrote:
Divine Love knows that
love is light, even that light which is the Life of man.
Divine Love knows His window, and knows that it gives
light, not darkness, and is the means of love's entrance
into the hearts of men. The wonder is that aught can make
God's window seem to be what it is not. It was the doubt
and ignorance of what Jesus was and did for all mankind
that shut out and still shuts out the light of Love. What
if the window does offend the senses with the objects it
reveals and the path it points out! It is Love's window
and Love's revelation to mankind. The good gaze at last
with gratitude and joy on what they had not seen but now
see through the window that disturbed the senses, but
pointed the way in Science. (Quoted in Mary Baker
Eddy: Her Spiritual Footsteps, by Gilbert Carpenter
and Gilbert Carpenter, Jr., p. 216)
Sue Harper Mims, a pupil
of Mrs. Eddy, wrote, "There is not a day of my life that I
do not declare at least once, often twice, that malicious
animal magnetism cannot blind me to her [Mrs.
Eddy]. We must fix our gaze on Principle, think of God,
and yet we must recognize who she is." (We Knew Mary
Baker Eddy, Second Series, p. 55)
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