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ROSS S. PILLSBURY
It has been stated, and truthfully so, that if every copy of the Bible were to be destroyed, its substance would eventually be rewritten. That this would be the case is plainly apparent to the spiritually enlightened thought; for, spiritually discerned, the Bible but portrays the many and varied experiences of the human mind in its struggle upward out of the darkness of ignorance and bondage into spiritual understanding, freedom, and the glorious light of Truth. Time has not changed or softened the condition of those children of Israel who are still in bondage to the Egyptians — to material sense. The Pharaohs and taskmasters of today are no more and no less real than those of the days of Moses, and even as God, ever present good, heard the cry of the children of Israel and sent Moses and Aaron, so today has Christian Science come to reveal to mankind the way of deliverance from the cruel bondage of sin, sickness, and death, and to guide us into the promised land of perfect spiritual understanding. It took many proofs of God's allness and power, and much self-imposed suffering on the part of Pharaoh, before he would let the children of Israel go up out of Egypt. Now we know that "Egypt" stands for materialism, with Pharaoh as the dominant power thereof; also, that the flesh-pots of Egypt, which the children of Israel longed for at times during their sojourn in the wilderness, were and still are neither more nor less than the unrestrained indulgence of the material senses, "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life." As plague after plague came upon them as the result of their unbelief and unwillingness to seek after God, Spirit, in the way of His appointing, it caused them to turn in their extremity to Principle, God, as represented by Moses, for relief and healing; notwithstanding which "Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them." In other words, after relief from the particular discordant condition had been obtained, Pharaoh, or the mesmeric belief of life and pleasure in and of matter, was allowed again to assume the ascendancy; and thrusting aside the good resolves and intentions, they dropped back to a life of ease in matter and the gratification of the material senses, until the self-imposed agony of suffering once more awakened them. Our Leader writes on page 6 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," that "every supposed pleasure in sin will furnish more than its equivalent of pain, until belief in material life and sin is destroyed." It was not until divine Love had revealed to them the falsity of their most deep-seated belief of reality and life in matter, a belief cherished even as a first-born, that the children of Israel were willing to be guided by Moses and seek after the one true God. So it is today. Pharaoh still seeks to keep us in bondage to the Egyptians. After one has found healing and relief in Christian Science from disease and suffering, does not mortal mind seek to suggest again the reality of life and pleasure in matter? We have but to read the book of Exodus with the seeing eye, however, to learn the result of listening and submitting to such suggestions; for many were destroyed in the wilderness — the wilderness of human beliefs. Each so-called problem, each seeming trial, temptation, or suggestion of mortal mind which might seem to confront the student of Christian Science, has its duplicate somewhere along the journey of the children of Israel from Egypt to the promised land of spiritual understanding, as recorded in the Scriptures. How we do rejoice that in these latter days we have the full revelation of Christ, Truth, in Christian Science, the understanding of which gives man dominion and power now to enter into the promised land where "neither moth nor rust doth corrupt," and where nothing can enter "that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie." We can indeed sing the song of Moses and the children of Israel, "Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea . . . The depths have covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone." As Truth spake through Moses when they came to the waters of Marah, even so today does divine Love in infinite wisdom speak to all who have glimpsed the eternal light of Truth in Christian Science, "If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee." As we are grateful for and individually grasp the lessons taught us in the passage of the children of Israel from a material to a spiritual sense of existence, does not the horizon of our view extend until we are enabled to see the significance of the past few years, during which the plague of war has partially aroused a sleeping world, as it were, to an acknowledgment of its utter lack of ability to ward off a seeming impending doom, and which has resulted in a universal reaching out for a higher understanding of Principle, a certain attitude of receptivity to Truth? "And the Lord said unto Moses, Yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh, and upon Egypt; afterwards he will let you go hence." Let us obey the words of the Master, "Arise, let us go hence." And Paul reminds us, "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation."
Christian Science Sentinel, October 11, 1919 |
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