Behind our every experience, back of all we hear and see, lie meanings deeper than are indicated on the surface, as we know; and under the impetus which has come with the light of Christian Science, the thoughts of mortals are being directed, more than ever before, to the reading of these hidden yet ever-open texts. As it is with living beings and their ways, so is it. also, with all nature round about us. The pure heart and the clear mind are ever being signaled to look beneath the outward seeming: for, as Mrs. Eddy says, "From the infinite elements of the one Mind emanate all forms, colors, and qualities; and these are mental, both primarily and secondarily" (Science and Health, p. 512). To understand, therefore, in some measure, what we see. and to grow in this understanding, thought must become spiritualized; for, regarding these things, Mrs. Eddy further says, "Their spiritual nature is discerned only through the spiritual senses" (Science and Health, p. 512), while their more or less distorted images, as seen through the deflecting medium of mortal mind, are likewise recognized for what they are, and separated, in thought, from the true.
All this was recently illustrated, and most vividly, upon a journey. We were a party, and had reached, one day, a goal of long anticipation. We stood upon a lofty crag, in place apart, wide from the ways of men; each alone, some distance from the other, alone with his thoughts and God. A panorama of splendor unexcelled stretched out before us, for we gazed upon the far-famed canon of the Yellowstone. And yet, it was a splendor passing to decay. The wild wonder of the color seemed, if one may so express it, nature's limning of despair. The glory was a dying glory, at once fit type of the promise and the mockery of all material thought.
In the near distance the mountains lifted their majestic heads, testifying, from furthermost generation unto the furthermost, in unparalleled symbol, till of symbol there is no need, to the grand solidities of Truth and Spirit. But the near-by buttes, scarred and scathed, spoke to us impressively of mortal resistance to Truth, of "coldness and stubbornness" (Science and Health, p. 593). In æons past there had been enacted here a Titanic struggle. Way back in the ages the cataclysm occurred; and thence, as century succeeded century, the giant bulwarks have given way, as they still are doing, inch by inch, before the unremitting onslaught of those of nature's agencies which to-day speak to us of purifying and overcoming, as well as of activity and power.
