IN Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy often speaks of the apparent obscuration of Mind, Truth, by mortal belief, under the figure of clouds obscuring the light of the sun. By carrying out this line of illustration, some of the points in the philosophy of Christian Science which are considered difficult by beginners may be cleared up.
Let us suppose that there were an island in the Pacific ocean far removed from all other land, inhabited by a people who had never had communication with people from any other country. Let us assume, further, that the conditions were such that the sky over this island was always overcast with clouds,—not clouds of uniform consistency, but with clouds always drifting, and somewhat broken; never thin enough in any place to permit the outline of the sun's disk to be visible, but thin enough in places, now and then, to permit the sun's light to be manifest in golden spots in the clouds, otherwise comparatively dark.
Naturally the people of this island, never having had direct sense perception of the sun, would have no word in their language with which to speak of it; nor would they have any knowledge of the sun, unless they had reasoned out that there must be such an object. They would have a word signifying light, and they would probably think that the clouds were the source of this light. Seeing light spots in the clouds, here and there, they would exclaim, "Oh, how beautiful!" and they would very much desire to keep these light spots from fading or drifting away, but they would be unable to do so.
