WHAT a wealth of truth is found in that spiritual interpretation of the Bible to which we are led in the study of our Leader's writings! The message of Christian Science which she voices is direct and simple, so simple, indeed, that mortals in their pride of life, a belief of life apart from God, are quite sure to overlook it. It is the revelation of Immanuel—"God with us." Not the God of tradition, the God afar off, but the God of our fathers, the living God, delivering us from all evil in proportion to our realization of His saving presence here and now.
Opening as it does with that wonderful preface, the first two lines of which have been a daily inspiration to the multitudes who were seeking spiritual illumination, and closing with the "Key" to St. John's revelation of a new heaven and new earth, the pages of Science and Health are crowded with declarations of truth, and it brings to the sincere student that spiritual apprehension which leads to the overcoming of sickness and sin. It is impossible for one to become conscious of spiritual truth without proving it to some extent in his daily life. The truth thus gained becomes vital, is not only a part of life but is life itself. Did not the great Teacher say: "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent"? The knowledge of God includes the knowledge of Christ, the Son of God, for how can we know the Father without realizing His nature through the divine sonship? This seems to be the vital point lost to the world since the Master taught the multitudes who thronged about him to hear of the Father. He said: "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him."
This new-old understanding of God, and of His image and likeness, man, brings us a new comprehension of Jesus' mission, of his message to suffering humanity, and of the problems that confronted him in making plain the truth of being to those same multitudes who were eager for the healing but who could not understand the message. The student of Science, though he be but a babe in Christ, enters into a sweet sense of brotherhood and companionship with these earlier prophets and teachers, who had before been to him, perhaps, stern and incomprehensible or vague and even mythical characters. He turns to the Bible, and with joy finds it radiant with revealed truth. No longer is it a sealed book to him. The light of heaven shines out clear and strong. Verse after verse is illumined by this light, and with a sense of infinite peace he comes to his own, realizes that now he has the "Key to the Scriptures" and lo! the Scriptures, themselves, furnish the key to life and its harmonies.
