IF there is anything defective or discordant in our life plan, it must be because we have not yet made all things "according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount." Turning to the passage in Exodus from which these words are quoted, one finds it full of most scrupulously given details and particulars relating to the construction of the tabernacle. Now the tabernacle was to the people God's dwelling-place. In those early days of spiritual awakening in which the human consciousness was beginning to turn from matter to Mind, the first lessons that were to be mentally apprehended by the Hebrew people were accuracy, economy, and thoroughness. God is here represented as giving Moses the most minute instructions regarding the work, even to providing for the use of "the remnant that remaineth of the curtains of the tent, the half curtain that remaineth;" and again we find it specified that "ten cubits shall be the length of a board, and a cubit and a half shall be the breadth of one board," etc.
While we would find it impossible to believe that God planned out a material structure of this kind and literally communicated the details to Moses, it is possible to understand that to Moses had come an awakening which has perhaps had no exact parallel in human experience, and with it came the call to communicate this light to those who were under his charge and leadership, just as it has come to others since. Mrs. Eddy says of Moses that he "advanced a nation to the worship of God in Spirit instead of matter, and illustrated the grand human capacities of being bestowed by immortal Mind" (Science and Health, p. 200). The very first lesson that he taught them in this direction was that of exactness in the things of which they understood something. This was the first way in which they were to learn something of human capacities, and reverence for God was to be their motive. The fact that Moses attributed the whole plan to the dictation of God means perhaps little more than when one says, "It is scientific," to do this or that, meaning thereby that it is according to Principle or law. Moses provided a tent for Spirit to dwell in, because it was not as yet possible for mankind to consider infinite intelligence impersonally, although they could believe God to be invisible.
Later there was to come one who would say, "Ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. . . . The true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth." If today we are able to worship God "in spirit and in truth," is it not because the lessons of exactness, i.e., recognition of the fact that law governs everything, which Moses began, have been or are being learned? We cannot forget that Jesus spoke of himself as coming not to destroy the teaching of the past, but to fulfill—to bring it to fruition, thus revealing the freedom which comes of the knowledge of Truth. The suggestion that there is greater spirituality in neglecting the irksome details and petty economies of life is an argument advanced by laziness, and finds no support in Christian Science, which teaches that "the human footsteps leading to perfection are indispensable" (Science and Health, p. 254).
