An old Spanish play by Calderon tells this story: The hero throughout his life was thwarted in all his plans for the acquisition of wealth, honor, or happiness by a veiled stranger, who constantly thrust in some difficulty, disagreement, or delay, and brought his hopes and plans to naught. He could not get at his enemy, could not find out who he was or why he so persistently and maliciously pursued him. The veil concealed his identity. The hero became more and more wretched, and inclined to quarrel with his fate and pity his own woes. The stranger even contrived to come between the hero and those whom he most loved and trusted, and he at length felt himself betrayed to loneliness, friendlessness, and despair. At last, when he had determined to meet his antagonist face to face, suddenly the stranger appeared of his own accord, unveiled his face, and revealed—the hero's own features. His supposed enemy had been himself!
Those coming to Christian Science may have had an experience similar to the one given. Well for them, however, if it is the gentle touch of Christ, Truth, not the cold hand of condemnation, which draws aside the veil and reveals the cause of the trouble! For while suffering, as a stern but effective teacher, may point to self as the reason for failure, it still leaves the sufferer chained to his foe, knowing it for a foe but seemingly unable to escape from it. Science finds very many brooding over an unfortunate manner, an irritable disposition, etc., thus offering up a vain sacrifice on the altar of their own temperament. Hence the depth and intensity of the gratitude which one feels for Christian Science, which definitely and precisely shows the way out, teaching how every valley of wrong thinking, sin, and depression can be exalted, and every mountain of selfishness be made low; how the crooked can be made straight and the rough places plain.
The beginner in Christian Science should not mistake this unveiling of the stranger in consciousness for the afflicting rod, and fail to recognize that it is a primal and necessary function of Truth to uncover error in motives, methods, and results. Let him be most grateful for it! Without this lesson he would probably continue to ascribe failure to causes outside of himself, and thus go on believing in the same old evil under a new name. So long as he believes the causes of ill success to lie without, he is powerless against them and so continues at their mercy. But the tender Father-Mother does not leave him in this darkness. So great is the redemptive and purifying force of even a grain of Truth, that whenever the new, right concept of man as a spiritual idea, reflecting the substance of Mind, dawns on the understanding and affections, one's whole mental outlook is changed. What was formerly just "his way of doing things," is now seen to be a chaos of conflicting opinions, instincts, impulses, prejudices, and habits, far removed from the government of Principle.
