To the mortal who turns to the light of Truth as revealed in Christian Science, whether impelled by physical suffering, business embarrassments, unappeasable sorrow, or the desire to satisfy longings and aspirations of the heart, the thought of freedom is ever uppermost. This thought, however, is in some cases coupled with the mental reservation that the healing will be made manifest in matter. There is a reaching out for aid somewhat like that of the drowning man who tries to catch a floating log, not sure of making it, but feeling that if he should, he could drift down the stream until some happy circumstance should land him once more on terra firma. Not a single former experience has been disturbed by this episode of extreme fear, not one material plan or purpose has been shattered, not one smallest grain of blind faith in physical economics has been shaken; the help came in a way and manner fitting fleshly usage and propriety. Yet not infrequently healing comes to this negative condition of thought, just as it did to the nine lepers, who did not return to give thanks because they did not appreciate, much less apprehend, the divine Principle of their cure.
Yet why, it will be asked, are such cases touched sufficiently with Love's healing balm to respond so promptly? Was light ever known to have any affinity for darkness? Is it conceivable that light can be any part of darkness or be in any place where darkness remains? Also, is it not equally clear that Love is never conscious of its seeming opposite, that being the source of its own ineffable radiation, it exists alike for all? Then does it not logically follow, as the dawn the night, that the darkest room will brighten if pierced by the tiniest ray of light, and the most self-ingrained mortal thought will quicken if the door of consciousness is opened ever so little to the knock of Truth? Thus the self-mesmerized mortal thought, steeped in its own sense of suffering, bolstered up by its pride of mortal will, and puffed up to the point of glorying in its capacity to bend or stiffen as the whim of chance or circumstance inclines, relaxes somewhat its rigid hold on the shadow of belief, and the sunlight of good invigorates and renews. But in this radiating and reflecting process has God's glory been made manifest and His kingdom come to earth? Yes, in so far as God's mercies cannot cease to be so long as His works exist.
In his travel along the mental road from sense to Soul the individual's experience varies little if any from that of nations. History shows us that once powerful and influential states have gone on from one degree to another of selfish aggrandizement, relentless persecution, hostile threatenings, and proud domination, until collective hate, malice, and state intrigue have so gnawed, as it were, at the very vitals of governmental honesty and uprightness as to make them an easy prey to stronger, more valiant, and wiser neighbors. A nation's probity may be so stultified by its thraldom to the evil beliefs which, as Paul says, "so easily beset us," that it cannot see when good comes, but is "like the heath in the desert," clinging all the while, in its pride of power and power of pride, to the false god of self-glorification, and failing to learn the lesson of service and international equity, all because of its stolid indifference to what should be the primary of governmental polity, "justice and judgment" enthroned.
