Long ago the psalmist asked, "What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" and throughout all the ages thinkers have been asking and attempting to answer this question. Even philosophy has seen that man cannot be defined in terms of matter, and a well-known authority in this line has said that to the extent one "belongs to matter" he is "the slave of necessity . . . and it is only as a spark of divinity glows as the life of our life in us, that we can rationally believe in an intelligent creator and moral governor of the universe." This means that one must prove at least to himself that God is, and daily trace his relation to Deity in noble living. The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews quotes the psalmist' s query with the added statement, "Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet," then goes on with the sorrowful comment, "But now we see not yet all things put under him." The divine bestowal upon man of dominion is here and elsewhere contrasted with the mortal sense of bondage, the most persistent characteristic of which is the fear of death. Like "conscience," this makes cowards of most people, and when one rises superior to it, in the face of impending danger, it only goes to show the truth of Mrs. Eddy's words onpage 244 of Science and Health, that "man was never more nor less than man."
Mortal history is a dreary record of sin and suffering, but there have been gleams of light all through the ages when man's divine possibilities were glimpsed; and even if it were but for a moment, it furnishes cumulative evidence that God has never left Himself without witness to the intent of creation. That this light has not been a continuous manifestation to humanity is due to the density of material belief, which insistently holds to a creation unlike the divine creator, an effect unlike the one perfect cause. Real harmony and real progress for men or nations, apart from God, is quite impossible, and here again we would quote Mrs. Eddy, who says (Miscellaneous Writings, Pref., p. ix), "To preserve a long course of years still and uniform, amid the uniform darkness of storm and cloud and tempest, requires strength from above,—deep draughts from the fount of divine Love."
As we ponder deeply the problem of man as we see him in Christian Science, we rejoice that he can no more be obliterated than can God, and as one becomes thus conscious of his divine origin, others respond to its mighty appeal. We read of Livingstone in the African jungle, cut off from all that we regard as essential to our human nature, but because of the depths of love reflected in his heart the untaught dwellers in the desert became his friends, and tender, loving ministrants to his need, showing that wherever God is, man is, although this "doth not yet appear" to mortal sense.
