AS one reads the testimonies of those who have been healed in Christian Science, or listens to them as given at our Wednesday evening meetings, the impression is received that following close upon the physical healing, with its attendant mental and spiritual freedom, is the opening up of the Bible as a source of boundless treasure. Religious people in general have always admitted this to be true of the Bible, but the widespread nature of human need goes to show that few have known how to avail themselves of the divine supply. It has been largely held that, in accordance with divine law, sickness and sin, poverty and pain, and even death itself, must be submitted to as an essential part of the discipline needed by men. In spite of this belief, however, human sense has rebelled against all such experiences, and little wonder, for the cynic who declared that faith has one logic and fate another, voiced a world-wide sentiment.
The student of Christian Science approaches his human problem with the firm conviction that he has learned from Mrs. Eddy's teachings how to lay hold upon man's divinely bestowed birthright, and this once secured, the possession of all good becomes a question of his own faithfulness. No longer does he regard submission to misfortune as a divine demand, inasmuch as the Bible constantly and consistently urges him to overcome all that is unlike God. As he turns to the first chapter of Genesis, that great charter of human liberty, he pauses for a moment to realize that until spiritual light dawned upon him it was practically meaningless, but now, from the first "God said," every declaration in the chapter tells of limitless good prepared for God's image and likeness. Without the light of Spirit, however, not even one of the divinely provided good things can be discerned, for the so-called light of mortal mind is but darkness, as the Master declared, and "how great is that darkness!"
All through the Scriptures the riches of Truth are brought lo the apprehension of mortals by familiar symbols. In the early days of the children of Israel the flocks and the herds, the corn, wine, and oil, bespoke the abundance in store for all of God's people. At a later date silver, gold, and precious stones typified in the Bible the priceless treasures of Truth, but few remembered that "the price of wisdom is above rubies," or pondered as they should the Master's parable of the "pearl of great price," for the sake of which a man sold all that he had in order to possess it. The Bible truly may be compared to an inexhaustible mine, but it differs from the material counterfeit in that it is not enough to take stock in it. One must himself go down to its depths and, guided by the light of spiritual understanding, seek the treasures which a few have found and the many have missed. Paul was one who both sought and found what he names "the unsearchable riches of Christ."
