ONE not infrequently meets with those who though they would be offended by the imputation that they are stupid, nevertheless aver that the teaching of Christian Science is quite beyond them. They may have been impressed with its history and its influence upon individuals, and perchance been convinced that it is effective in solving human problems, but they are tempted to say that they "haven't the cleverness to get hold of it." They therefore do not enter upon its study, and consequently remain identified with some order of thought which is inoffensively familiar, but which they very frankly concede is unsatisfactory and inadequate.
The handicap which this belief imposes is not inconsiderable. It serves to discourage effort to apprehend spiritual truth, and in so far quite interdicts spiritual progress. Even one of the disciples may have been disabled by it, when in answer to Jesus' words, "Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know," he said, "Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?" The Master met such self-imposed limitations either by creating conviction of the truth of what lie taught, whether understood or not, through the demonstration of the healing power which it conferred; or by the use of illustrations which turned thought away from the confusions of belief to the simplicities of something that was clearly understood. He linked the known and the so-called unknowable in such a tactful way that the one was illumined by the other. Thus he identified divine Truth as light, and declared himself as the reflection of Truth to be "the light of the world."
Now, while to the physical scientist the explanation of light may present very great difficulties, its phenomena are perfectly intelligible even to the tyro. No one can fail to recognize the fact that light and darkness cannot abide together, and that in a world of light there can be no sense or thought of darkness save by those who are abnormal, blind. It is also clear that light is wholly unaffected by any degree of incapacity to receive it. Further, it is manifest that darkness is negative, without substance or power; that it expresses nothing whatever but the absence of light, to which it offers no resistance and is wholly unknown.
