To those oppressed by the fettering theology of long centuries of superstition, one of the most striking and encouraging of Mrs. Eddy's inspired elucidations of the truth of being, of man's relation to God, is her unqualified statement to the effect that the greatest gift bestowed by a loving and just creator is the ability to recognize the nothingness of evil, and therefore to rise superior to its manifold forms. This was not a special revelation to a privileged few at a particular and strictly limited epoch, but on the contrary this revelation has been with mankind throughout the ages, and therefore is ours here and now.
Our Leader says, "Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets caught glorious glimpses of the Messiah, or Christ" (Science and Health, p. 333). Doubtless these seers were not at all times able to maintain their thoughts at the high level to which they were on occasion exalted, nor altogether able to rise superior to an anthropomorphic concept of God. Consequently they did not attain to the spiritual perception manifested later by Christ Jesus, whose constancy through good report and evil report as a demonstrator of the boundless love of God has been the wonder and comfort of all succeeding centuries. Nevertheless their failure was but a question of degree, while their measure of attainment was sufficient to serve as an encouragement to all who desire to emulate them. During the past few years, corroboration of Mrs. Eddy's assurance that God has imposed no arbitrary limits as to the how and when of this appearing, has been forthcoming from a most unexpected quarter, having indeed been furnished to us by the researches of the Egyptologists.
Nearly fourteen hundred years before the commencement of the Christian era there ascended the throne of the Pharaohs a youth aged eleven, who although to human sense frail and delicate and possessing a malformed skull, was speedily recognized as one whose depth and originality of philosophic thought was far in advance of anything which his or any preceding age had ever experienced. Amenhotep IV, as he was then called, assumed the scepter at a period when the domination of the priesthood of Amon was so complete that even the otherwise autocratic monarchs cowered before them in fear, lest in the performance of their functions as high priests vigilant eyes should detect any violation of the elaborate ritual which the hierarchy had decreed, and make use of it still further to extend the priestly power. But this gentle-mannered, peace-loving boy was inspired with the moral courage not only to defy the corrupt and tyrannical servants of Amon and the whole pantheon of gods, but actually to overthrow them, and to proclaim in simple, dignified language, every word of which bespeaks profound conviction, a pure and uncompromising monotheism,—a monotheism, moreover, knowing naught but good.
