With God, says James, "is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." Again, we read, "From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." What a wealth of spiritual meaning these words contain! Speaking from the standpoint of natural science, how invariable is the operation of light. It forever moves in a straight line, never turning to the right nor to the left. Wherever a ray of sunshine pierces, darkness vanishes. Again, when the law of mathematics dawns in thought, the mistake in numbers vanishes. So likewise in the case of spiritual law. The prodigal may wander far; as an outcast he may blindly companion with the meanest; yet, let him once definitely turn his face toward his true home and he finds the Father's arms outstretched to receive him, and the blessings of love, peace, and abundance awaiting him.
The father in the Master's parable remained at home. He did not accompany the wayward son so much as a single step upon his downward course. The crooked path of error forms no part of the highway of truth. Good does not, cannot companion one instant with evil. Right ideas never deviate from intelligence, nor travel for an instant along the mental course of false beliefs. Divine Love in its nature and activity is absolute and invariable, an eternal beacon light. Night does not extinguish the sun; a turn on the axis brings back the earth into the light. The prodigal cannot change Love's effulgence. He can only turn his back upon it, while Love shines on, awaiting the cry of repentance, "I will arise." Then hope of forgiveness, dawning upon the awakened penitent, guides to the eternal, healing Father-Mother Love.
The certainty of divine Principle's healing activity is not influenced by the mortal element called the duration of the disease. It matters not how many months or years the afflicted one has been in the darkness, the operation of the sunlight is instantaneous. "Real suffering for your own sins will cease," Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 391), "in proportion as the sin ceases."
