Mrs. Eddy's wonderfully exact use of words continually enlightens the one endeavoring to turn from the dualism of unreal sense testimony to the light of Spirit. The inspiration which comes of the turning to Principle, the one Ego, is needed to gain the spiritual meaning of the Scriptures and it is needed in just the same way to get at the profound meaning of the statements in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" and Mrs. Eddy's other works. Like the beloved disciple John, Mrs. Eddy, the Founder of Christian Science, continually points away from matter to that truth of being which reveals Spirit as not only noumenon but phenomenon as well.
In her poem, "Christ and Christmas," three stanzas read:—
Fast circling on, from zone to zone,—
Bright, blest, afar,—
O'er the grim night of chaos shone
One lone, brave star.
In tender mercy, Spirit sped
A loyal ray
To rouse the living, wake the dead,
And point the Way—
The Christ-idea, God anoints—
Of Truth and Life;
The Way in Science He appoints,
That stills all strife.
The radiation of spiritual consciousness is found here just as in John's words in the fourth and fifth verses of the first chapter of his gospel: "In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." The same idea of loyalty is also expressed. The radiation of Spirit is loyal or true to its origin, to the one infinite source from which it emanates. The light shines in a dark place, because it would not be true to the essential nature of light if it did not. The light is the life of men because it is the light of Mind, the idea of God, good seen as omnipresent spiritual consciousness. It is just because infinite spiritual consciousness, Mind, God, made all inseparably one in and of Himself, Mind, that thought is the one important consideration, and that words spiritually interpreted lead on to the spiritually actual.
Mortal or human mind assumes finity as the proper standpoint of experience and interpretation. For instance, loyalty viewed ignorantly —that is, apart from the perception of Mind—is quite usually regarded as a personal quality which may or may not be expressed in character. When it is thus expressed its object is usually somebody or something subject to all the variations of human experience. Humanity, however, in a distant sort of way, recognizes loyalty as a thing to be desired, but with the inaccuracy of material sense it is content that it should remain uncertain both in quality and duration, as it is bound to be when subject to the variations of personal sense. Yet all the while the word itself indicates its true meaning, since its Latin origin is legalis, law. The mere recognition of this sweeps the uncertain personal element out of sight. It shows, too, the immutability of Spirit's radiation, for "Spirit sped a loyal ray," and in the supremacy of Spirit and Spirit's manifestation lies the metaphysical actuality of salvation. Without any effort, just by virtue of its own radiant nature, the manifestation of Spirit is bound to be loyal to Spirit and thus to be in direct opposition to the make-believe and compromise of material sense. To be loyal to Spirit the effect must be in accord with cause, and thus Spirit is seen as Principle, whose manifestation is spiritual law. The oneness of good is the spiritual fact which governs every statement regarding both God and idea, and it is the actual infinite basis for true thinking in reflection of Mind.
Only by the conscious recognition of the rightness or loyalty of Spirit's manifestation can the supremacy of Spirit or Principle and spiritual law be enjoyed in human experience, and lawlessness be eradicated. "The breaking up of material beliefs may seem to be famine and pestilence, want and woe, sin, sickness, and death, which assume new phases until their nothingness appears," Mrs. Eddy says on page 96 of Science and Health. Over this grim night of chaos shines "one lone, brave star," lone only to mortal view, because the light of Mind preceded sun, moon, and stars, and is the primal, infinite fact. The immanence of spiritual consciousness is recognized just there where material sense has ceased to satisfy and mortals turn earnestly seeking for deliverance from the quagmire of human beliefs. This phase of mortal experience and the ever at hand quality of Truth is the subject of a wonderful passage on page 189 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," where Mrs. Eddy says: "The government of divine Love derives its omnipotence from the love it creates in the heart of man; for love is allegiant, and there is no loyalty apart from love. When the human senses wake from their long slumber to see how soon earth's fables flee and faith grows wearisome, then that which defies decay and satisfies the immortal cravings is sought and found. In the twilight of the world's pageantry, in the last-drawn sigh of a glory gone, we are drawn towards God."
Standing on the threshold of a further realization of the Christ-consciousness, of heaven here, the need of heeding the warning which Jesus gave to his disciples, to watch and pray, is greater even than at the time when it was uttered; for, in the presence of divine Science understood, evil is making another stand against its inevitable destruction. Lawful or loyal thinking is the only guarantee of awakeness, and to enjoy the strength of the Lord the Constant recognition of man's at-one-ment with Principle is essential. It is related in the gospel according to Luke that just before the culmination of the human mind's conspiracy against the revelation of Truth in that age, the Master, having declared the immortality of Mind and Mind's utterance, added a warning against the materiality which would darken understanding and prevent the recognition of the day of the Lord. "Watch ye therefore, and pray always," he said.
In the spiritual communion of Jesus the Christ with his Father, as recorded by John in the seventeenth chapter of his gospel, the declaration is made of the knowledge which idea, or the Son, possesses of the Mind that is All. It is the declaration of what is, of the now of Spirit, of the point of perfection from which Christian Science must be practiced. To pray thus is to be truly conscious. It is to enter in at the straight gate of loyal thinking, which is radically the opposite to sense premise and conclusion, the broad way leading to destruction. Thought can only radiate loyalty to Spirit, can only reflect the love that is in accord with Love, as it seeks the solution of each problem and each situation by exchanging false concepts for the one spiritual idea. This is the purification which produces the gradually increasing realization of spiritual freedom. The process appears more or less prolonged but it is hastened by the humility which Science imparts. This humility uncovers self-will, self-love, and self-justification as the hypothetical buttresses of personal sense, which is but delusion; and at this point of discovery Mrs. Eddy places the blessing of which she speaks in the first chapter of "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 1), "The mounting sense gathers fresh forms and strange fire from the ashes of dissolving self, and drops the world."
