STARS IN THE DARKNESS

In the Scriptures we read of Jacob, who, in a strange place, in darkness and alone, yet had a vision of divine help, and later declared, "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not." Thousands of years after Jacob's time, we read of that other who knelt alone in the darkness of Gethsemane, and amid the greater darkness of the world's hatred and misunderstanding. Alone and in darkness, there he, also, communed with God, and found strength with which to tread the path which lay before him.

Darkness! The very word seems like a knell upon the heart. Darkness seems to embody fear; and in the darkness all fears are magnified. There is even a phrase which speaks of "the power of darkness." When brave sunshine comes again, we smile that we ever feared; yet, when night falls, once more we are apt to feel the touch of dread. In the darkness do we not more earnestly turn to the invisible good we know as God? In the darkness we realize the need of something outside ourselves. Certainly, we seem more self-sufficient when things are bright and the outlook clear, whether it be a sunny day or a bright stretch of harmonious existence. Let shadows fall, and many of these things which before seemed so real and substantial are found to be quite undependable, quite insufficient to comfort or to help us; and yet, when it becomes dark we behold the stars. The lonely mariner, the traveler on the desert,— how these two welcome the companionable lights which speak of far-away fellow-travelers in the blue empyrean. The stars beam serenely, or flash with glory, or seem to look down as sweetly as forget-me-nots from their dark azure fields. Their message is of something above earth's smoke and discord, above its smirch and stain and grind; and the thought which beholds them is lifted, in its turn, above some of the harshness which may have been part of the day. They breathe a message of another world, of a purer life. David felt this when he wrote in one of the psalms, "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained." And, so, we cannot fail to see that not the royal sun nor the mild moon can utter to the heart of man just what the stars in their beauty say.

In the dark places which we sometimes traverse, as we journey from sense to Soul, we are lifted up and strengthened by the stars which shine out upon us. Divine Love has not neglected to provide stars for these darknesses. Are we not often amazed, when we come into the gloom of a personal grief, to find how many stars there are sparkling all about us, stars of friendly love and kindliness? Perhaps we never realized before how loving the hearts of men are, how delicate and tender their proffers of service and of help. Then also, we find glowing there those great stars, God's promises. These beam upon us serenely, with their messages of unchanging goodness. In such a place we see and appreciate, as we never did before, that great golden light of the life of our Savior, he who walked the earth and served humanity amid all its sordid and sorrowful phases. Then, also, because our eyes have come to know better how to pierce the darkness, we more rightly appraise the majesty of Christian Science, revealing the spiritual good of the Scriptures in endless whirls and loops of small and great points of glory.

The stars in the darkness of trouble, the stars appointed for our guidance and comfort by divine Love, are seen and loved as they never had been seen and loved during the days of ease, human pleasure, and personal gratification. As we love them and are grateful for them, we are lifted above the gloom; and, before we know it, once more we find that the sun is shining, and that "joy cometh in the morning; " for all the time God walked with us and we were secure.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 340): "The lives of great men and women are miracles of patience and perseverance. Every luminary in the constellation of human greatness, like the stars, comes out in the darkness to shine with the reflected light of God." It has been said that every great need in human affairs calls forth the great individual: at the time of the American Revolution, George Washington stepped forth; and in a later period, in the dark days of the Civil War, our beloved Abraham Lincoln dared to stand for the right. Of him Edwin Markham has written:—

Of these two the word of Ezra might have been written: "And by the good hand of our God upon us they brought us a man of understanding." Of that which followed Lincoln's mission and work, the author of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" says (p. 226): "The voice of God in behalf of the African slave was still echoing in our land, when the voice of the herald of this new crusade sounded the keynote of universal freedom, asking a fuller acknowledgment of the rights of man as a Son of God, demanding that the fetters of sin, sickness, and death be stricken from the human mind and that its freedom be won, not through human warfare, not with bayonet and blood, but through Christ's divine Science." Truly this were a greater and deeper bondage, one more enthralling than physical slavery, the bondage wherein humanity, deceived by its own beliefs, dwelt in darkness, knowing not of the light, which was all the time shining upon it. In Mrs. Eddy's book "Christ and Christmas" is the verse (p. 53):—

This is the star, the star of Bethlehem, the star of Christian Science, which would not be quenched. Mrs. Eddy was herself one of those great women, one who was a miracle of patience and perseverance. Darkness tried to stifle her and to enshroud her. It tried, and still tries, to quench the beam which the truth she discovered sheds upon earth's darkness; but no amount of gloom can quench even one little ray of light, which shines on and pierces and continues to pierce the darkness. The denser the blackness, the more clearly the star can be seen.

The world may well rejoice for this star in the darkness,—the Science of Christianity,—which bids earth's wanderers look up, and which shines by the light of divine Love. Christian Science, through its manifold rays of light,—its church, its textbook, its Manual, its literature, and its practice,—is so enlightening the dark places that even the blind eyes are touched, and open ever wider to perceive its message. For its teaching is not mysterious, but understandable; not academic, but practical, —as practical as that of the master Christian, who said he came to do the will of the Father, and straightway healed the sick, fed the hungry, comforted the sorrowing. These works Christian Science is again today repeating and, like Christ Jesus, asks to be judged only by its works. These works in themselves are stars in the darkness, cheering all who behold them, since theirs also is the reflected light of divine Love.

The joy of the hand that hews for beauty
Is the dearest solace under the sun.

Bliss Carman.