A Quantity of potatoes was stored in a dark cellar. Some were still unused when spring's loving touch set free the imprisoned beliefs of winter. Under this actinic touch one of the potatoes sprouted and sent out a tendril feeling for the light. It lay near the thick foundation wall of the house, and in its hunger and thirst for light, this delicate but persistent tendril pressed its way through the small crevices in the thick foundation wall until it joyously hailed and drank in the sunlight. Here joy and gratitude broke out in bud and bloom. What a lesson for "man, proud man"!
From this meek manifestation of light-loving activity, may we not learn patience, steadfastness, humility, and gratitude? And may we not also learn from its symbolism that the entire universal creation lives by and in the eternal, omnipresent, creative Mind, which includes all light? Indeed, we are not going too far, and are in no degree fanciful, when we perceive in this lowly incident a commentary upon and an illustration and proof of Paul's inspired prophecy, "Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." Creation itself shall emerge from our misty material beliefs about it into the resplendent, eternal light of spiritual reality. Then, assuredly, we shall understand and appreciate more fully that won-drously profound, scientific statement of our inspired Leader, given in our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 468): "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation."
John declares that "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." When this expression of infinite Truth is in some degree apprehended by us, we shall no longer be mystified by the hunger and thirst of all creation for light. Shall we not then see it as the constant craving of the creature for the creator? The Psalmist's song and Paul's stately prose will then be understood as correlatives illumining each other. God is omnipresent. The light of spiritual understanding is, therefore, universal and never absent. Only in our blindness, our ignorance and fear, our puerile false beliefs, is creation submerged in darkness and mystery. It is, as Isaiah tells us, our wrong thinking, our superstition, our self-will,—these alone,—which set up seemingly insurmountable barriers, and open apparently impassable gulfs between God and us, and between the vision of spiritual creation and our self-blinded eyes. It is these false beliefs and their progeny of fears and follies that raise the almost impenetrable mists of human opinion and speculation which shut out the light of Truth and shroud creation in Cimmerian gloom.
