ONE summer night as the writer awakened, her eye caught the steadfast light of a star. The windowpane seemed to blur the starlight; so the open window was sought. It was a moonless night and the familiar scene seemed unfamiliar. She knew that lakes were there, engirded by trees; also that a distant hill reared itself against the horizon. Yet nothing was visible save many lights, —the myriad stars and the lamps lighting the roadway. And, lastly, it was observed that these lamps were being mirrored in the quiet surface of the lakes, while the lakes themselves remained invisible. To the watcher, learning the lessons of the night-scene, this last typified the unassuming self-forgetfulness which seeks, in still, watchful humility, to mirror God, divine Love. "Stand by the limpid lake," our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, says in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 150). "Then, in speechless prayer, ask God to enable you to reflect God, to become His own image and likeness, even the calm, clear, radiant reflection of Christ's glory, healing the sick, bringing the sinner to repentance, and raising the spiritually dead in trespasses and sins to life in God."
Jesus' works proved the presence and power of divine Love to heal, for all time and beyond all question; and through the revelation of Christian Science this great ministry has reappeared to humanity to-day. But to this end there must needs be absolute sincerity in one's reflection of Love; as Paul says, "Let love be without dissimulation." The desire should be to draw earth's prodigals to God, not to ourselves. How did it happen that the one tormented with the legion of devils (evil beliefs) felt impelled to run and cast himself at the feet of Jesus? To material sense, he seemed but an outcast, bereft of reason, a danger both to himself and to others, shunning and being shunned by every one, exiled among the tombs beyond the confines of the city. Doubtless many thousands of people had passed that way; and the probability is that they hurried by un-heeding, or else that they feared and condemned him. We read that Jesus, bearing always in his heart a great love for God and man, redeemed that tormented mortal, whose iron chains typified the sin which claimed to bind him. In an instant, those unreal bonds fell away, leaving him free. Again, what drew the Magdalen to the feet of Jesus, despite the hostile gaze of the Pharisees? Simply spiritual love, the true perception of man, mirrored in the consciousness of Jesus the Christ. And what did the Master seek to illustrate in the parable of the prodigal son, if not the unalterable love of God, which always beholds its own pure idea?
Could the so-called miracles of Jesus have taken place but for the everlasting presence and power of divine Love? Again, what would be the plight of humanity to-day if materiality were the boundary of its thought? Since God is invisible and unknown to the physical senses, how is it that divine Love can meet human needs? Through spiritual understanding, as given by the revelation of Christian Science. One should be compassionate and prompt in responding to the calls of necessity, as was the good Samaritan in ministering to the veriest stranger. What does it mean to reflect Love? And how, one asks one's self, is this wonder to be accomplished? Christian Science teaches that he who would reflect Love must rule out the false beliefs of mortal mind which are contrary to Truth and Love. The seven terms quoted in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, as synonyms for God, need to be pondered deeply, in order that the nature of Deity, or divine Love, may be better understood. Taking Love as synonymous with Spirit, for instance, it will be seen that the belief in and the fear of matter hinder the clear reflection of spiritual love. Again, when Love and divine Principle are seen to be synonymous, it becomes evident that evil speaking, as well as selfish elbowing and grumbling, must be guarded against unceasingly by those who seek to express Principle as divine Love. Since spiritual man is the complete expression of Deity, how prayerfully should we seek to hold our gaze to the complete and perfect model. Christian Science bids us hold fast to the grand truth of the unity of God and man, and to rest assured that man in God's likeness is now and always beyond and above all taint of sin, sickness, and death.
