PLAINTIVELY sang Milton, "Seasons return;" and a note of sadness, even a note of melancholy, runs through much of what is written and said of autumn, the harvest time of the year. Yet what a vision of beauty, what a riot of color, what an abundance of fruitage, what a glory of accomplishment the season brings! Why should that note of sadness creep like an undertone of dirge into the joyous song of the reapers?
A dictionary speaks of autumn as "the third stage." Thus a Christian Scientist's thought was turned to our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and to Mrs. Eddy's chart of the "Scientific Translation of Mortal Mind," on pages 115 and 116, in which she gives the "Third Degree" as "Understanding," —the stage in which mortal mind, in its translation out of itself, disappears in the "spiritual," which she defines as "wisdom, purity, spiritual understanding, spiritual power, love, health, holiness." This, then, is the climax of the ascending pathway. At this point evil ceases even to claim to be, and the divine reflection or image is known to be at-one with God,—Mind, Spirit, Soul, Love, Truth, Life, divine Principle.
A mortal seems to be physical or material, with mortal frailties, passions, appetites, selfish motives, sensual desires; liable to sin, sickness, and death. Mortals even insist that they are animal in nature, and that a more highly developed brain beneath the skull bone is all that differentiates them from the beast. They also assume that various forms of matter can befoul and benumb this brain and turn one into a beast.
