OPPRESSED by the trials and troubles of their daily lives, mortals have looked with longing eyes either to a golden age from which they believed themselves to be separated by the mists of antiquity, or, in more modern days, to a heaven in an unknown future, to be found only after death.
The beginner in Christian Science may accept as a logical deduction from the nature of God as Spirit, infinite good, the only cause and creator, that His offspring, man, must express God's spiritual, perfect nature and be now in heaven. He sees this to be the teaching of the Gospel, remembering our Lord's words, "The kingdom of God is within you." Yet, though he accepts the statement intellectually, he may fail to get even a glimpse of what it actually means. He seems surrounded by a sense of obscurity, as one in some fairy legend, spellbound in the depths of a cavern, may see the sun shining at the mouth of the cave and yet be unable to step out into the free open air. Feeling himself material, yet knowing that he is really spiritual, Where am I? is his constant query.
It is told of Archimedes that he declared that if he could find some spot outside the earth which would serve as a fulcrum, he could thereon place a lever which would move the earth. The student of Christian Science must recognize his individuality as outside of matter, if he would remove himself from material personality and the trials and troubles and obscurity which accompany it.
