HOW grateful we should be that Truth, which Christian Science reveals, never leaves us, although we may appear to leave it at times. Discouragement or material expediency may enmesh us and try to reverse our progress, but invariably the Christ, Truth, turns us anew to the light. When once Truth is comprehended, even though in small degree, it urges us upward constantly, regardless of the effort of mortal mind to impede. In this respect we are like the needle of a magnetic compass. The needle as a piece of unmagnetized steel remains in any position; but let it once be tempered and magnetized and free to swing, and it will not come to rest until it points towards the magnetic north. It may be held away for a while, its direction may be altered; but the forces are there to cause the turning when the resistance yields. On page 102 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy says: "There is but one real attraction, that of Spirit. The pointing of the needle to the pole symbolizes this all-embracing power or attraction of God, divine Mind."
How impossible it is for discouragement long to control us when once we grasp the divine fact of Truth's unvarying power! A period of disheartenment is understood by an earnest Christian Scientist to be an unreality; and its duration is minimized in the exact degree of this understanding. During some such period, however, error may be so insistent that fear asserts a seeming control, and it may appear to the sufferer that the light of understanding has vanished, never to return; that the reality of Spirit has become unreal to his sense; that he is apparently powerless to help himself or others.
This may be likened to the experience of an imaginary world occupying a position relative to the sun similar to our own world. Surrounded by continuously heavy clouds, the inhabitants would be unaware of the sun's existence, and their condition of darkness would seem very real, very permanent. But if a glimmer of light appeared through a rift in the clouds, glowing more brilliantly as the mists dispersed, until the full sunlight was revealed, then its warmth and beauty would be shared by all. With the return of the clouds, however, the people might believe that their experience had been merely a phenomenal one, and one not to be expected as a normal occurrence. Then they might continue to believe their old condition of mist and darkness to be permanent, and in their ignorance would find little encouragement to expect the sunlight again. But even so, upon the recurrence of periods of sunshine, their thought would undergo a change; and they would begin to understand that the sun was there all the time. After this assurance or understanding had been established, future times of darkness would be met without discouragement. On page 189 of Science and Health we read: "If the eyes see no sun for a week, we still believe that there is solar light and heat. Science (in this instance named natural) raises the human thought above the cruder theories of the human mind, and casts out a fear."
