AS students of Christian Science, we understand that spiritual man reflects his Father-Mother God, seeing only as God sees, knowing only that which is of God, eternally dwelling in His wisdom and love. Furthermore, true reflection is unerring, unchangeable, like God. According to the spiritual account of creation, it appeared when "God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good."
A scene observed in the Canadian Rockies proved a great help to the writer in unfolding a clearer sense of the reflected glory of God, in man, His manifestation. At the close of day, as each snow-clad summit of the great mountains caught the setting sun, in unerring exactitude and beauty outlining the huge pinnacles, there was mirrored in minute detail in the clear, still waters of a lake the grandeur and fullness of the scene. The observer could not have told the actual from the reflection; there seemed no line of demarcation; the scene was complete, whole. From the lesson of this beautiful scene the student was enabled to get a clearer vision of the man of God's creating, the only man there is, made in the image and likeness of God, reflecting the qualities, the nature, of the one Father-Mother.
Our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, has written in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p.3), "The Divine Being must be reflected by man." And Jesus said to his disciples, "Ye are the light of the world." Reflecting the light, the understanding that God created all in the beginning, and bearing witness to the truth of man as the manifestation of God, created for the express purpose of reflecting God, good, is our great privilege here, now, and forever.
Man, reflecting God, is as eternal as God, Life; that is, man is deathless. Since God is Love, man reflects Love as his divine Principle. There is, thus, only a loving Principle to prove. To prove a thing it is necessary to test each and every point arising in thought for and against it. Have we not, daily and hourly, ample proof of the presence and power of divine Love? On page 17 of Science and Health our beloved Leader has written, "And Love is reflected in love." Through obedience to God's law of love we are able to prove divine Principle to be Love.
By persistently watching our thoughts, denying false suggestions and the imperfect pictures held before our gaze, knowing their unreality, we can replace seeming discord with true harmony, and reverse wavering, changing, imperfect, illusive beliefs with positive, unchangeable facts, which come to us from God, who is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. God's offspring, man, reflects His perfection eternally, for Principle and its idea, God and man, are inseparable.
The education of the centuries has woven into the human vision a network of false beliefs. So subtle are these that one must be on guard constantly against the evil suggestions which try to tempt us away from the still waters, where the real reflection may be seen, and which would presume to obliterate the perfection of the likeness of God.
It is by right thoughts and actions that our sonship is proclaimed. Our Way-shower said, "What things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise," so giving sure evidence of man's unity with God. Each time we claim our heritage, realizing that this heritage is also for our neighbor, we are proving, demonstrating, the ever-presence of God, manifested through man, His reflection.
As this fact unfolds in one's consciousness, one is assured of man's absolute at-one-ment with God, Life. The rich inheritance of heirship is ours eternally. We are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, Truth, and can claim spiritually all that the Father has, for the son "dwelleth in the secret place of the most High," the place of Spirit, Mind, and is inseparable from the one intelligence, the great "I AM," which is God. Man is the perfect expression, the full reflection, of the perfect One.
As the mountain summits were crowned by the golden light, so we, with thoughts uplifted above the earthy, are nearing the heavenly, reflecting in truer fashion the truth, the Christ-idea, through faithful striving, reaching upward for the crown of successful effort, the sure reward of honest endeavor. As true witnesses of our Father-Mother God, we are always about our Father's business, serving Him by reflecting good wherever He may lead us, knowing that we are fully equipped to meet every call for help; for God is everywhere, and we cannot be separated from the source of our supply.
Our need is to realize the richness of our inheritance and to claim our birthright, praying, desiring, as did the blind man who came to Jesus, "Lord, that I may receive my sight."
The last, best fruit that comes late to perfection, even in the kindliest soul, is tenderness toward the hard, forbearance toward the unforbearing, warmth of heart toward the cold, and philanthropy toward the misanthropic.
