ELIJAH the Tishbite, a prophet in Israel, is an outstanding character of the Bible, because of his great spiritual vision and moral courage. At one time in his experience, however, he became so frightened by the vindictive threats of Jezebel, a heathen queen of Israel, that he fled into the wilderness and sat under a juniper tree, apparently overcome with self-pity, fear, discouragement, and personal responsibility. He prayed to God to let him die, but such praying was asking amiss. Good was not to be thwarted by mortal mind, and the prophet was divinely fed and strengthened and sent forward on his journey to Horeb.
When he lodged in a cave, "the word of the Lord came to him, and he said unto him: What doest thou here, Elijah? ... Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord." When he had obeyed this divine summons, Elijah was enabled to see the powerlessness and nothingness of mortal mind in its various phases. He perceived that God was not in the earthquake, whirlwind, or fire, which he had just witnessed; and then came "a still small voice." Eventually, through further spiritual enlightenment, his consciousness relinquished all sense of mortality and he rose into eternal life.
Early in their study students begin to realize that only a correct understanding of true being, as revealed by Christian Science, can give a satisfactory reply to the questions about eternal life. This Science, based upon the Bible and discovered by Mary Baker Eddy, shows that a mistaken sense of life in matter can be eliminated from one's consciousness and that the truth of the eternal spiritual nature of man, as the likeness of God, can be realized. It teaches that man lives, as idea, in the divine Mind, God, and is therefore sustained and maintained eternally by the one Mind; that no material circumstance or mortal experience can destroy man's unity or oneness with God, Mind.
