As a new day dawns and the sky begins to lighten, the change at first is barely perceptible. But soon one notices that he can see farther— his horizon is being pushed back by the revealing light and he can discern 'silhouettes of near-by objects. As the light slowly increases, other visual limitations are put aside; details, then colors, become apparent. The limitations of darkness are finally dispelled, and morning, which is a symbol of enlightenment, is at hand.
One Christian Scientist who was watching this change was reminded before the darkness had begun to dissipate of the words from Genesis, "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." Of this earth Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has said (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 585), "To material sense, earth is matter." The material concept of earth, "without form, and void," or empty of purpose and constructive unfoldment, is representative of the darkness or unenlightened thought not yet beholding the truth of Christian Science. Whose earth, we might ask, was not "without form, and void," until he learned to know something of God as revealed in Christian Science?
The thought ignorant of God, gloomy, dismal, or heavy, might be called "black" because it does not reflect light. Unwilling to recognize the blessings and beauty already at hand, such thought constantly demands more, but never gives. Indeed it hugs close its tatters of self-pity and ignorance until a willingness to know God as the source of all good reveals the first beam of light. Then man discerns that "God is the fountain of light, and He illumines one's way when one is obedient" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 117). The way to spiritual understanding is already illumined, and through recognition of God's authority it may be seen.
