A member of the armed forces was standing on the deck of a transport watching the magnificence of an equatorial sunset when these words of our Leader's came to his thought: "The Christian Scientist is alone with his own being and with the reality of things" (Message to The Mother Church for 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 20). Surely, he thought, the splendor of this scene symbolizes the great reality of creation—perfect harmony, faultless sequence of hue, brilliance, richness, delicacy, completeness. Here was hinted the beauty of the one Mind, Love, evidence that man can perceive the perfection of creation. But it was only a brief glimpse. It was soon gone, and all were ordered below for the night.
What a contrast! The clean, fresh sea air, the freedom of the open deck, the very evidence of the presence of God seemed to be lost as he descended to the stuffy passageways, dimly lighted and crowded with persons. Here suggestions of many minds subjected to dullness, monotony, discontent, seemed almost to force upon him a picture exactly opposite to the scene he had just left. Alone, he thought, how could one be alone here? And what semblance of reality could be found in such surroundings? But infinite Mind is the loving Father of man. He had been seeking Truth, and Truth's message came to his searching thought (Isa. 66: 13): "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I [God] comfort you."
His thought turned to Jesus. Jesus had at one time been led to the brow of a hill by an angry mob that they might "cast him down headlong." But, we are told, "he passing through the midst of them went his way" (Luke 4:30). What a glorious vision of reality must have been his as he experienced the power of God's presence! What the Master saw then was no symbol: it was not something which would shortly end. It was, instead, the substantiality of Spirit, dynamic, glorious, ever present, revealing his superiority to the errors that thronged him.
