The writer, on one of her travels across the North American continent, felt grateful for the many comforts one has nowadays, including spacious windows, air-conditioning, and fluorescent lights, which allow one to read even when the train passes through tunnels. She recalled how terrified she had been as a child traveling in Europe when the train was suddenly plunged into darkness as it entered a tunnel. At such times she would instinctively grope for her mother's hand, holding it tightly until the train emerged into the light again. In those days dim lighting was provided only during the nights. The writer thought how much all this resembled her human experience, the frightening dark days of sickness and sorrow in her youth and the blessed light of Christian Science which now illumines all of her experiences, even the dark testing times.
A tunnel usually cuts through an obstrucing hill or mountain and is made for the purpose of reaching some desired point in the most direct way. Is not mankind continually striving to reach a desired point in the most direct way? In youth we long to obtain our education and to terminate it with success; later we seek congenial and steady work which will enable us to live in comfort and security in happy homes. But sometimes it seems as though mountains of obstruction always loom on our road when least expected, and we may find ourselves groping in the darkness of sin, sickness, sorrow, or loss of work. Perhaps a loved one is no more with us and we believe that happiness is no longer possible; or some enslaving habit or sin may defy our human efforts to overcome it. Vainly trusting in material ways and means to reach our goal, depending on drugs and hygiene for our health, on money and position for our security and welfare, we soon realize their unreliableness, and discouragement and despair darken our way. But now, thanks to the discovery and teachings of Christian Science, no one needs to remain in darkness.
Under the caption "Light and darkness," on page 215of her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy tells us: "We are sometimes led to believe that darkness is as real as light; but Science affirms darkness to be only a mortal sense of the absence of light, at the coming of which darkness loses the appearance of reality. So sin and sorrow, disease and death, are the suppositional absence of Life, God, and flee as phantoms of error before truth and love."
