ONE of the prominent features of the Bible is the remarkable record of promises to those who follow the laws given to Moses and known as the Ten Commandments. From Exodus to Revelation mankind is presented with constant promises of peace, life, health, and substance as a reward for obedience to these laws. One of the earliest of these promises is that of entrance into the Promised Land, where there will be complete freedom from oppression and bondage.
While this land is literally a country, a deeper meaning can be associated with the promise. There is a land of promise for all mortals who are under the oppressive bondage of sin, sorrow, sickness, and death. The original Biblical land of promise can be taken as the symbol or type of that condition of peace and freedom which students of Christian Science see in their religion. This condition is a state of conscious being in which harmony and life are spiritual and eternal.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, saw this land of promise and the road thereto. She expressed it in these words from "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 226, 227): "The lame, the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the sick, the sensual, the sinner, I wished to save from the slavery of their own beliefs and from the educational systems of the Pharaohs, who to-day, as of yore, hold the children of Israel in bondage. I saw before me the awful conflict, the Red Sea and the wilderness; but I pressed on through faith in God, trusting Truth, the strong deliverer, to guide me into the land of Christian Science, where fetters fall and the rights of man are fully known and acknowledged."
