"At midnight Paul and Silas [in prison] prayed, and sang praises unto God: ... and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed." So reads the Bible (Acts 16:25,26).
Recently a woman had an experience similar in a way to that of Paul and Silas. It was midnight for her also. Heavy chains of pain and fear seemed to have shackled her within a prison of intolerable suffering. Doubt and discouragement added to her affliction. But in the dark hours of the night she remembered Paul and Silas, and she too began to sing praises to God, at first silently and very uncertainly, then confidently, joyfully, and aloud. And her bands, too, were loosed, and her freedom was gained.
"O gentle presence," she sang, "peace and joy and power." And as she pondered these words of Mary Baker Eddy's precious hymn (Poems, p. 4), great vistas of God's healing love were unfolded to her.
Truly God, the gentle, ever-present divine Love, was with her, right where she was, ever guiding, ever guarding, ever sustaining His children. This forever presence of God attests the unity, the oneness, of God and man, destroys the illusion that man is, or can be, a material creature made up of inanimate matter, and establishes his identity as a spiritual idea, the image and likeness of God, even as God has said.
Man is not God, as our Leader so carefully and specifically explains to us. "As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being," she says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p.361). This oneness, this at-one-ment of God and man, is the very essence of Christian Science healing and teaching. Peace and joy and power accompany God's presence, for they are essential attributes of God. They are, therefore, essential qualities of man. "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind," we read in II Timothy (1:7). And this is true today and forever.
Through His law our Father-Mother God, divine Life, omnipotent Mind, infinite Love, takes care of each event as it comes along. The past and the future sometimes seem like specters hovering over the affairs of the present. Memories of the one and fear or dread of the other almost eclipse the opportunities and joys of the now. But Christian Science teaches that Love meets all the needs of humanity. Divine Love, ever present and all-powerful, which notes even a sparrow's fall, unfailingly cares for man, Mind's highest expression. In Love we actually live and have being. It is only the limited mortal vision that sees a sick body, a saddened, suffering heart, unhappy, snarled, and snarling human relationships, a disordered home.
Remember Hagar. How she wept there in the wilderness of Beer-sheba! And surely if anyone ever had a reason for weeping, she had. Cast out of her home and driven into the wilderness, there she was with her little son, homeless, hungry, and afraid. So she laid the child under a bush, the Bible tells us (Gen. 21:15), and went "a good way off" that she might not see him die. Poor Hagar. For there was a well of water right beside her. It had been there all the time. She had only needed to stop weeping, to look up and see it. With it, her immediate needs and the needs of the child were met.
The well of water is always at our side. Our part is to stop weeping, stop limiting God's love, stop seeing sickness, poverty, and death as reality, and see God, see good, for ourselves and for all mankind. Love is impartial and embraces all. In Love there is abundance for all. Through suffering or Science we learn this. "Either here or hereafter, suffering or Science must destroy all illusions regarding life and mind, and regenerate material sense and self," Mrs. Eddy writes on page 296 of Science and Health. Let us rejoice, then, that though there seems sometimes to be suffering in our path, it is but an illusion, and we can make of it a steppingstone to progress, an opportunity to prove the dominion that God has given us.
The writer once knew a person who from childhood had worked and struggled to amass a fortune. He had had no time to make friends, no time to enjoy his family, certainly no time to
"... rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing."
At last he achieved his goal, and the fortune he had made was a very considerable one. Then one day it was completely swept away. But at that very time when, in his utter despair, he thought life was not worth living, he found Christian Science, found friends, found his family, found God. His suffering had, indeed, been a steppingstone to progress, and he began to know Love's gentle presence and a happiness which he had never dreamed of before.
Through suffering or Science, our Leader says. We do not have to suffer, then; we can progress in perfect harmony through Science. "But how?" we ask. Christ Jesus said (Matt. 7:14), "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life." We chafe a bit at this, perhaps; but we need not, for the straight and narrow way is a rich and glorious one. It is to walk with God, to feel His presence, to trust His love and care, to obey His law—not partially or periodically, but absolutely and all the time —with all our heart.
On a football field one plays within the lines laid down. He does not think this unfair or restrictive; for the game would be impracticable, and no one could play it properly if there were no lines, no rules, to designate its proper area. Neither is the straight and narrow way which leads to the understanding of God unfair or restrictive. Deviation from the true course, wandering about in bypaths, however alluring they may seem to be, leads one nowhere and keeps one from "playing the game," from reaching the goal.
Walking steadfastly in the true course is "peace and joy and power." If there are a few tears at some point of the way, if momentarily we seem to lose the way, God divine Love, will wipe the tears away and set us straight again. For when Love touches the heart, and when divine Science uplifts the understanding, we find there is nothing to weep about. A little child smiles right through his tears. So too can we. We can claim the victory even during the battle. And in the joy of victory—the inevitable victory of good over evil—our bonds are loosed and we regain our God-bestowed joy and dominion.
