The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1938-11-11

". .. II fMNALs
On a certain beautiful summer
morning in the year 1905, man sat
on the broad veranda of an old-fash-
toned hotel in the deep South, i'm
mersed in the pages of book. The
volume, known as the Christian
Science textbook entitled Science
and Health with Key to the Scrip
tures," was the product of the in
spired pen of it's author, Mary Baker
Eddy, the Discoverer, Founder and
Leader of Christian Science. Only
few days before, while reading this
book with it's deeply religious theme
of God as divine Mind, Spirit, and man
as Gods likeness and image, spirit
ual, not material, this man had found
complete healing Of body and a re-
markable change of heart. He had
experienced the end Of chronic eye
disability, a long continued stomach
disorder, and other arrangements, all
in the glorious hours of his first ses-
sion with this great, shall we say, even
greater work. He knew he had been
healed but he did not know how the
new freedom of body and thought had
come. Seeking relief from these very
ills, he had studied and practiced ma
terial medicine; and for years he had
tried in vain both material and mental
methods. In desperation he had turned
to Christian Science, and the healing
came with breath-taking suddenness.
And SO, on that midsummer morning
he sought the light. He knows now
that, in the re-birth Of health, he was
close to God, and to the reality Of His
things, thoughts. He was very close
to the "Life that maketh all things
new" As he read there came to him
a realization Of the opposite natures
of Spirit and matter; he saw that II
Spirit is true and real, its opposite
must be untrue and unreal. Then, as
the existence and presence of spirit
ual good was accepted, he saw the
things of matter, and all evil, as sepa-
rate from reality, as non-existent; and
he was able to gather together, that is,
in his vision he was able to do SO,
all the erroneous presentments OF mat
ter and evil, and push them out of con-
scious acceptance. Even so must the
demons have left their victim, and
under Christ Jesus sufferance, enter
ing into the swine, rushed headlong
down a steep place into the sea. With
all that is unlike good RELOCATED to
proper non-existence, the mans
thought was flooded with spiritual
reality; and there on that gallery all
things he saw became new. There was
a surcharge of pure joy and happiness
such as he had never known before.
The most commonplace things were
glorifed. The sun shone, the birds
sang, people smiled, flowers bloomed,
with aspect and meaning apart from
matter. He had glimpse of things
as they really are, not as material con-
ceptions, but as ideas of pure, divine
Mind, God. And the vision of reality,
spiritual harmony, which came to me
that day-for need I say that the man
was myself-has never faded out
through all the vicissitudes and VIC
tories Of thirty-three years, through
all the prayer and effort to realize the
heavenly intuition, to make it real in
my daily experience.
When Nicodemus came to Jesus, ac-
knowledging his spiritual origin and
his demonstration of divine power to
heal and save, acknowledging that
Jesus was manifesting the Christ and
that God was surely with him, the
Master answered: Except man be
born again, he cannot see the king
dom of God" And he made 1t plain
that this new birth was no reincarna-
zion. He said: "That which is born
Of the flesh is flesh; and that which
is born of the Spirit is spirit" It
was, then, a spiritual conception
which was to make new creature,
new heaven, and new earth, in which
old things should pass away, all things
become new. My friend, heaven, the
realm of spiritual harmony is pres
emit possibility. Christian Science has
brought the good news that Gods
kingdom can come on earth, that God
can be seen to dwell with men; and
indeed. that the heavenly harmony
will come, here and now, to any in
dividual whose heart, weary of earth's
unsatisfying promises and dreadful
punishments, will open itself to divine
Love with it's reviving, regenerating,
reforming power.
GREATER WORKS
It is now nearly seventy-fivs years
since Mary Baker Eddy discovered the