The Christian world believes the day is coming when the earth and all material things will be consumed by fire. In Christian Science we learn that all materiality will be destroyed, but not in the way that is generally believed. The difference is not as to what the end shall be, but as to when and how.
Once the earth became so corrupt, and mortal man so sinful, that every living thing except what found refuge in the ark, was destroyed by water. That which was saved did not remain pure, but became even more corrupt, so that "evil waxed worse and worse."
The Revelator, from his exalted position in Mind, "saw a new heaven and a new earth," not the old heaven and earth made pure and perfect, but "a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away." To him, material things had come to an end, for he saw the spiritual. Both flood and revelation were the appearing of Truth to human consciousness; but John's thought had been divested of more materiality. To Noah there still seemed to be some good in the material world; mortal existence appeared as the blending of good and evil. To his sense the remedy was a flood—the purifying power of Truth—which should wash away the evil and leave the good of mortal existence. The belief that there is good in materiality prepared an ark; that the little good might not be destroyed,— and what a little it was! Eight persons out of all the earth; seven of the clean beasts, two of the unclean, and seven birds. Mortal man, in attempting to preserve the seeming good in materiality, retained also the evil; and "error of every form emerged from the ark." (No and Yes.) The error was soon manifest, and still continues its seeming existence. The flood did not prove to be the remedy, hence the world now looks forward to the final destruction of all material things by fire.
