Not the least of the blessings which attend the study of Christian Science is the improvement wrought in our thought concerning time, that ebb and flow of life, as we have always regarded it. A popular expression such as "the prime of life" will gradually fall into disuse as the understanding of the eternal source of life develops and leavens the materialism of human theory. A careful study of certain Bible texts reveals the fact that the mental condition of the individual has much to do with the duration of his earthly existence. For example, "Ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him," "To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." Life and its duration are not determined by time nor by matter, but by the degree of sin or sinlessness, materialism or spirituality, ignorance or knowledge possessed by each individual. Christian Scientists look upon the passing of time with different eyes from their fellows, because it represents to them ever fresh opportunities for progressing out of the negative conditions of ignorance and sin, and advancing towards truer modes of thinking and living.
Says Mrs. Eddy, "Earth's preparatory school must be improved to the utmost" (Science and Health, p. 486). It is not necessary to leave this earth, nor to have so-called young blood in our veins to do this, for thousands of students of Christian Science are proving that the active demonstration of spiritual good, involving ceaseless toil for humanity, prolongs bodily vigor and mental alertness, so that longevity is no longer synonymous with degeneration, but with dominion and harmony. In Deuteronomy we read that when Moses was an hundred and twenty years old "his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." The faith and understanding of Moses led him to turn from the evidence of the five senses and to appeal at all times to God, omnipotent good, and so he was chosen to lead multitudes out of bondage towards the promised land. He was a worthy forerunner of Jesus the Christ, whose purity and spirituality completely eclipsed the material sense of things.
Christian Science is, in this age, inaugurating that knowledge of eternal Life which enabled the Wayshower to triumph over death. Mrs. Eddy says, "Sin brought death, and death will disappear with the disappearance of sin"(Science and Health, p. 426). Christian Science is advancing into the very citadels of sin, unmasking and disarming it, and thus undermining the universal effect of a universal belief. Years are the steps by which we may rise to a clearer view of the divine demands, and in this mental ascent we can make time an ally instead of an enemy.
One of the definitions of "time" in Webster's Dictionary is as follows: "The present life; existence in this world as contrasted with immortal life; finite, as contrasted with infinite duration." This is a human measurement and a host of disasters follow in its wake. The average mortal grieves over the past, frets about the present, trembles for the future; the sense of time-limit influences actions, projects, and even character. One class of people lay their plans in such a way as to insure what they call "a good time," and their life suggests the adoption of a pagan adage, "Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." Time, to such as these, represents pleasure-seeking, and the prospect of growing old is thrust away with dread, because it puts an end to sensuous enjoyment. What pitiful artifices men and women resort to in their efforts to simulate youth; they call upon hygiene, massage, and capillary art to conceal those "ravages of time" which they are mentally accepting and physically combating. Society is haunted by jaded moths that still flutter wistfully round the artificial glare of social success, popularity, and position. And all to what end?
Another class, possessed of somewhat higher aspirations, look for the acquisition of fame and fortune, and these are pursued by the thought of how much has to be accomplished within a given time; hence, physical breakdown not infrequently results from the high pressure at which such people live in their endeavor to carry out a specified program. "Homes of Rest" are filled with the wraiths of gifted men who, thanks to the human belief in limitation, slaved to their own undoing. Even when a premature break-down is averted, the average individual looks for an abatement of strength, energy, and intellectual power as the years roll by. The thought of death, it must be admitted, taints almost every human pursuit and calculation. Is not this state of things accounted for by the prevalence of the pantheistic belief that matter frames its own conditions and imposes them, nolens volens, upon mind, its superior? What humanity needs is a greater degree of spirituality, "for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."
Through Christian Science thought expands in the contemplation of infinite and eternal being, limitless space, unflagging energy, inexhaustible intelligence, and the above definition of "time" is seen to be based upon a misconception, for it will not bear scientific, that is to say, spiritual analysis. The reference to time as "the present life" leads one to ask, When does the "next" life begin, and is the "next" world a place where God is, in contradistinction to this one where He is not? If this were so, man's salvation, which proceeds from God, would be determined solely by locality. This mistaken theory, wherever accepted, countenances both sin and death, makes salvation contingent upon everything rather than individual effort, fosters mental apathy, and hinders that spiritual awakening which alone will rouse humanity from its mesmeric dream of time, place, and life in matter. Does not the "future life" we hear of exist now, since God is eternal Life, and is not Life wholly spiritual in quantity and quality?
So long as mankind believe that life and intelligence have a material and finite source, that they flow in the veins and scintillate in the brain, so long will these continue to seem the toy of circumstance, for "as a man thinketh, so is he" (for the time he thinketh thus). The material mentality, dust to dust, looks at life from an anatomical point of view. Is this Christian? In the New Testament we read, "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." In this text lies the explanation of, and the remedy for, the plight that humanity has ignorantly fallen into. Having no true knowledge of God, mortals lack the correct knowledge concerning life, which knowledge can be gained only through the unfoldment of spiritual sense.
Neither time nor false belief can obliterate the truth contained in the Scriptural utterances of Jesus, nor can they prevent their ultimate demonstration. He himself said, "One jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." It is obvious that facts, however beautiful and eternal, benefit us only in the degree in which we assimilate them. Mortals are vaguely looking to time to accomplish the needed changes; they are wistfully hoping for something different from their present experiences, and locating that "something" beyond this earth and beyond this age. They overlook the fact that the recognition of the true nature of God is fast becoming a present possibility, "present" both as regards time and as regards space, and that in this progressive recognition of reality is contained the recipe for the complete eradication of evil. Invalid or sinner, it matters not, the remedy is at hand. "Behold, now is the accepted time."
Does it not stand to reason that God is not going to change? It is we who must rouse ourselves to a clearer realization of eternal facts. Hearing the teachings of Christian Science propounded, inquirers are apt to touch some portion of their body and exclaim in dismay, "Do you mean to say that we are going to live forever?" Assuredly not the material sense "we," but there is encouragement in the words of the psalmist, "Give me understanding, and I shall live." The "old man," whose temporal embodiment is matter, is being "put off;" that is to say, false theories regarding Life and death, Spirit and matter, God and His creation, are yielding to truer ones, and the world is already feeling the effect of this spiritualization which attends each step in Christian Science. The leading professors of the day are making startling statements regarding the evanescent nature of matter, and so it will continue until the period of seeing "through a glass darkly" is succeeded by that in which "we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
This unfoldment is a gradual one, and only brought about by study and demonstration, but Christian Scientists are at all events learning to make the passing of time synonymous with conscious and conscientious progress "Mind measures time according to the good that is unfolded"(Science and Health, p. 584). One whose thought is perpetually turned towards good presents a very different type to his neighbor, whose mentality is in a stage of stagnation, if not of degeneration. Take two gardens, planted alike and placed side by side; the active gardener will weed and trim and prune, thereby allowing the impartial sunlight to reach his plants. The lazy one, though equally well placed, will apathetically allow disorder to invade his premises, and in a short time a vast contrast will be presented by these two neighboring plots.
The Christian Scientist, if he be faithful, presents a healthy mind and a healthy body; he cannot consistently do less, and this is because he is alert in detecting wrong thoughts before they have been given expression in word or deed; faithful in maintaining a clear mental attitude towards God, and in obeying the divine law of brotherly love at all times, to the very best of his understanding. Some may say, "This is only what all Christians do;" but did not Jesus say of the most honored sect of his day, "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven"? The average conception of God makes but small demands upon the orthodox Christian, for it permits of his trusting to everything and everybody rather than God in sickness; it allows of his fearing the human law regarding sinful, hereditary tendencies, it preaches resignation to human ills as of divine appointment, and it relegates to a vague future time the fulfilment of Jesus' culminating command in the Sermon on the Mount, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."
Perhaps no one realizes so clearly as does the Christian Scientist how far he falls short of this divine standard of perfection, for the world in general does not discern this standard so clearly; but he is at all events pressing forward, humbly striving to overcome his faults one by one, and to "square accounts with each passing hour" (Mrs. Eddy's 1902 Message, p. 29), letting no error slip by unrebuked, and rendering unto God the deepest gratitude for every victory won in his own or another's behalf. Those who have not yet had the advantage of the Christian Science teaching allow all sorts of atheistic and discordant theories relative to disease and coming ills to invade their mental plots and run riot in what is but "an unweeded garden," whereas all should zealously guard against the intrusion of every evil thought.
By learning to turn hourly, and in every dilemma, to good as the only reality of being, Christian Scientists outgrow past mistakes and mentally outstrip those who persist in clinging to opinions which will some day be obsolete. They are already manifesting less ill-health, lethargy, sin, and sorrow, and more activity, intelligence, harmony, and health than are others whose mind-pictures are more material. They are patiently learning to become God's witnesses rather than the devil's agents. The willing relinquishment of the false and the careful acquisition of the true go hand in hand, and here it will be seen that to cherish a prejudicial conservatism by saying, "What my fathers believed is good enough for me," would be to play into the hands of evil and prolong its fictitious reign. We shall lose the sense of temporal evil and gain the understanding of eternal good by mental footsteps directed heavenwards, and no one can rob the individual of the blessings which accrue to him from the spiritual altitudes he is approaching. "Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours."
God has always existed as He is now,—changeless, supreme good. "God is Love. Can we ask Him to be more?"(Science and Health, p. 2). When we realize, even dimly, that this omnipotent good is on our side, and when in full faith we learn to enlist this power of Love on behalf of sinlessness, health, and purity, life begins to wear a bright and beautiful aspect, sparkling with present possibilities. Time alone will not cause sin, sorrow, and death to pass away, but the understanding that they lack a divine Principle or sanction, and are perpetuated only by human belief, should open our blind eyes and cause all torment to fade out of consciousness before the dawning understanding of divine Love. John compassed the heights of revelation and commenced to lose the sense of time and matter here on earth, and so he was enabled to hear the message of the angel who sware "that there should be time no longer." He "saw," discerned spiritually, "a new heaven and a new earth" as they had always existed; God had not created them anew for John, but because of his spirituality these wonders were unfolding themselves to him one by one.
This same vision is dawning on the world through Christian Science—the teachings of the Comforter—and already its earliest, faintest gleams are dispelling the gloom of earth and "illuminating time with the glory of eternity" (Science and Health, p. 502).
