At the dawn of another year we are reminded of Mrs. Eddy's words, "Time is a mortal thought, the divisor of which is the solar year. Eternity is God's measurement of Soul-filled years" (Science and Health, p. 598). We may also recall the declaration of the apocalyptic angel "that there should be time no longer," and that "the mystery of God should be finished;" in other words, that the sense of mystery which has so long hidden God from humanity should vanish before the advancing and ever-increasing light of spiritual revelation. As we thus stand on the threshold of a new year, we may well pause and ask ourselves what the past year has brought us in the way of spiritual victories, and whether we have made every moment count in ardent endeavor to grow "rich toward God." Before we answer these questions we should brush' aside every plausible argument of personal sense which might hint at difficulties and hindrances, and face the eternal fact that nothing in the universe can rob us of what we really are, or lessen our chances for victory in the arena where we stand ready to prove the powerlessness of evil. Some one has aptly voiced the mortal and material outlook in these lines,—
To spoil each beckoning victory
A thousand pigmy hands are thrust;
And from each height attained we see
Our ether dim with lower dust.
This, however, only shows the wrong view-point, and from its pessimism we turn gladly to the glorious "epic of faith" contained in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. Here we read of the many who throughout the ages cast to the winds all merely personal considerations and fought the good fight to maintain the Christ-ideal, that the reign of righteousness might be established on earth as in heaven. In recounting their triumphs along the path of the centuries, the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews tells us that the 'faithful "stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: . . . and others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment."
