AS time lends to human judgment its more perfect perspective, and humanity begins to estimate as a whole the remarkable career of the great Leader and Founder of Christian Science, men irrespective of creed or nationality will acquire a better realization of the great helpfulness and educative value of her teaching. It is not alone that, impelled by the dire stress of her own physical extremity, as she has declared, she discovered and abundantly proved the fact of healing through divine Mind, and thus blessed and enriched the afflicted, the weary and heavy-laden of mankind for all time; but that with one grand burst, as it were, of spiritual illumination, she has interpreted and defined the voiceless longing, the hope of the ages, that could not die. In other words, she has not only shown men how the truth heals them of physical and mental infirmity, but she has also made known to them that health and harmony are man's real and natural status as the manifestation of a divine and unfailing order and unity.
As one contemplates the condition of human thought when the evangel of Christian Science first lifted its voice in behalf of a darkened world, appreciation and wonder grow apace at the timeliness of this blessed illumination. Jesus, it is true, had both lived and proved the fulness of the real, but for the most part, as he himself implied, he spoke to ears that heard not and proved to eyes that saw not. On the one all-inclusive subject of causation, the mentality of succeeding generations had remained in a chaotic jumble of material beliefs. At the advent of Christian Science, secular science and religion were alone united in their antagonism to each other, while the universe seemed rife with independent powers and conflicting forces. God was vaguely regarded by many religionists as an enlarged and elevated man, and by physical scientists as at most an unknowable energy, but nowhere seemed discernible the one sufficient and consistent interpretation for the phenomena of existence. Indeed, as we have seen, physical science dealt with negation, and religion offered an impossible blending of the spiritual and material, while a shallow and godless rationalism seemed to be crumbling the very foundations of all intelligent faith. Then, in the fulness of our need, came the saving revelation which as of old announced one Principle, one power: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord." God was revealed as the One, the All; as "incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love" (Science and Health, p. 465).
As we know, the correct interpretation of any problem demands a right beginning, and it is greatly encouraging to reflect that the key to the baffling enigma of the universe is thus, in the fulness of time, discovered and defined as the allness of God and consequent oneness of cause. Seer, prophet, and philosopher have hinted at this solution, have in Biblical lore clearly implied and all but proclaimed it. Jesus, as we have said, both lived and proved it, and the inspired voice of a Paul could exclaim in a moment of especial spiritual illumination, "For in him we live, and move, and have our being." But it remained for Mrs. Eddy to voice the definite significance of this nature of God, and of man's near relation to Him.
