Some years ago the writer had occasion to speak to a noted literary personage about the growth of Christian Science. The opinion was expressed by the personage in question that the Christian Science movement would follow the usual course of reform movements of all kinds; that it would rise through altruistic motives and fall through selfish desires; in other words, that Christian Science would be no exception to the rule which declares that history repeats itself. In reply to this argument the writer was quickly moved to declare, "Christian Science is not repeating history, it is making it." The full significance of this fact did not dawn at once upon the writer, but with every passing year of promise and fulfilment the import and grandeur of the historic mission of Christian Science unfolds and expands.
The law of carnal mind condemns every single object in the universe to eventual destruction. It does the same for the nations of the earth, for the religious systems of men and their reformative aspirations. Everything is supposed to have its beginning, its maturity, and its decay. This is not only assumed to be true of every plant, every animal, every human being, every star or planet, but also of every form of government. Not merely the Roman empire but every other national system is supposed to have its rise and fall. A noted historian once declared that every form of government contained within itself the germ which would eventually destroy it. Thus he voiced his belief in a general law affecting all human affairs, and incidentally in a germ theory as affecting forms of government. This is but another way of pronouncing the inevitable doom upon everything human, for it expresses a philosophy of despair.
Strictly speaking, the literary personage and the noted historian were merely giving utterance to a theory amply supported by the testimony of physical sense. There is no reformative movement or any form of government which so far seems to have been able to surmount the corrupting influences of selfishness. This selfishness places them all under the law of eventual destruction through the disrupting belief of evil. But the question presents itself, Is this seeming law inevitable, true, and essential, or is there a way of escaping its paralyzing effect? Christian Science contains the answer to this question enfolded in a question of its own, namely, Is this law under consideration a law of God, or is it the working out of error's own doom?
