The now which God knows is always good. To every age, the temptation has probably come to regard the past or the future as more enjoyable than the present. Yet what the divine Mind is conscious of is ever joyously unfolding activity. The idea of Principle has never been touched for an instant by any supposition of evil, any more than the stars in their courses have been affected by a childish belief as to their being mounted rigidly in a flat sky. God goes on being good, regardless of any illusion to the contrary. The one divine intelligence, with its expression, is indestructible and has never included any element of evil. Today, therefore, the genuine spiritual man, in the divine likeness, experiences only good.
In Christian Science, all this, of course, is axiomatic. Even the true axiom, however, can and must be proved. No one is called upon to take one word of the truth for granted. The mere dogmatic statement of some one else is of little value. For himself, each one must prayerfully consider that, in spite of any seeming, existence itself is good here and now. True being is not something to be expected in the future or looked back upon in the past. Life is to-day and forever. The period of the divine Life is eternal. Its immortality is in the present, not yesterday nor to-morrow. Hence the real period, in which man in the image and likeness of God is living, is actually infinite, instead of some limited suppositional human sense of things. It is wholly good and happy.
On page 509 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has written: "The periods of spiritual ascension are the days and seasons of Mind's creation, in which beauty, sublimity, purity, and holiness—yea, the divine nature—appear in man and the universe never to disappear." Compare this with the passage on page 428 where she has declared: "The great spiritual fact must be brought out that man is, not shall be, perfect and immortal." Clearly, then, every quality of the true man and the true universe is already apparent to the one all-knowing Mind. Omniscience rejoices that the ever present period of vigorous unfoldment is indeed unlimited. It is good to know that the veritable man is experiencing this infinite period, rather than a disagreeable time of altogether illusory materiality. This understanding is thoroughly practical for every detail of daily conditions.
