Throughout the Christian centuries and up to the present time, many have looked for the reappearing of Christ Jesus on the plane of human consciousness; and this has sometimes been spoken of as the second coming. Even little children who have heard this thought advanced, have often longed for the healing presence of the Christ, of which we are told in the gospels; but seldom, if ever, have they received much encouragement from their inquiries in this direction; and so, with most of their elders, they came to look for deliverance from the woes of mortal experience in another world.
In the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew we read that Jesus' disciples asked him, ''What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" In answering them, the Master first of all warned them by saying, "Take heed that no man deceive you." To this he added that many would come in his name, claiming to be Christ, and that many should be deceived; and we thus see the need for a clear sense of what the Christ-presence must mean in any age. Christian Science certainly does not teach that any mere personal assertions of Christly power or authority should be considered as worthy of acceptance, for the Master himself made it very clear what must be accomplished before the world is ready for the reign of righteousness and the rule of the "Prince of Peace."
When the revelation of the ever present Christ came to Mrs. Eddy with healing,—and that in an hour of great need,—the first one who met her asked, in amazement at her sudden and unexpected recovery, "Is Christ come again?" To this Mrs. Eddy responded, in substance if not in actual words, "The Christ has never left us;" and to this truth Christian Scientists must ever cling. It cannot be denied that according to mortal sense God and His Christ have been absent from the world in humanity's terrible struggles, and we may even remember that while on the cross Jesus himself was momentarily impelled to cry out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Nevertheless, Christian Scientists have learned that in spite of all sense evidence, the fact remains that God, good, is omnipresent and omnipotent.
