A MAN walked into the office of a Christian Science practitioner and, pulling a much used Bible from a breast pocket, said he wanted the interpretation of the last chapter in the Old Testament. He asked if the practitioner thought that Elijah had come again since Malachi wrote those words; or was the prophet still to walk the earth. The practitioner replied that Jesus had already answered the question. As recorded by Matthew, he said: "Elias [the Greek form of Elijah] truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not."
Now "Elias," Mrs. Eddy says on page 585of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," means, "Prophecy; spiritual evidence opposed to material sense; Christian Science, with which can be discerned the spiritual fact of whatever the material senses behold; the basis of immortality." It is in the sense of spiritual evidence that Elias has already come; and it is in the sense of spiritual understanding gained through Christian Science that he will come, and restore to consciousness the spiritual facts which seem to be hidden by the material senses.
In the eternal reality of being, which consists of God and His ideas, there exists the spiritual fact concerning everything which may seem to be cognized by human consciousness. This fact was created by God; it is maintained by Him; and it is governed and influenced only by the Mind in which it has its perpetual, harmonious existence. Like God, this spiritual fact is fixed and unchangeable, "the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever." Nothing can be added to it; nothing can be taken from it: it remains identically the same as when God "laid the foundation of the earth," and "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy."
