IN the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 167), "It is not wise to take a halting and half-way position or to expect to work equally with Spirit and matter, Truth and error;" and she tells us in the same paragraph that "on this fundamental point, timid conservatism is absolutely inadmissible" and "radical reliance on Truth" absolutely necessary.
As we progress in our understanding of Christian Science, we find many points to which our Leader's words may be applied with equal force; and one of these is the consideration of what we call memory. There comes a time in the experience of most Christian Scientists when memory seems to be a not altogether unmixed good; when they find—somewhat to their amazement, perhaps,—that they cannot afford to drag along the memories of old troubles, old trials, old failures, and old sicknesses. These constitute the baggage which—as John Bunyan shows in his allegory—can only impede the traveler until he reaches that stage in his journey when he is glad to leave them behind forever.
We have nothing to gain by "timid conservatism" on this subject. As we gain the consciousness of good, we shall know less and less of evil, until we are able to prove by our own spiritual experience the infinity of good. And how is this happy state to be attained if we constantly carry along with us memories of the past? Indeed, the consciousness filled with these impedimenta has no room for the daily bread of new truths; and so we get that sad manifestation of mortal mind,—a consciousness dwelling so largely in the past that it is almost closed to progress. We thank God, however, that this is indeed only a seeming. The consciousness of the earnest student of Christian Science is not so imprisoned; and sooner or later, under the awakening influence of infinite Truth, he will realize the opportunity of the present, and so lose the clinging fetters of the past.
