HUMAN thought is in a constant state of flux, "for the fashion of this world passeth away." The passing of time is in itself of no moment, but of vital import to humanity is the passing of illusions. In one form or another this is continuously taking place. The martyring of saints, for instance, witchcraft, the horrors of the Inquisition, have been superseded by broader vision, saner views. Today these phases of experience are obsolete. What else is destined to pass into the archives? The great insanity of believing in the reality of evil and matter, which still prevails. Even as the eyes of men are too often blinded with unavailing tears, so are their thoughts blurred by fear and other cramping and illicit delusions. The unseen persecutions of deepseated envy and resentment, dread of disease, fear, still torment human thought and objectify themselves in human lives. But they too are destined to become obsolete through spiritual enlightenment.
Under the searchlight of modern scientific investigation, the age-old belief in matter's substantiality is rapidly breaking up. Yet this would be of little use in abating human suffering and enslavement but for the fact that Christian Science is revealing in its place the healing power of substantial spiritual ideas. On page 224 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy writes, "As the crude footprints of the past disappear from the dissolving paths of the present, we shall better understand the Science which governs these changes, and shall plant our feet on firmer ground."
In the ministry of Jesus discords passed instantaneously out of individual human experience. For him there were no real dark ages, past, present, or future. At the touch of his illumined thought, leprosy vanished, for instance, and blindness and immorality. Even death, the time-honored illusion around which a halo has been placed, was conquered. And the fury of the storm ceased before the rebuke of Christ, Truth. Knowing the unreality of the destructive mental elements producing the storm, the Master could subdue the outward effects. So, in due course, will all mortal fear and fury abate before the calm strength of spiritual understanding.
