MORE and more the deep thinkers of the day, unbiased seekers after truth, are descrying in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy the inspirational wisdom of sage and prophet. Let us consider, for example, the remarkable, revolutionary definition of "time" which appears in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 595): "Mortal measurements; limits, in which are summed up all human acts, thoughts, beliefs, opinions, knowledge; matter; error; that which begins before, and continues after, what is termed death, until the mortal disappears and spiritual perfection appears." Thus does she boldly uncover and deal with a universal bête noire of the human family; for what mortal is not plagued by some aspect of this error called time? In Mrs. Eddy's definition we find not one spiritual ray. Time is wholly relative, is allied only with limitation, with matter and error. Elsewhere in her writings she contrasts time with eternity, classifying one as belonging to finity, the other to infinity.
Now a dictionary definition of "eternity" is, "That which transcends time; that which involves or includes timeless reality" (Webster). "Timeless reality"! Should not the realization and demonstration, in some measure, of that realism which includes no limitation, be the goal of every right thinker? Many possibly have seen this inscription on billboards erected on rural highways by some earnest folk: "Where will you spend eternity?" Right here, Christian Science parts company with those religionists who interpret eternity as the state into which one enters at death. According to Mrs. Eddy's definition, time, with its error and limitation, continues after the experience called physical death, with those who have gained no spiritualization of thought in this present state of consciousness.
In a remarkable passage in the textbook Mrs. Eddy makes this illuminating statement (p. 598): "One moment of divine consciousness, or the spiritual understanding of Life and Love, is a foretaste of eternity." Then she adds, a little farther on: "Time is a mortal thought, the divisor of which is the solar year. Eternity is God's measurement of Soul-filled years."
