While I was gazing from the height of our ranch home down into the beautiful river valley, and beyond it to the mountains, the reality of the eternal now of spiritual vision—in contrast with the unreality of the human concepts of time, past, present, and future—was indelibly impressed upon my thought. The valley dwellers and travelers upon the winding roads far below had a limited range of vision. The mountains across the valley, so plainly visible from our altitude, were obscured from their sight by the low hills among which the roads and river wound. Everything not in their immediate vicinity was effectively removed from their sight. To the watcher high above, however, what to them represented the things of the moment, changing interests and activities, was but a part of a wide, tranquil, pastoral landscape. How clearly this seemed to illustrate the facts of eternity and the fallacy of time as taught by Christian Science! Our towering hilltop was truly a mount of vision because of the rich unfoldment of Truth that came to me there.
Regardless of how lovely a material landscape may be, it is only a temporary concept of creation. But the matter counterfeit hints at true spiritual ideas. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science and a woman of transcendent spiritual vision, defines "time," in part, as "mortal measurements; limits, in which are summed up all human acts, thoughts, beliefs, opinions, knowledge" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 595). Are not the "mortal measurements" of human knowledge unstable and uncertain, as relative and fluctuating as the changing views from the valley floor?
There are those whose entire span of mortal existence is shadowed by the remembrance and fear of past handicaps, sickness, and accidents. They have accepted them as true and inevitable—perhaps as God's will—for themselves and others. Because of this false belief, they expect and see evil in some form everywhere, and this morbid tendency does not tend to happify the existence of these unfortunate persons or of their associates. But while lamentable, this outlook is not hopeless, for there is a way which leads to a right outlook. The road leading to it is narrow and rugged; it climbs ever upward.
