Humanity is concerned with time because the lapse of time, according to accepted belief, robs men of much that is good. Time may also claim to bring a certain measure of good, as in the maturing of human consciousness from the infantile state to the age of full mental powers. Whatever is claimed for it, time is understood in Christian Science to be a subjective state of the so-called mortal mind which has no reality and is not actually conscious, since God is Mind and is All.
Mary Baker Eddy defines time on page 595 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" as, "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." To receive the full benefit of this definition one needs to recognize that God, being Spirit, is not the author of temporal, destructible matter, and that matter represents only a false mortal way of thinking. What appears to the physical senses so vividly as matter is a mesmeric illusion, which is evolved and supported by the suppositional mind perceiving it. It has no more substance than the objects in a night dream, and its conditions of weight, space, and duration have no more reality. Christian Science shows that matter fades from consciousness in the measure that one awakens spiritually to know God as the only Mind and to discern His tangible spiritual concepts in their unforgettable glory and substance.
What significance can time have in a dream, and what authority does matter possess therein? Mrs. Eddy's definition of time as matter links the two in a juxtaposition helpful to the Christian Science healer, for it is true that the time element in healing disappears in the degree that matter is understood as illusion, as nothingness. When a true estimate of matter as Spirit's supposed opposite dawns in the suffering human mind, healing follows quickly. A delayed healing is evidence of the physical senses' stubborn resistance to relinquishing the false material concepts they have seemed to produce. Actually, disease is never healed until, through Christian Science, mortals yield to the truth that there is no matter to involve disease.
