WHETHER the world is ready to admit it or not, the twentieth century is witnessing to the gradual disappearance of matter. The material limitations that have held men relentlessly in subjection to conditions of space and time and lack of power are being broken down. The energies which comprise matter and which could be used for wanton destruction are being brought under control that they may serve useful purposes. Enlightened humanity is learning to break the tyrannical grasp of matter and make it the servant instead of the master of the race. This subordination of matter is an important step in its inevitable disappearance.
The notable advancement out of bondage to matter in our times is correlative to the revelation of Christian Science that matter is a subjective state of mortal thought, an unspiritual, limited way of thinking, and that Spirit, God, is the only Mind and substance. Christian Science reveals the truth that Spirit does not produce a universe of finite, destructible objects but of infinite, enduring spiritual ideas; hence the demand of this Science that matter disappear.
Mary Baker Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (pp. 217, 218): "The nature of God must change in order to become matter, or to become both finite and infinite; and matter must disappear, for Spirit to appear. To the material sense, everything is matter; but spiritualize human thought, and our convictions change: for spiritual sense takes in new views, in which nature becomes Spirit; and Spirit is God, and God is good."
