IN her book "Retrospection and Introspection," Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 87), "The poet's line, 'Order is heaven's first law,' is so eternally true, so axiomatic, that it has become a truism; and its wisdom is as obvious in religion and scholarship as in astronomy or mathematics." Order in astronomy and mathematics is self-evident. Let us see how it appertains to religion and scholarship. Mrs. Eddy found divine order clearly exposited throughout the Bible. Through her tireless, consecrated study of the Scriptures, heaven's law of order was revealed to her as establishing and governing all true being, and she found this perfect order to be manifested not as a fixed or static condition, but as perpetually active and infinitely progressive.
Especially is this orderly progression presented in the teachings of Christ Jesus in his parable of the sower, recorded in the fourth chapter of Mark's Gospel. Here this teaching is epitomized in the twenty-eighth verse: "First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." Is not our Leader's whole, great lifework an example of divinity's order "in religion and scholarship"—spiritual understanding progressively gained through prayer and study?
All disorder stems from the false belief in a mortal, material mind apart from God. Mortal mind's disorders are the supposititious reversal of the divine order. Lust, envy, malice, dishonesty, hate, disease, and suffering of all kinds are types of disorder. But Christian Science, the Word of God, proves all disorders to be nothing more than the phantasms of mortal mind, reinstates divine order, and verifies the statement in Ecclesiastes (3:14), "Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it."
In an article entitled "Fallibility of Human Concepts," Mrs. Eddy tells of a practical joker who gave a man applying for work at her brother's mill the job of pouring water on the regulator at ten-minute intervals. Her brother made the joker pay the man. She comments (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 353), "Some people try to tend folks, as if they should steer the regulator of mankind. God makes us pay for tending the action that He adjusts."
An essential element in all controlled action, be it human or mechanical, is what is commonly called "timing." The athlete and the contestant in all forms of competition are well aware of its importance. The salesman is taught the precise moment to make his point effective; the attorney and the minister must know when a word can be most effectively spoken; the good mother must learn when to rebuke and when to overlook in order that the greatest good may result.
In Christian Science it is seen that proper timing can be one's response to the divine control: it is not merely a human device tantamount to "tending the action that He adjusts." The Preacher saw the futility of mortal timing, which he set forth in detail in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, and then he asked (verse 9), "What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?"
The Christian Scientist, recognizing right timing to be an essential element in God-governed action, knows that when reflecting God's government his acts are timed correctly. He understands that an ill-timed act is not a manifestation of divine intelligence and that man in Science acts neither too fast nor too slow, but always at the right instant in the right way, in the rhythm of divinity's perfect order. He radically relies upon his dawning perception of the one perfectly regulated spiritual universe to dispel the phantasmata of mortal mind's disordered concepts.
Knowing that all right impulsion comes from the divine Mind, he endeavors to keep his thought consistently sensitive to and conscious of divine guidance, often called intuition, and by religionists, the still small voice. In demonstrating the precision of divine order the Scientist avoids entanglements due to mortal mind's imperfect timing and the cost of action without divine direction.
Obscuring divinity's perfect order is the mesmerism of carnal disorder and the intemperance of every sort which develops it. The inebriate, the drug addict, the glutton, and the adulterer are submissive, if not willing, victims. But intemperance begets the belief of disorder throughout the system, and the accompanying suffering ultimately arouses the unfortunate victim to recognize his desperate need of the Christ-healing.
Order is dependent on obedience to law. Sin, in all its forms, is the revolt of mortal mind against heaven's law of order. Obedience obtained through force or fear is never true obedience, hence never conducive to true order. It must eventually be superseded by obedience based on Love. Divine order, pure, healthful, harmonious, is found established on every hand as the human yields in loving obedience to the divine.
Mrs. Eddy continues in the article previously quoted from "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 354), "A little more grace, a motive made pure, a few truths tenderly told, a heart softened, a character subdued, a life consecrated, would restore the right action of the mental mechanism, and make manifest the movement of body and soul in accord with God."
