In order to help our times, we should be able to interpret the world's happenings. And we should understand the goal of real progress as well as the steps which have brought humanity to its present state of development. Freedom from materiality in all its forms is the end toward which mankind have been groping.
Abraham started the wheels of progress moving in the direction of an understanding of and obedience to God. He recognized the one invisible Deity and the need of his age to depart from pagan religious practices. He helped his own times, and men with vision followed him, helping their times by achieving definite departures from materialistic beliefs and limitations.
Moses brought moral enlightenment whereby men came to recognize the rights of others and to respect them. The great Lawgiver helped his times and all times to come because he showed men how to depart from primitive evil by outlawing the insubordinate animal characteristics of infidelity, idolatry, profanity, irreverence, inhumaneness, murderousness, lust, dishonesty, lying, and coveting—the fundamental sins of carnal-mindedness forbidden by the Ten Commandments. Later on, great prophets pointed out the path of freedom from materiality by overcoming physical laws and the limitations and discords growing out of these laws.
It was such definite departures from the materialism of their times and the effect of these departures upon subsequent centuries that purified human thought to the point where eternally established spiritual life could be recognized and demonstrated. This purification made it possible for Christ Jesus to appear just when the age was ready to receive his great message. The Master brought the good news that the kingdom of God is present reality and that a knowledge of it dispels the lie of physical sense, even to the extent of complete ascension above it. Ascension, which is the full and final departure from materiality, must be attained by all.
If, throughout Christian history, the line of departure from materiality had been deviating, the salvation promised by the Master would have advanced more quickly and evenly. Those who proved faithful to the Christian precepts they understood and who helped in the times in which they lived merit our honor and gratitude. They effected Christendom's advance into higher and higher realms of thought.
Now, in our own times, a radical departure from materiality has come to the world in the discovery by Mary Baker Eddy of the Science of Christianity, which was so wonderfully demonstrated by Jesus. We of today do not want to merit the rebuke he gave his own countrymen so long ago (Matt. 16:3), "O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?"
People who discern what is taking place in the world as scientific Christianity urges mankind to change their basis of life from matter to Spirit gladly leave the idolatry of godless medical dependence and the pagan practices of ritualistic religion and find their all in Spirit. Primitive beliefs still claim to influence the race, and scientific religionists lead the way out of them.
Mrs. Eddy says in her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 (p. 5), "As silent night foretells the dawn and din of morn; as the dulness of to-day prophesies renewed energy for to-morrow,—so the pagan philosophies and tribal religions of yesterday but foreshadowed the spiritual dawn of the twentieth century—religion parting with its materiality."
Through Christian Science our age is being interpreted: the truth has been revealed, the claims of ephemeral materiality are being shattered, and man, made in God's likeness—living in His kingdom and obeying His laws—is appearing. The power of divine discovery is disturbing the carnal mind, but it is also rousing humanity in many areas to wake from its long dream of poverty, ignorance, and spiritual apathy.
Students of Christian Science find plenty to do to help religion depart from materiality. Take the question of diseases considered baffling and incurable by the medical schools. In departing from such deep-seated convictions and healing these diseases, the Scientist is treading the path of the pioneer. Jesus could heal them because he was ready to comprehend the falsity of the corporeal senses, which originate and support diseases. He was able to break the solid conviction of disease that inheres in the carnal mind. He knew that man's senses are spiritual and that they witness only to health.
Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 41), "Like our Master, we must depart from material sense into the spiritual sense of being." How do we do this? By following Jesus in a genuine desire to help mankind, in feeling compassion for those in need, and in practicing truthfulness in every situation. We must recognize increasingly Love's nature, with its power to destroy the deeply rooted beliefs of life in matter and the inevitability of death.
We can do nothing more helpful in our times than to enlighten benighted humanity with the Science that reveals God's kingdom forever intact in man. The many healings taking place through Christian Science are proofs that the realm of Spirit is becoming more apparent day by day. Religion is departing from materiality.
One does not reach heaven in a single moment of light. Jesus did not teach that people can jump instantly from the material basis of life to the spiritual. His parables and precepts concerning heaven called for repentance, humility, obedience, persistence, diligence, watchfulness, truthfulness, and, above all, self-sacrifice.
Moral and spiritual impulsions grow stronger with practice. Mrs. Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 26), "Each successive period of progress is a period more humane and spiritual." We can gauge the good we are contributing to our times by the increase in our humaneness and in our ability to bring God's government into the affairs of the world. In that measure we shall be departing from materiality, and we shall be showing humanity how to do the same.
