In describing the unfoldment of Truth to human consciousness, Mrs. Eddy writes, "Thus the dawn of ideas goes on, forming each successive stage of progress." Science and Health, p. 506; The continuing appearance of ideas always leads to fresh and inspired activity. But it allows for no self-satisfied contentment with the past. It pushes us on to successive progressive steps.
The dawn of ideas can be seen readily today in the advances in technology, which have wrought changes of many kinds in the minutiae of our daily lives. In fact, change has become almost synonymous with human experience. But while mankind welcomes the useful wonders of modern invention, human thought is not as likely to welcome comparable unfoldment in religious practice. Religious revelators have received few welcomes in any age. Stephen pointedly asked the mob about to stone him, "Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?" Acts 7:52;
The two-thousand-year history of the Hebrew people recounted in the Old Testament is the story of inspired prophets who sought to lead a people to more spiritual worship and to clearer conceptions of Deity. Abraham migrated from ancient Ur to Haran and then to Canaan, where he worshiped the one God. Centuries later Moses courageously proclaimed the moral law to grumbling and backsliding followers. Prophets of later centuries brought further insights, fresh unfoldment, in spite of persistent opposition and persecution.
