Article July 16, 1927 Issue

Emergence from Matter

CLARE PEASE

On page 485 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, writes, "Emerge gently from matter into Spirit." This emergence is an individual question, to be worked out by each one of us. And in order to arrive at a sense of proportion in our task, we must strive to refute the mortal factor of time. Then the perception of divine Life shows us that, as Mrs. Eddy declares, "time is no part of eternity" (ibid., p. 468), since "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

Until through Christian Science we have each received in some measure the individual revelation of the one eternal Life, we cannot expect to see the manifestation of it in our daily experience, and we are apt to be immersed in the struggle to make mortal man a better mortal. But when we have had the smallest inkling of the basic truth that the real man is the image of God, we see something of the path that lies before us, and our emergence from matter—material sense—begins. The landmarks to guide us to this "house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," are well defined and simple; but their very simplicity sometimes seems to trouble us in the beginning. "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?" is the instinctive feeling of one still largely in the grasp of mortal mind.

It does not at first become apparent to us that we are indeed being born again, and that we are about to grow, however slowly, into a new sense of values. Our general appreciation of good is certainly quickened, and our standard of what is good in and for ourselves also rises to a higher plane of apprehension and, eventually, performance. Self-depreciation, agony of remorse, resignation to sickness or untoward circumstances, can and must be cast out. They belong to the belief of life in matter, apart from God; and it is a very joyful thought that we may legitimately make haste to be rid of them.

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