Article June 29, 1899 Issue

The Ever-present and Eternal Now

BY HADLEY M. HENLEY

The old Journals, all of which are on my library shelves except the first two volumes, have been so valuable to me with rich experiences and wise suggestions that I am prompted to add a leaf from my own experience with the hope of benefiting some one and thus partially repaying my obligations.

My thought goes back seven years to my first year in the study of Christian Science. I had been greatly helped by treatment and constant reading of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and all the other works by our beloved Leader. Some of my beliefs of disease, however, were very tenacious and did not yield to my own treatment or that of others. It soon became apparent that I must work out my own salvation, as we all learn in due time, but, not until I was told by a Scientist of longer experience, did I see that one of the best ways to work out our own salvation is to work for others.

The opportunity to work for others had come to me frequently, but I had always turned the cases to other Scientists. The subtle error which held me for some time was that I was not good enough to treat others, and that I must first demonstrate over most of my own claims before I could help others. Later I was led to see, however, that if I waited till most of my own beliefs of sin and disease were completely mastered, I might not be able to lend a helping hand to others for a long, long time. I saw that if I continually held to the thought that I was still deep in sin and darkness and without light and understanding enough to treat others, and merely praying and hoping for it to come to-morrow or at some indefinite future period, I was holding to the old orthodox error of "fallen man," instead of the truth that "man was and is God's idea, even the infinite expression of infinite Mind, and co-existent and co-eternal with that Mind" (Science and Health, p. 231). I was simply yielding to the old self-mesmerism instead of "rising in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike God."

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