Editorial April 16, 1910 Issue

IMMORTALITY

Annie M. Knott

The 40th chapter of Isaiah begins with the familiar and beautiful words. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God." The statements which follow do not, as might be expected, deal directly with the subject of immortality; but they certainly do so inferentially, since they make a rousing appeal to all who have eyes to see and ears to hear the spiritual message of this great prophet of the olden time. He tells us that "the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together;" not, some within the veil and others without, but "together"! To God none are ever dead, according to the great Teacher, for "all live unto him;" and when we no longer see "through a glass, darkly," but face to face with the eternal facts, this will be true of us also. Isaiah also tells us that "all flesh is grass;" and he adds, "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever." Mrs. Eddy says, "Man in the likeness of God as revealed in Science cannot help being immortal. Though the grass seemeth to wither and the flower to fade, they reappear... In Science, man's immortality depends upon that of God, good, and follows as a necessary consequence of the immortality of good" (Science and Health, p. 81).

All revelation shows clearly that so long as our vision is limited to a material sense of things, so long will the objects of our desire fade and disappear; but there is comfort for those who mourn,—they are bidden to get them up into "the high mountain," and there behold their God! "But," says the sorrowful one, "my way is hid from the Lord." Then comes the answer that, as the "everlasting God" never fainteth nor is weary, so they that wait upon Him begin to reflect the divine power, until they mount up with wings as eagles, soaring above the fogs and mists of materiality, with its shadows of sin, disease, and death, into the light of Spirit. Respecting this event we may say with Paul, "Then shall I know even as also I am known." It is the question of our knowing those we love in the time to come, which weighs so heavily upon the hearts of many professed Christians. "The Master has said so little about it," say they. If we grant this, the reason is not far to seek. It was always life to him. While he did speak of the "many mansions," he also said, "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death." Who keeps his saying today, and holds fast to man's immortality in the face of all evidence to the contrary? Here we are reminded that "a great sacrifice of material things must precede this advanced spiritual understanding" (lbid., p. 16).

In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke xvi.) we have a simple and natural presentation of the changes which must come to human consciousness before it is wholly purified from materiality. Here we have a man who, as it seems, lived wholly for self, but in the change called death he neither lost his own identity nor his sense of the identity of others. He called upon Abraham, although their mental states were so widely divergent, and humbly asked that Lazarus be allowed to minister to his great need. This request was not granted, but he ventured another. He begged that Lazarus might be sent to warn his brethren of the consequences of living for self. His human sense of love had not died (love never goes into the grave), but had actually begun to unfold toward the spiritual in a desire for the redemption of others.

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