Article November 25, 1916 Issue

The Eternal Now

LOUISE KNIGHT WHEATLEY

THERE is perhaps no more favorite method whereby the so-called human mind attempts to defeat or to delay a Christian Science healing than that which continually puts it off until tomorrow. All good is ours today, and we have a right to receive it; yet that mind which is ever enmity to God, good, would fain persuade us to overlook the golden possibilities of the eternal now in pursuing that evanescent thing called tomorrow, which, like some frail will-o'-the-wisp, dances ever alluringly just a step ahead of us, but is never reached.

It is not only the so-called patient in Christian Science, but the so-called practitioner as well, who sometimes seems to succumb to this fallacious argument whereby the realization of God's goodness to His children is indefinitely postponed. Every treatment should be given with the firm conviction that it is the only one which will ever be needed, that the work is completed, then and there. A student of Christian Science who was noted for his instantaneous demonstrations was once asked the reason for his success. "I never take into account the possibility of a tomorrow," was the reply. "I always work as if today were my first, last, and only chance to heal the case."

This may partially explain why cases which to human sense seem critical are often healed so quickly that the world would say a miracle had been wrought. Christian Science treatment has been asked for only as a last resort, when the physicians and family have given up all hope and the patient appears to be passing on. The Scientist called in such an emergency instantly recognizes that the work must be done quickly, if at all. There is no chance here to postpone the issue. Seeing the patient again tomorrow will not do. It is a quick, hand-to-hand encounter with the "last enemy," and everybody knows it. In such instances, spurred on by the exigency of the moment, and realizing as perhaps never before the utter insufficiency of human help to meet the situation, the practitioner often rises to such calm heights of spiritual exaltation that the sick man has been known to rise from his bed, and walk.

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