Editorial September 8, 1917 Issue

The Changing and the Changeless

Annie M. Knott

Churchgoing people are all familiar with the hymn which says, "Chance and change are busy ever," and are apt to accept its implication quite unquestioningly; yet in the prophecy of Malachi we read, "I am the Lord, I change not." On page 522 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy asks: "Does the unerring Principle of divine law change or repent? It cannot be so." The student of Christian Science early learns that he must hold to the unchangeable goodness of God, infinite Mind, and at the same time he must be clear that God's ideas, like their divine Principle, are unchangeable. To the human sense they may seem to unfold "from glory to glory," to use Paul's words; but in reality they do not change, because they express that which is changeless and eternal.

Just here we need to discriminate carefully between the human concept of man and the universe and the divine idea, because it would be most unfortunate if the human sense did not change from wrong to right and from evil to good until perfection is reached. It may be said, however, that unless we had for our guidance an unchanging and unerring Principle we should have no standard by which to work, and our efforts would at best be uncertain. Outside of Christian Science the human concept of life undergoes perpetual change. The child's sense of it is very different from that of the young man or woman, and again with advancing years the outlook upon existence appears to be so greatly changed that it is well-nigh impossible to think of life at all as one did in childhood.

Here Christian Science comes to the rescue and says that it is not enough to go back to the human child consciousness, if such a thing were possible, but it offers instead the enlarged outlook upon life which means nothing less than infinite good at all times and under all circumstances, and which says, in the words of Revelation, "Behold, I make all things new." It is hardly necessary to add that it is this changed outlook upon life which means healing in Christian Science. The erstwhile sick man suddenly finds himself well, and this because he has been brought to realize in some measure the eternal fact that God is changeless and that man as His idea reflects the divine nature.

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