Article March 9, 1918 Issue

"There should be time no longer"

HAWLEY O. TAYLOR, PH.D.

Other things may come and go but time goes on forever,—so it appears to the human mind. Material existence is wholly temporal, pertaining to time. The language of mankind is permeated with the thought of time; action and being are expressed by the present, past, or future tense; the whole of human activity—political, commercial, educational, ethical, scientific, and religious—assumes time to be one of the most important factors with which it has to deal. The concept of the lapse of time is so strongly intrenched in human experience that it is well-nigh impossible to imagine even eternity as being independent of it. Eternity is described in terms of time—"the endless years of eternity." Yet time has no more relation to eternity than matter has to Spirit. The temporal is simply a counterfeit in both cases, and neither leads to nor suggests the permanent. When the wonders of eternity and Spirit are known and experienced, the concepts of time and matter will be meaningless and gone.

At first thought it may seem that the stream of time flows on continuously and uniformly, but have we not all had experiences which seemed to pass quickly and others slowly? One person in the house will say that last month seemed an age, while another will say that it seemed only a week. The difference in the state of mind made the rate of flow of the stream of time seem different to each person. The experience regarding time in these cases, an experience which every one recognizes as being of frequent occurrence, was entirely dependent upon that which occupied the attention of the individual concerned.

Again, it is not the passage of time but only the concept of it which seems to be the controlling element in giving one the appearance of youth or age. The greatest American inventor is not much concerned about time, and consequently it has taken little notice of him. A remarkable instance is cited by Mrs. Eddy (see Science and Health, p. 245) of a lady of seventy-four who, through certain circumstances, retained the appearance of a girl of twenty. On the other hand, many instances are recorded in history of rapid maturing and aging, as in the case of a monarch of Europe whose hair turned gray in a single night. It is thus very clear that the marks of time are not dependent upon the lapse of years but rather upon the mental state.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

"There should be time no longer"

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access