Article August 21, 1920 Issue

The description given by the Master in the twenty-fourth...

The Christian Science Monitor

The description given by the Master in the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew of the circumstances that would attend the second coming of the Christ, gives plenty of opportunity for study. Two sentences of this prophecy have given many persons needless torment. In these two statements Christ Jesus says: "Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left." In the second sentence the words "women shall be" are indicated by the translators of the King James version of the Bible not to be in the original.

These passages have caused difficulty because readers not understanding their significance have thought in terms of the physical and not from the standpoint of the mental. To them the two in the field have meant nothing more nor less than "flesh and bones," material people, one of whom was to be saved in the general upheaval accompanying the reappearing of the Christ, and the other to be forced to experience the process of damnation in all its details as pictured by Dante or false theology as a whole. But this sort of explanation of Jesus' statements presupposes that matter is real, and that there is therefore something actually to be punished, whereas Christian Science shows that Mind and its idea is all there is, and that any belief that there is more than all there is possesses no actuality. Hence the dream of a material universe peopled by physical beings is forever eliminated by the allness of divine consciousness. Of course, in this so-called world, any belief in sin receives its punishment until destroyed.

In these two sentences quoted from Matthew, then, is seen once more the metaphor of the Bible—the use of figurative language which is almost ever present in that Book as a means of imparting metaphysical facts to those around them. In what is called the world there seem to be today two activities, the one good, which is inseparable from divine reality, the other called evil, the tendency of which is always downward. These activities are primarily mental, of course, for action of any kind is the result of thought. Concerning these two seeming entities, Mrs. Eddy writes in "Unity of Good" (p. 21): "In Romans (ii. 15) we read the apostle's description of mental processes wherein human thoughts are 'the mean while accusing or else excusing one another.' If we observe our mental processes, we shall find that we are perpetually arguing with ourselves; yet each mortal is not two personalities, but one. In like manner good and evil talk to one another; yet they are not two but one, for evil is naught, and good only is reality." Thus Mrs. Eddy states that there is but one activity, the effect of divine Mind, forever true and the one presence. Evil's so-called activity is purely a supposition, the supposed product of mortal mind. That which claims to argue against a man's turning to Principle is, consequently, the carnal pseudo-mentality whose talk is ever "of the earth, earthy."

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