Article December 3, 1921 Issue

"The past, the present, and the future"

HUGH A. STUDDERT KENNEDY

One of the most notable characteristics of the human mind is its eagerness to plan ahead, and to safeguard the future. This tendency, moreover, has nowhere attained greater development than in those countries counted most advanced in civilization. In spite of nearly two thousand years of familiarity with the teachings of Jesus concerning material thought-taking, the great western nations, to use a convenient phrase, are addicted to this phase of error more than ever before in the history of the human race. Indeed, the foreseeing of dangers, of failures, of discords of every kind, whether taking shape in sickness, loss, or disaster, is regarded as an infallible proof of progress. The human mind, moreover, is forever seeking to know the future, or, if not to know it, to plan for it with such certainty that as little as possible, humanly speaking, may be left in the region of doubt.

Now in dealing with this tendency of the human mind Christ Jesus was, of course, emphatic. In parable, as well as in direct utterance, he sought to show the futility of such a line of conduct and to inspire those who heard him with some recognition of the all-power and all-presence of God, Spirit, the all-knowing and the one only good. "None is good, save one, that is, God."

In spite of this teaching, Christendom has steadily and with ever increasing attention pursued the course that Jesus condemned. It is true that Jesus' sublime prayer, "Thy will be done," has everywhere received a conventional acceptance, but, wherever its indorsement has not been purely perfunctory, it has generally been taken to express the proper attitude of a man beaten by circumstances. The tremendous metaphysical truth lying behind Jesus' utterance was early lost sight of, and, like so much else in his teaching, remained obscured until rediscovered and restated by Mary Baker Eddy in Christian Science. Thus she writes (Science and Health, p. 17):

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