Article May 2, 1925 Issue

Man's Eternal History

ELIZABETH SUDBOROUGH

In "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 12), Mrs. Eddy says, "We own no past, no future, we possess only now." Human thought does not easily conceive of time in these terms. Until directed by Christian Science, often its only activity, aside from that made necessary by the occupation in hand, is to struggle in the meshes of past experiences, wing itself for flight in the land of anticipation, or brood upon a nest of troubles for future hatching. Instructed by Christian Science, however, one finds that inordinate dwelling on past experiences is quite unnecessary, in order to repudiate entirely the history of conditions in which a problem seems to be rooted, and to work out the problem.

We are all seeking liberty; and one of the most direct routes to the "land the Lord thy God giveth thee"—the consciousness of spiritual freedom—is the realization that any error which has claimed to happen in the past, and which perhaps still demands recognition as influencing the present, is nullified by the truth about man's eternal history. In a priceless passage in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 470, 471), our Leader forever sweeps away the belief in the verity of discordant human records when she writes, "The relations of God and man, divine Principle and idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history."

Thus are counterfeit sense experiences replaced by the knowledge of man's everlasting spiritual existence. Even while error claimed to write indelibly on memory, real consciousness, and therefore the only consciousness, knew that it was at-one with the Father, and that it moved and had its being in harmony. It knew itself holy, thereby expressing real health; it knew itself complete, blessed by love and justice and abundance,—all the infinite heritage which is man's right, as heir of the King of kings.

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