Article January 1, 1927 Issue

New Year

HARRIET REED WHITE

As we greet expectantly the coming of another New Year, and consider the passing of year after year, our thought may be almost startled and challenged by the declaration of the angel in Revelation, "that there should be time no longer"—the angel, with the little open book, that John saw stand on the sea and on the earth. The heart of the Christian Scientist overflows with gratitude to our dear Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, for giving us the "key" which opens to us the treasures of the Scriptures, so that what reads like prophecy, with fulfillment far in the future, may be found to be actual experience here and now.

In the record of spiritual creation in the first chapter of Genesis one reads, "And God said, Let there be . . . and it was so." Step by step, all through the record, "it was so." The first who appeared among men as measuring perfectly up to God's "It was so," was Christ Jesus. So evident was this to John, the Revelator, that he spoke of him as "the Amen," referring to him also as "the beginning of the creation of God." This appearing of Christ Jesus among men made great changes in human thought and expectations. Of such importance was it to the world that we might call it "the great divide" in time. His name has been used to designate the period that preceded him; and his name characterizes time since his advent. Events are reckoned, over most of the known world, as before Christ—B. C.; and time subsequent to his appearing is designated Anno Domini—A. D., in the year of our Lord. And the period since his birth and marvelous ministry has also been called the Christian era.

In view of this, it is not to be wondered at that she who discovered the Science of the Christ should define "year" in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," so as to coincide with what the angel said, "There should be time no longer." On page 598 of her book Mrs. Eddy defines "year," in part, as "space for repentance." The ever continuing year of our Lord is not time, then, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but is "space for repentance"—most significant, when we recall that to repent means simply to change one's mind, to think differently. The year of our Lord is and always will be an opportunity to change from a material to a spiritual basis of thought, a change which must eventually be made by all. Year, thus enlarged and understood in Christian Science, would not add time to Life; nor would years make one old. The effect of accumulated years of belief would be nil—would not add age, discord, or decay. "Eternity, not time, expresses the thought of Life," says Mrs. Eddy (ibid., p. 468), "and time is no part of eternity. One ceases in proportion as the other is recognized." The ever continuing, yet ever new year of our Lord, then, is endless opportunity to think rightly; to find that "now are we the sons of God;" to claim this, accept this, and prove this!

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