Article August 19, 1933 Issue

Discerning "the signs of the times"

J. ALLEN BARRIS

Seeking to awaken his hearers to comprehend the spiritual significance of human events, Christ Jesus said, "Ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?" This ability to see beneath the surface of things Christ Jesus possessed in a large degree; and from the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 313), we may learn that it was his scientific sense which enabled him, as Mrs. Eddy says, to plunge "beneath the material surface of things" and find "the spiritual cause." Through Christian Science his followers are able in a degree to do the same.

That something significant in world-wide conditions is taking place at the present time there can be no doubt. That some fundamental changes in established systems are expected to appear, is plainly shown by the many methods proposed by means of which it is claimed these changes may be accomplished. In other words, we are witnessing the birth of a new epoch in the history of moral development. This spiritual trend received its great impetus in the discovery of Christian Science, and during the intervening years it has been cherished in that aspiration for spiritual progress which has been awakened in the thought of mankind largely as the result of the labor performed by the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.

What may be said for the present-day condition of the world, and what may it portend? In the remedies proposed for the solution of the problem, emphasis is placed upon the necessity of putting men to work in order that they may emerge from the morass in which they seem to be entangled. This, it would appear, is a phase of mortal mind's insistence that the curse which was placed upon the Adam-man should be perpetuated, namely, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground." It should be regarded, however, as an insistence that men should express activity in serving others.

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