Editorial January 29, 1938 Issue

The Passing of Time

George Shaw Cook

We frequently hear the expression, "How quickly time passes!" And human experience seems to indicate that what is called time is continually passing in an apparently endless procession of hours, days, months, years, centuries, and ages. However, time is no part of the reality of being. It is but a finite concept of eternity, and eternity does not include periods of time, whether of long or short duration. Eternity is the divine fact underlying the human sense of time. Eternity has no beginning and no ending. It is infinite.

In the definition of "time," given on page 595 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy refers to it as "matter" and "error." Neither matter nor error has any place in the eternal expression of Life. Since time is error, belief in its existence is erroneous, and acceptance of its limitations is a mistake. Mortals make the mistake of limiting their activity and usefulness by hedging themselves about with finite beliefs regarding time, and by accepting the suggestion of mortal mind that the sum total of achievement must be included within a comparatively short space off time, referred to Scripturally as "threescore years and ten."

However, the so-called age limit was effectually set aside by Biblical characters, such as Abraham and Moses. For example, it is written of Moses (Deuteronomy 34:7) that when he "was an hundred and twenty years old ... his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." And there are in the present those who are proving their ability to surmount the limitations which mortal law would impose on them through belief in the passing of time. One need not look beyond one's own circle of friends and acquaintances to be convinced of this fact.

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