Editorial November 8, 1941 Issue

Continuity

Evelyn F. Heywood

The fact that man has dwelt forever an idea in Mind, expressing the irrevocable nature of permanence and continuity, is the teaching of Christian Science. "Before Abraham was, I am," declared Jesus, thus identifying himself with that which knows neither coming nor going, neither rise nor fall, neither beginning nor end. "Never born and never dying, it were impossible for man, under the government of God in eternal Science, to fall from his high estate," we read on page 258 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. And in the margin are these words: "Individual permanency."

The theory of fallen man, separated from his divine origin, at the mercy of collapse and relapse, struggling continually and often against seemingly overwhelming odds to preserve himself, while knowing little if anything of his spiritual status as a child of God—this has been accepted by believer and unbeliever alike. Identifying himself with material existence, accepting its jurisdictions, hampered by its limitations, overshadowed by its prognostications, weighted by its cruelties and hardships, embittered or humiliated by its injustices and persecutions, mortal man knows neither permanence nor continuity. Yet man, unmenaced by dissolution or disruption, expresses eternal unfoldment in the realm of Mind.

"Spirit is the life, substance, and continuity of all things. We tread on forces. Withdraw them, and creation must collapse," writes Mrs. Eddy on page 124 of the textbook. The belief that there can be collapse of any kind, whether it call itself physical or moral, financial or national, comes as the result of building on a false sense of security, in blind disregard of the demands of Spirit, in the selfish willfulness of human desire. When men collapse physically, it is because of obedience or disobedience to the so-called laws of health; as a result, penalties have been exacted, restrictions imposed, which lead to discord and disease. When men collapse morally and financially, when nations collapse under the impact of violent inimical forces, claiming superior vigor and ability, or as the result of lowered standards and waning vision, it is because they have built, not on the forces of Spirit, but upon seeming material forces which men mistake for power. Only as the lesson is learned, in self-examination, in resolution, in regeneration, can that be built which knows neither lapse nor dissolution.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

Mesmerism Destroying Itself