Article November 8, 1941 Issue

"The stability of thy times"

[Written Especially for Young People]

E. OLIVE DAVIS

Into the conversation and discussion of many young people of today there has crept a new note, arising from the demands of the hour. "I don't know when I'll be able to finish my college course. I'm called for the service." "My plans are all changed." "My career will have to wait for the present." Sometimes one observes that these remarks are accompanied by words which indicate disappointment, bitterness, and a sense of futility and hopelessness on the part of the speakers, and one longs to share with such as these the comforting teachings of Christian Science. It is true that the world upheavals of today are upsetting the accustomed pattern of our lives, whether in the activities of nations or of individuals, and are calling for adjustments in matters of both major and minor importance. But adjustment and change need not mean unhappiness and distress to the individual who is looking at life from the standpoint of Christian Science, even if he be a youth suddenly confronted with what appears to him to be a very different world from the one which he had been preparing himself to enter.

There are many evidences that people everywhere are finding that there is no security in their old established ways of living and thinking, and many are looking for the first time to that which transcends the usual human viewpoint, to that power or creative Principle which in Christian Science we term God. What comfort and assurance there is in words like these found in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 249): "Life is, like Christ, 'the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.'" In similar vein the Psalmist sang (Psalms 90:1, 2): "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." To anchor one's thought and hope in that which is immutable and eternal is to ride safely over the surging sea of mortal thought with its ebb and flow of human opinions and theories. Moreover, to know oneself as the beloved son of the divine Father-Mother, who is ceaselessly sustaining and protecting the child of His creating, is to lose all sense of fear, worry, or apprehension for the future.

Here it should be noted that when in Christian Science we accept God as Spirit, Soul, and man as the expression and evidence of God's being, we must logically abandon our old prospects of life from the standpoint of material sense. In their place we must adopt a new and spiritual viewpoint from which to evaluate everything which comes into our experience. For instance, mortal limits of time, in which events begin and end, give place to some concept of eternity—"God's measurement of Soul-filled years," as Mrs. Eddy so beautifully puts it on page 599 of Science and Health. Then our petty human concern over a brief interruption in a human career or other personal plans fades away, for we perceive being as eternal, infinite, and ever unfolding. Moreover, in the process of learning to view existence as spiritual and not material, we come to see that for man, Mind's idea, existence must in its essential nature be mental. Consequently, we discover that what we are thinking is much more important than any human activity we are engaged in, however desirable we may have considered it. We therefore learn to give more and more attention to our thought processes, and are less and less concerned with outlining our careers. We discover that as thought processes become spiritualized they express themselves after their kind, and we find ourselves engaged in activities which are both successful and happifying.

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