Editorial July 5, 1941 Issue

Progress

Evelyn F. Heywood

In those intimate revelations of himself and his relation to the Father which Jesus shared with his disciples, he made it clear that there were steps in spiritual progress which he was about to make that would bring blessings to his followers as well as to himself. In the measure of their apprehension of this progress would they participate in it.

On page 258 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy writes, "God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis." He who knew that he came from God and returned to God, was expressing nothing less than this during the whole period that he was with his disciples. His was the forever development of the Christ-consciousness, not from below upward, as mortality conceives of progress, but from the boundless basis of infinite, inexhaustible Mind. "If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father," Jesus told his disciples.

He was about to show them the true nature, as well as the sole purpose, of progress; he was about to overthrow in sublime progressive demonstration the last and most aggressive phase of mortality, which claims to limit, to separate, and to intervene. He had given in exhaustless patience an example of progress, manifest in ways both human and divine. Every step in his career had been a step Spiritward, yet in meeting the opposition and hatred of the carnal mind, his voluntary self-discipline in renunciation and consecration, in compassion and endurance, had never wavered. What he had done had been from the basis of divine apprehension and spiritual law, and it called for universal rejoicing because it was for the benefit of all. He had endeavored to teach them that true progress is not for the purpose of mere personal advantage; that it is not won as the result of mere human ability, effort, and determination, developing power and prestige often at the expense of another; but that its purpose is for the eternal development of the divine idea. He had shown, in his continuous example of evil overcome and harmony established, the conscious, inherent unfolding of his own being, whereby truth was being borne witness to in the presence and power of God.

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