Editorial June 6, 1942 Issue

Time and Eternity

Evelyn F. Heywood

He who seeks to be directed by Mind in the minor no less than in the major rulings of his life will be as good a husbandman of his time as he is of his finances. He will know neither profligacy nor avarice. He will not be idle and spendthrift on the one hand, nor hasty and ungenerous on the other. Mere personal interests and inclinations will not prejudice his thought in giving or withholding. Christ Jesus amidst the great pressure, mental and physical, of those multitudes who sought to worship or to overthrow him, was not preoccupied, nor was he indifferent to a single humble human need. Neither did he indulge the rich and exalted at the expense of the poor and unknown. He exercised a masterly economy and yet a gracious sufficiency. Time was his servant, not his master. When it is considered what he accomplished in his brief years of ministry, in speech and action, in prayer and progress, it must be recognized that spiritual genius alone could thus have lifted time into eternity and made him supreme arbiter of his destiny.

At the news of Lazarus' death Jesus waited upon Mind for the moment to act. He neither hurried nor delayed. Later, pressed by his friends and doubtless his enemies also to go to Jerusalem for the feast, he took no directions from anyone. "My time is not yet come," he told them, "but your time is alway ready." He who in the guiding and controlling of his human affairs accepts no haphazard, disconnected jumble of events, but waits on God, acts not in submission to time, but in the interests of eternity.

Mortal mind may be said to be "alway ready" to listen to its own dictations and impulses. But he who is governed by wisdom is at the mercy of neither circumstance, environment, nor material planning; he is not afraid of being too soon or too late. Mary Baker Eddy, with each forward step she took on behalf on humanity during the many years devoted to its service, was frequently known to withhold action, and on the other hand to call for it with imperative swiftness, sometimes startling and temporarily disconcerting her followers thereby. On page 117 of "Miscellaneous Writings" we find these words from her pen: "The disobedient make their moves before God makes His, or make them too late to follow Him. Be sure that God directs your way; then, hasten to follow under every circumstance." How immeasurably comforting in this connection is the statement of the Psalmist, "My times are in thy hand"!

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