Article March 4, 1944 Issue

Progress

E. OLIVE DAVIS

What is progress? In these days of world upheaval, probably many of us have been tempted to believe that actually there is very little progress in evidence. We may even have asked ourselves if what we have considered our fine modern civilization is anything more than an empty shell concealing, with what appear to be new and advanced ways of dealing with human problems, the same old unregenerate wickedness of mortal mind. Looked at from a material standpoint, and in the aggregate, there seems to be much substantiation for such a conclusion. This should lead us as Christian Scientists to seek for evidences of progress in "a better country, that is, an heavenly," as the Bible phrases it.

"Progress," Mary Baker Eddy tells us on page 181 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," "is spiritual. Progress is the maturing conception of divine Love; it demonstrates the scientific, sinless life of man and mortal's painless departure from matter to Spirit, not through death, but through the true idea of Life,—and Life not in matter but in Mind."

Not to be swept away by the mesmerism of mass thinking in a world at war requires steadfast adherence to the spiritual basis of evaluating all things. Most of us, for instance, have seen the young men of our acquaintance launching out into activities which are carrying them far from their accustomed environments into new fields of service which seem filled with adventure and possible danger. These necessary moves, and the unsettling of usual human activities incidental to carrying on what we call global war, have precipitated a kind of restlessness in society and an urge to be on the move, which is sometimes falsely mistaken as a desire for progress.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Co-operative Competition