Article September 20, 1947 Issue

LET US NOT FEAR ADVANCING YEARS

MYRTLE B. MC COSKER

When declining an invitation to attend the dedication of First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Chicago, our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, wrote in part (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 177), "I am quite able to take the trip to your city, and if wisdom lengthens my sum of years to fourscore (already imputed to me), I shall then be even younger and nearer the eternal meridian than now, for the true knowledge and proof of life is in putting off the limitations and putting on the possibilities and permanence of Life."

Christian Science reveals that God, Life, is the only cause and creator, and accepts the premise in the first chapter of Genesis, which is the true record of creation. In this chapter there is no mention of age, of infirmity, or of lapse from perfection, for "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1:31). Furthermore, the Bible states (Gen. 1: 26, 27): "And God [Spirit] said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. ... So God created man in his own image." Man then is spiritual, immortal, perfect as the Father, forever at "the eternal meridian," for there can be no higher status for man than that of spiritual reflection.

The mistakes of the human race are due to ignorance of Life. Mrs. Eddy points this out when she writes in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 397): "By not perceiving vital metaphysical points, not seeing how mortal mind affects the body,—acting beneficially or injuriously on the health, as well as on the morals and the happiness of mortals,—we are misled in our conclusions and methods. We throw the mental influence on the wrong side, thereby actually injuring those whom we mean to bless."

Send a comment to the editors