Article January 12, 1957 Issue

THE TIMES WE LIVE IN

EVELYN M. DUCKETT

"Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these?" (Eccl. 7:10.) Thus the Preacher rebuked the people many centuries ago for asking a question that is often heard today. The difficulties we encounter are often put down to the times we live in, but if we consider this tendency more closely, we see that it is only a subtle variation of the suggestion that some circumstance has arisen which is beyond God's control. It makes no difference whether the circumstance is a personal experience or the experience of a community or nation; nor does the nature of the problem have any great significance. Adverse human circumstances can never be explained or justified, but we can overcome them by an understanding of the presence and power of God.

Christian Science teaches that God is Principle. He cannot, therefore, be affected by variations in time and place. Instead, He consistently maintains harmony under all circumstances. Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Retrospection and Introspection" (p. 94), "There is no 'lo here! or lo there!' in divine Science; its manifestation must be 'the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever,' since Science is eternally one, and unchanging, in Principle, rule, and demonstration."

The tendency of mortal mind to insist that the present phase of human experience is in some way exceptionally difficult is not new. When the children of Israel were in Egypt they found the conditions there quite intolerable, but once they had left these conditions a little way behind, the very circumstances they had deplored seemed preferable to the hardships of their journey and to the shortages of food and water which it entailed. Later, after God had provided manna in the wilderness and water from the rock, it was the monotony of their fare which irked them, and they complained (Num. 11:5, 6), "We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick; but now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes."

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