Article April 13, 1957 Issue

MAN'S TIMELESS BEING

[Original article in German]

MARIE OTTO

The Psalmist, mindful of the transitory nature of materiality, once sang (Ps. 103: 15, 16): "As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more." This mortal concept of man, however, conceals from us the spiritual man created by God in His image and likeness, the man we read of in the first chapter of Genesis.

The thought of a beginning and an end has often oppressed mortals and plunged them into despair. One of the many fallacies of the flesh is that we are growing old, a fallacy stemming from the mortal thought of time. The thoughtless admission of a fleeting, material existence, ending in dissolution, is moreover dangerous, for it may result in a whole train of inharmonious conditions and suggestions. Let us consider so-called age in the light of Christian Science, which dispels the darkness on this subject.

On page 244 of the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy says, "Man in Science is neither young nor old." This man, represented by Christ Jesus, is God's image and likeness. Mrs. Eddy's definition of "time" reads in part, "Mortal measurements" (ibid., p. 595). Time has nothing to do with eternity, God's measurement of perfection and bliss, which constitutes reality.

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