Article February 12, 1979 Issue

Spiritually impelled progress

REMINGTON EDWARDS TWITCHELL

On a rail trip through the Canadian Rockies I was delighted by the beauty and variety of the views. As the train moved around a curve a new vista would appear. Yet each outlook had its own identity. Snow-clad mountains, tall forests, and winding rivers expressed beauty in their individual ways.

Here was a hint, I thought, of the inexhaustible variety and freshness that must prevail in the divinely conceived universe of God's ideas. Progress in this true universe is perpetual, forever revealing new views of life. Spiritual existence can never be static—it can never be without progress, without fresh perceptions of the perfection God has established in man and the universe. And in the human picture, the shedding of materialistic thinking does not signal an end to newness and a beginning of sameness. Mrs. Eddy writes, "Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love."^{Science and Health, p. 66;}

This spiritual concept of progress, however, is in direct opposition to the concept that would keep our thought perpetually on a physical level. This latter, worldly concept measures progress by material quality and quantity and in terms of personal prestige, a state of thought rebuked by Christ Jesus. Without movement toward spiritual understanding, there can be no real progress, only change from one material belief to another. Speaking of the life that is supposed to spring from matter, Mrs. Eddy states, "Spirit can form no real link in this supposed chain of material being."^{ibid., p. 172;}