FROM THE EDITORS August 7, 2006 Issue

THESE ARE REVOLUTIONARY TIMES

REVOLUTIONS DON'T ALWAYS explode onto the scene. They may not even be evident at first, like the way a new product or an innovative idea reaches a tipping point by word of mouth. But invariably revolutions in human beings are, at some level, felt. They can begin invisibly, as an impulse for change, but then gradually expand and eventually become outwardly apparent.

In the late 1800s, an unusual kind of revolution came to the public's attention. In a sermon delivered in Boston in 1886, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, told her audience about a momentous shift she was seeing, one that for many may have gone unnoticed: "We are in the midst of a revolution; physics are yielding slowly to metaphysics; mortal mind rebels at its own boundaries; weary of matter, it would catch the meaning of Spirit" (Christian Healing, p. 11).

Something life-altering was happening in the mental landscape, all right. Christian Science was fairly new on the scene at that time, but it was catching on, finding its way into the hearts and minds of society, sometimes stirring up resistance, but unquestionably healing many sick and suffering lives.

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