Youth

Gustavus S. Paine

In order to be able to declare so positively, "Before Abraham was, I am," Christ Jesus had to understand the exact nature of eternal youth. He knew that the age of the true man, in the divine likeness, can be measured neither in years nor even in æons of mortal time. Being coexistent with the creator, the activity which constitutes the real man is as old and as young as God. On page 244 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says: "Man in Science is neither young nor old. He has neither birth nor death." All there is to his spiritual and genuine existence is immortal now. Only by rejoicing that the divine idea lives indestructibly in Mind, not in matter, can one experience thorough vigor and enthusiasm forever. The wholeness of Spirit and its manifestation is quite apart from any supposition of a material body. Hence the actual youth of Spirit has nothing whatever to do with any belief in matter.

Always, in one sense, therefore, the sincere seeker for the truth as revealed through Christian Science must prove himself to be a ceaselessly "young student." The perfect ardor, fearlessness, and buoyancy produced by the divine Mind must be continuous. To this only Mind that can really know anything, every right quality is both immediate and permanent. This verity every one turning to Principle is entitled to prove for himself. Whether the proving seem rapid or slow, it is ever the process of spiritually young energy, which is not affected by any hypothesis of mortal time. The one who considers himself an "old student" of Christian Science, a paragon of attained virtue, forgets Paul's statement to the Philippians, "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you."

Though the so-called mortal is a mere belief that there could be an opposite to perfection, the truth is that the immortal idea is even now experiencing the complete joy of infinite youth. Before the absolute harmony of the divine action, every supposition of mortality simply has to vanish. If the belief in mortality could be conceived of as turning at all toward the light, it would necessarily have to disappear in the presence of the allness of Principle and its idea. From a supposedly mortal standpoint, this disappearance is all the pressing forward there is. Of course that very hypothesis is mere counterfeit of the boundless unfoldment going on in the divine consciousness. Alertness in expressing spiritual intelligence alone is the sign of true youth. The age of righteousness in living cannot be gauged by years. Its vitality is in the eternal now. Instead of whatever may seem to be, the sturdy doing caused by the one Mind actually is.

Interestingly enough, Mrs. Eddy never once uses the term "young student" in her works as they now stand. When David presented himself before Saul and said, "Thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine," Saul at first protested, "Thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth." Yet David soon proved that his reliance on divine intelligence was unerringly successful. In fact, the very childlikeness of his assurance was the reason for his victory. So from the very first moment of one's dependence on Principle alone, one is really equipped to vanquish the Goliaths of mortal suggestion. This fact each one can re joice in, without a trace of timidity. In spite of any belief about youngness or oldness, the true idea remains idea, entirely strong and sufficient in activity as the expression of the one Spirit. Since each one must demonstrate this for himself, where is there any reason for distinction between the so-called neophyte and the sophisticated?

In every circumstance, the present is always the season for youth. Out of a period of seeming war, there may appear to arise new nations, new aspirations, new opportunities. Any real newness, however, is not material. To be genuine it must be simply the right and normal state of the divine Mind, untouched by any illusion of material desires. Forever the true state of keen vitality has existed and does exist even where the opposite would seem to be. To-day, then, regardless of the cynicism of materialistic diplomatists, with all their political chicaneries, the essence of spiritual Life itself is unassailable. By turning together to the essence of the divine consciousness, communities, nations, the whole world at large, must prove that Life and its every manifestation have forever the entire newness of the infinite now. Only when each one is sure that he himself is eagerly living in accord with Principle, does each one find himself in the good company of God.

On page 61 of "Unity of Good" Mrs. Eddy summed up the whole thing when she wrote: "To material sense, Jesus first appeared as a helpless human babe; but to immortal and spiritual vision he was one with the Father, even the eternal idea of God, that was—and is—neither young nor old, neither dead nor risen. The mutations of mortal sense are the evening and the morning of human thought,—the twilight and dawn of earthly vision, which precedeth the nightless radiance of divine Life. Human perception, advancing toward the apprehension of its nothingness, halts, retreats, and again goes forward; but the divine Principle and Spirit and spiritual man are unchangeable,—neither advancing, retreating, nor halting." All this is true also of the spiritual fact of which any human sense of things whatever is but the suppositional counterfeit. The divine idea which is the only creation of God remains unchangeable as infinitely youthful activity. Gustavus S. Paine.

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