Excerpts from "He that shall endure" AGNES M. CLEAVELAND          Interest in sacred prophecy has become widespread among Bible students since the Bible has become less of a sealed book and is being recognized for what it really is—a record of the unfolding of the divine idea to human consciousness. ...          In the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew is recorded one of the most significant of the many prophecies of the Bible and one that is set forth in such simple, direct language that its meaning is unmistakable. The twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth verses recite: "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." Truly today is witnessing the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom in all the world through the spread of Christian Science and we may therefore properly look for the end which has been foretold. What is this end? Foretelling the end of the world and preparing for it has frequently caused acute fear to many and incited many others to ridicule, yet every Christian knows that the Scriptures abound in references to "the end," "the end of time," et cetera. In the passage just quoted we are bidden to endure unto the end. How many professed Christians have taken this to mean that man is adjured to suffer for an indefinite period, only to be swallowed up finally in some overwhelming cataclysm!          Not until our reasoning faculties have been set free through the study of Christian Science are we enabled to grasp the true import of statements such as these. Perhaps our first discovery when Christian Science has led us along the path of logical deductions is that there can be no end to anything which ever really existed. This becomes clear the instant we see the true relationship between divine cause and effect. It is self-evident that nothing exists except it exist as the effect of the one only cause, and while cause remains cause, effect will continue to exist. This opens at once the further vision that cause is self-sustained, for the obvious reason that it would require something outside of itself to thwart it, and of course that which would claim to be outside of the one infinite cause is no cause, no power, nothing. The only possible conclusion, then, is that whatever comes to an end is that which in reality never began, because it did not originate in cause.          ...When we analyze the word lie we see that a lie is that which is not true, pretending nevertheless to be true. ...Of course there is an immediate end to the lie the moment it fails to deceive; but is there ever an end to Truth? No. Truth being simply that which is, it can never have an end; therefore when Jesus speaks in this twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew of the end that shall be, he cannot refer to anything that ever actually existed; and yet he admonished us to endure unto the end, and we know that his words were undeviatingly accurate. Is it not inevitable, therefore, that we should conclude that the whole import is that we shall stand in opposition to the lie about cause and effect, God and man, until the lie comes to an end? ...          ...Luke says of Jesus, "Then opened he their understanding," and thereupon the disciples immediately were able to heal the sick and raise the dead. The study of Christian Science today is opening the understanding of the whole world and proving itself the "witness unto all nations;" and so we rejoice that the end shall come,—the end of all the lies which deceive mankind into believing that they are helpless victims of outward and material conditions; that matter can torment and ultimately destroy that which God made by His divine decree, "Let there be." Christian Science is teaching us to hold steadfastly to divine logic, and this is enduring unto the end, whereby we not only shall be saved but are saved. What can be more sublimely logical than these words found on page 470 of Science and Health, where Mrs. Eddy says: "If God, or good, is real, then evil, the unlikeness of God, is unreal. And evil can only seem real by giving reality to the unreal." This is indeed the Comforter, and we rejoice that it has come to us as the Master promised it should and that in the evil day we are standing and seeing salvation.   Excerpts from "'He that shall endure'" by Agnes M. Cleaveland Christian Science Sentinel, November 8, 1919

 

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