In the introduction to his work on "The Early Days of Christianity," Canon Farrar presents a picture of the seething tumult of the Roman world in the first century, which would furnish a fitting counterpart to Dante's Inferno.

The authority of the Cæsars had so far suppressed organized opposition as to have effected well-nigh undisputed dominion throughout the world, but upon this background of seeming tranquillity history has projected an unparalleled contention of personal passions and interests. The clash of philosophical and religious ideas was equally marked with that of worldly ambitions. The babel of Athens and Jerusalem was no less confusing than that of the City of the Seven Hills, and all these external dissensions were but the phenomena of a discord within, which made the age one of universal unrest. It was in the midst of this turmoil of sinful and distracted mortal sense that there was heard the angelic carol of "Peace on earth!"

How startling the incongruity! and yet these heaven-born words found fulfilment in the gentle heart of the virgin mother and the sweet face of her sleeping babe, and in all his after trials vicissitudes, from the cradle to the cross, the angel song lingered with the Christ-child. In the "peace of God" he found refuge and strength, and when his work was "finished," he gave his loyal followers this benediction, "My peace I leave with you."

As one recalls the tragedy of the Master's earthly experience, and the continuous struggle with aggressive error which has attended the Christ-life in all the subsequent years, he is led to see that the peace which gave Jesus such repose, and which he bequeathed to all faithful hearts, does not mean escape from the necessity of a constant overcoming of evil. The "peace of God" is not a sweet sense of inactivity. With torpid indifference to its interests, weary humanity has every coveted exemption from struggle, but Jesus undeceived his disciples regarding this matter and said to them frankly, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth, I came not to send peace but a sword." "They shall deliver you up to councils, and in the synagogues you shall be beaten, ... and ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake.... These things I have spoken unto you that ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." He thus taught very explicity that there can be no peaceful "adjustment by compromise" between right and wrong in human consciousness. "Even Christ could not reconcile truth to error, for they are irreconcilable" (Science and Health, p. 19).

We are to realize spiritual ascent and thus find true peace only as we address ourselves to the serious task of breaking our peace with error. Christian Science gives distinct emphasis to this point, and its guidance and stimulus to intelligent human endeavor explains, in part, its practical helpfulness to mankind. Peace does not inhere in human belief or human conditions, but in spiritual understanding. It is the fragrant flame within the sanctuary of a heart that is in conscious unity with God.—a unity which is undisturbed because it cannot be reached by the antagonism of the world, and to this Jesus referred when he said, "Rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven." "The calm and exalted thought is given understanding, and is at peace" (Science and Health, p. 506).

Belief in materiality has obscured this sense of oneness, because both in its declaration and its phenomena it embraces that which is unlike God. The absence of peace in the heart, the home, or the church can thus be readily explained. If the Master be not with us in life's tempests, the waves are not stilled.

In Christian Science we come to apprehend as never before that disease and unrest are the inseparable companions of falsity, while "Truth imparts its own true peace and permanence" (Science and Health, p. 516). When with the "Mind that was in Christ Jesus" we come to know our Father-God as omnipresent Love, we part with anxious thought, and are undisturbed, even though called to push our prow into the very maelstroms of mortal sense. In the understanding of Truth we know with Paul, that "all things" are ours, and can sing with the poet,—

W.