Editorial July 25, 1903 Issue

The Explanation of Peace

The harmony and orderliness which characterized the late visit of Christian Scientists to Concord, N. H., has awakened very general newspaper comment, and those who have had to do with excursion parties express their astonishment that such a very large body of people could be handled on such short notice without friction, accident, or even confusion. Great credit is due those who had matters in hand, but the final explanation, as we all know, resides in the fact that the people were all dominated by the spirit of unselfishness and love, and hence were all good-natured and manageable. We doubt if a single disagreeable word was spoken, or a single selfish impulse indulged by that great company during the day, and the result was not only ideal, it was entirely natural.

There is a lot of trouble going on in this world even among well meaning people, and sometimes it is found in Christian churches and Christian homes, where self interest has been permitted to intrude its ugliness and claim the choicest seat. In a large gathering or organization it is not necessary that many be disagreeable in order to disturb the peace. One ill-natured child can easily blight the happiness of a home, and a half dozen self-seeking, unmanageable members have been known to wreck many a noble organization; but where all are actuated by the one Mind, how sweet the peace and harmony that must prevail! There may be those who are known to the world as Christian Scientists, whose lives are not always characterized by that self-forgetfulness, that seeking of another's good, which their faith enjoins, but they certainly were not in evidence at the gathering about the threshold of our Leader's happy home.

The spirit of Christ is the spirit of self-surrender,—the denial of the claims of personal interest, the assertion and reflection of omnipresent Love,—and as no other professed Christians in all history are we called on to exhibit in every time and place that quiet modesty, humility, unselfishness, and loyalty to the larger interest which always marks the Christian gentlemen, and which removes the occasion of friction from every association of life.

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