Editorial May 25, 1907 Issue

THE TRUE WAY TO PEACE

John B. Willis

The professed disciple of Christ Jesus who insists that war is a necessary evil, evidences that he has not only forgotten the example and injunction of the Master respecting a Christian's attitude toward his enemies, but that he has failed to apprehend the vital and eternal truth that evil is not overcome by resisting personality, by taking life, but solely by the realization and demonstration of good. Thoughtful students of the Old Testament will be impressed with the many evidences that patriarchs and prophets had not yet reached this sense of truth. Elijah hesitated not to slaughter the priests of Baal, and it was only after experiences so trying as to lead him to wish he were dead, that he learned that God is manifested neither in the destructive convulsions of nature nor in the murderous human passions which they symbolize, but only in that love whose gentleness is as "a still, small voice." Moses, Joshua, and other leaders of the children of Israel authorized with a "thus saith the Lord" very many acts and enterprises which would be condemned by the most ordinary sense of right to-day and it would be difficult to name a deed in the whole category of cruelties which has not been committed during the Christian centuries by those who have found a self-satisfying authorization for their sensual and sanguinary impulses in the declarations and habits of "Bible heroes."

Over against this unideal sense of divine purpose and human privilege Christian Science places that exalted spiritual concept of the character of God and the duty of men which is expressed in the law of love. Both the conduct and the counsels of Christ Jesus give unquestionable warrant for the teaching of our Leader when she says, "Truth, Life, and Love are the only letitimate and eternal demands on man" (Science and Health, p. 184). By these alone is good to be achieved and the passions that lead to mortal strife to be resisted. He who is impelled to strike at personality has not yet recognized his enemy. At the moment when Peter was ready to slay and be slain for him, Jesus said, "Put up thy sword," and when his friends would have annihilated the offending Samaritans he kindly but firmly rebuked them.

This error of identifying evil with personality has anticipated every horror of history, and to-day it directly conduces to all the backbiting and bitterness, the contention and tragedy of men and of nations. That it has always handicapped Christian effort to better human conditions and bring about peace is made clear in Christian Science, and its correction in thought will not only put an end to war, but it will mark the dawn of humanity's redemption. The true Christian Scientist has come to understand that to refer a contention to the arbitrament of physical force is to ally one's self with all that is opposed to the spiritual life. He has learned that the way to vanquish those who count themselves his enemies is by knowing the truth and loving the misguided; that the dethronement and defeat of evil without, is accomplished only as Truth is permitted to destroy error within; that the enemy with which we most have to reckon is the temptation to entertain a false sense of what constitutes our enemy, and that strength and overcoming are found in knowing good only,—in the persistent refusal to think of evil as personal or real.

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