Editorial December 27, 1913 Issue

World Righteousness and Peace

Archibald McLellan

The individuality and universality of righteousness which is to usher in a world peace, the time when "every knee shall bow . . . and every tongue shall confess to God," had its beginning in what has been styled "the great commandment." He who taught mankind to pray, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done,"—the reign of peace,—declared this commandment to be the summing up of law and prophecy, namely, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself." Obeyed, it would be peace.

This, too, is the basic law of Christian Science. As Mrs. Eddy points out on page 26 of our text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "Jesus spares us not one individual experience, if we follow his commands faithfully; and all have the cup of sorrowful effort to drink in proportion to their demonstration of his love, till all are redeemed through divine Love." Throughout Mrs. Eddy's writings, indeed, there is to be found, as of greatest importance, an insistent and persistent demand for individual righteousness. Nowhere does she intimate that the kingdom of God is to come through force of numbers or by vicarious effort. Neither does she hold out any hope that improvement or reform of social or governmental conditions is to be brought about merely by coercion or the enactment of some form of law. She knew that men who are honest simply because "honesty is the best policy," as the saying goes, are keeping the letter of the law, but ignoring the spirit. Such men are no nearer righteousness than are many who are not so outwardly circumspect in their relations with their fellows.

Mrs. Eddy writes on page 322 of Science and Health: "A man who likes to do wrong—finding pleasure in it and refraining from it only through fear of consequences—is neither a temperance man nor a reliable religionist." To carry this saying to its application to international peace, would be to say that the nation which refrains from war simply because of its direful consequences, is neither a safe neighbor nor an elevating object-lesson to the rest of the world. There must be a higher and better motive than mere self-preservation; rather, a desire for that brotherly love which is the natural outcome of obedience to the golden rule, and the ushering in of that universal harmony which is the establishment of God's will "in earth, as it is in heaven." This was recognized by Talcott Williams, dean of the school of journalism at Columbia University, when in a recent address on "Universal Peace" he said:—

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

Progress and the New Year