Editorial January 8, 1916 Issue

Advancing Beliefs

John B. Willis

The recent organization by a body of people who, as they aver, are moved by "a common quest after an order of society in accordance with the Mind of Christ," will prove a matter of great interest to all humanitarians, and to Christian people in general. It is reported of the meeting that "after the most serious consideration of what was involved, the conference expressed its conviction that love, as revealed in the life and sacrifice of Christ Jesus, is the only sufficient basis of human society, and the only power with which evil can be overcome," and they therefore declare that "those who believe in this principle must dedicate themselves unreservedly to the enthronement of love in every sphere of personal and social life."

The recognition that, however seemingly forlorn their hope, it is incumbent upon all conscientious people to attempt the immediate realization of the ideal, is an advance step that merits hearty endorsement. It was the consecration of a few men who had been the disciples of Jesus to the enthronement of Love, which inaugurated the Christian era, and which has wrought all the redemptive achievements of history; and the association of those who are interested in any degree in this enterprise must therefore be regarded as an encouraging fact. That Love alone "is the liberator" (Science and Health, p. 225), the only basis and hope for the solution of human problems, cannot be questioned, and this is one of the vital teachings of Christian Science.

The failure of the church as the exponent of man-made creeds is universally conceded. So too the folly of depending upon militarism for peace, with all the jealousies, the burden-bearing, and the cruelty which it entails, is appearing to a vast body of people who have refused to become mesmerized by false patriotism and the glamour of arms, and in all this protest and advance of better belief Christian Scientists rejoice. The teaching for which they stand has always been declaring these things, but its success witnesses to the fact that it has stood for much more. To realize that the old order to which one has been zealously committed, perchance all his life, has been proved wanting, and that one is ready to give it up, speaks much for possibilities of good, but little for the gain of good unless the cause of this failure be carefully considered and a demonstrably right sense acquired.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Lectures in Suburbs of Boston