Editorial March 18, 1916 Issue

World Fraternity

John B. Willis

On page 467 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy has said that "war will cease and the true brotherhood of man will be established" when we come to understand that all men have one God and Father. This thought addresses itself with peculiar significance to present world conditions, reemphasizing as it does the teaching and example of Christ Jesus. As the immediate outgrowth of the spiritually grounded fraternalism which he exhibited and called forth, his disciples were led to declare for one universal and undivided fellowship in love. The great Teacher had shown himself entirely free from the bias of racial prejudice and sectarian pride and had ministered to all classes of men under the impulsion of a spiritually intelligent affection. He knew no man after his earthly antecedents or circumstances, that is, "the flesh," but only after the spirit.

This vital Love-life lived among them so impressed his followers that their first act when they came together in fraternal unity was the appointment of deacons who were to care for those who might be in any need, and that without regard to their nationality, previous faith or condition. Thus the very heart of brotherhood, the church within, found spontaneous, all-inclusive expression in the church without. This fraternalism had in view that administration of justice for which Moses sought to provide in his economic legislation, and its approval of God was surely registered on the day of Pentecost, when, as we read, the disciples were "filled with the Holy Ghost," and declared the "wonderful works of God" in terms which led even the barbarians among them to rejoice.

This splendid Christian brotherhood went down when ec-clesiasticism entered upon its career as an earthly power and accepted the caste discriminations of the world; and with the passing of the years the far removal of the bulk of Christian believers from conscious at-one-ment with the spirit of the primitive church in this regard has found colossal expression in human history. The phenomena of sanguinary strife are merely symptoms which witness to the rule of jealousy, envy, hatred, those mental states which mark the absence of Christian love; and in so far as these conditions are permitted to rule in human hearts, the adequacy of Christianity to meet the social need is practically denied. We may still regard Christian faith as equal to the solution of the individual problem, but in so far as we are content to submit international issues to the determinations of war, so far we are certainly declaring for the failure of our realization of the fundamental teaching of Christ Jesus.

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