Article June 17, 1916 Issue

True Neutrality

JUDGE LEWIS R. WORKS

One of the earliest and ablest of the secretaries of state of the Union, in explaining the word of which we hear so much in these momentous times, says, "The state of neutrality recognizes the cause of both parties to the contest as just—that is, it avoids all consideration of the merits of the contest." The law of nations demands the outward manifestation of such a state of mind by the "government" of every non-combatant power. Nevertheless the above statement of John Quincy Adams, and the whole body of international law upon the subject of neutrality, are based upon the dictum of mortal mind that there is a right side and a wrong side in every war and that each war is commenced by the act of some person, persons, or government.

In the midst of the turbid maelstrom of mortal thought upon this ever-important question, it is imperative that the Christian Scientist keep ever in remembrance what the "state of neutrality" demands of him. There are but two sides to everything which presents itself to thought,—the right and the wrong. The right side is in understanding, in knowledge, and is therefore actually existent. The wrong side has no residence but in belief, in wrong thinking, and is therefore without foundation and non-existent. Accordingly, when we contemplate the idea of war, we realize that the right side of the thought about it is that no real person or government ever started war, that nothing ever was or ever can be gained by war, that there never was and never will be anything good about war; in short, that war has no foundation in Truth and is nothing but the manifestation of wrong thinking. War, big and appalling as it may appear to frightened sense, springs from the same causation as our minutest inharmonies or physical distresses; that is, again, wrong thinking. If this be so, what is to rid the world of war? There is but one answer; namely, right thinking.

What, then, does the "state of neutrality" demand of the Christian Scientist? Not that he should recognize "the cause of both parties to the contest as just," not that he should avoid "all consideration of the merits of the contest," for the contest has no merits. While realizing this potent fact, however, while knowing that the contest itself is nothing holy or right, but is altogether unholy and wrong, the Scientist will place the combatants on an exact equality in his thought. He will know that man and all God's ideas are the perfect children of a perfect Father, and incapable of waging war. He will neither charge people with the commencement of war nor blame them for its maintenance. He will understand that war is possible only as the result of wrong thinking, and that right thinking about God and man will end it.

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