Article December 15, 1917 Issue

True Peace

CHANCELLOR L. JENKS

The cry of the whole world is for peace; and peace would be ours to-day but for the world's ignorance of the nature of peace. Jesus said to his disciples, "My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you." The peace for which the world is longing is the false peace which mortal sense gives, not that which Christ Jesus gave. All war arises from a belief in separation from God, good. Peace results from the understanding that man is inseparable from the Father. It is the result, also, of the understanding of infinite supply, available equally for all.

War is the logical outcome of a belief in man as material, as war aims to destroy material men, and as many as possible. The war spirit gloats over the casualty lists. Peace is the result of understanding that man is not material, but spiritual. On page 329 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says, "If men understood their real spiritual source to be all blessedness, they would struggle for recourse to the spiritual and be at peace." The peace which the world gives is often only the silence and torpor which follow exhaustion, defeat, or death, the fruit of crushing victory on the one side and disastrous surrender on the other. Then it is the people cry "Peace, peace," when there is no peace.

Peace is more than cessation of hostilities, whether enforced or voluntary. It is the understanding that good is universal, that Love does not vest all power in a special group of men and inflict upon the rest of mankind only the burden of subservience. Good which is not universal is only evil masquerading as good. It is a two-edged sword which wounds even the hands that wield it. What is destroying autocracy to-day? It is not democracy, the champion of the universality of rights and opportunities. Autocracy is being destroyed by autocracy. It holds within itself the seed of its own annihilation. It is the dying belief in the possibility of a restricted blessing, a limited good.

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