Editorial February 24, 1917 Issue

Peace Through Victory Over Evil

William D. McCrackan

The world is being called upon to win a great victory in order that it may register a lasting and not merely a convenient peace. Not since Jesus uttered his inspired word of supreme forgiveness on the cross, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do," have the Christian nations been put to a clearer test of their Christianity than at this hour. But the conventional, hereditary creeds and doctrines of national religious cannot usher in this needed victory; only the spiritual understanding of the truth of being, which is present on earth today as Christian Science, can bring peace through victory over evil.

If the nightmare of the present world chemicalization is real, in the sense that it is part of God's scheme and law, then it can never be obliterated, and the evils perpetuated under its cloak should never be forgiven or forgotten; but the scientific explanation of the unreality of evil taught by Christian Science can bring a righteous peace to the disturbed nations of the earth. This victory, however, must be earned, just as Jesus' supreme utterance on the subject of forgiveness was the result of his gradual conquest over the human belief in the reality of evil. The necessary footsteps must be taken by nations as well as individuals, and in Christian warfare a negative or neutral attitude of mind cannot avail.

Not only must the nightmare itself be seen as unreal, but its supposititious causes and its subtle attempts at perpetuation must also be courageously faced before they can be reduced to nothingness and the victimized nations be freed. In this labor of love, scientific understanding must conquer "spiritual wickedness in high places," else the latter will continue to deceive humanity and at the first unguarded moment will break forth afresh to oppress and devastate. The secret mental manipulation by which the good intentions of nations and rulers are perverted, must be overcome by those who spiritually understand the essential powerlessness of such maneuvers and who have learned to forgive scientifically. Mrs. Eddy described the problem of this hour when she wrote prophetically: "The march of mind and of honest investigation will bring the hour when the people will chain, with fetters of some sort, the growing occultism of this period. The present apathy as to the tendency of certain active yet unseen mental agencies will finally be shocked into another extreme mortal mood,—into human indignation; for one extreme follows another" (Science and Health, p. 570).

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