Article June 16, 1917 Issue

Undismayed

LOUISE KNIGHT WHEATLEY

When to a waiting nation there came the news that it was actually involved in a situation from which it had so long and earnestly sought to be delivered, to at least one Christian Scientist, and perhaps to many, the first agonizing cry was: "Are our prayers of no avail? Are all these declarations of truth which have been on the lips of unnumbered multitudes during these past months proved impotent? After every mental effort has been made to avoid participation in this world wide struggle, is error to triumph after all?"

In the first place, have our prayers failed? It is true that the answer has not come in the way which most of us perhaps expected,—but is that not usually the case? Prayer which outlines a specific result is not prayer at all, as Christian Science understands it. Suppose we honestly analyze the nature of our past prayers in this connection, and see just what we were really asking. Did we pray that God's will might be done, in His own time and way, that His Word might "enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them" (Manual, Art. VIII, Sect. 4), or did we just pray for peace? That which is called peace, however, is sometimes only mortal mind's soothing-syrup, lulling us into convenient slumber. Jesus could have had that kind of peace had he desired it, but no one ever roused such turmoil and fury in the carnal mind as did he, simply because no one ever so continually disturbed that false sense of peace which those around him were expressing.

The "nations in commotion" of today are only manifesting that same unrest and perturbance which accompanies an experience, be it with an individual or an aggregation of individuals, when the old is giving place to the new. Because there is a turning and an overturning such as has never before been witnessed in human history, is it necessarily a time to be dismayed? Rather is it not a time to look beyond the material evidences of the passing moment to discern that which all the world will see later on, when the cannon's thunder has ceased and the smoke has cleared away, namely, that Truth is awakening every nation on earth from its long dream of oppression. Are our prayers, then, unanswered? No. The only thing which has failed is our misguided zeal in thinking that our limited, finite view of the situation was sufficiently clear to warrant us in advising the infinite intelligence.

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Undismayed

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