Editorial January 19, 1918 Issue

The Courage of the Peacemaker

William P. McKenzie

Who was the most courageous but the one who was also most meek, who could say, "Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls"? If we learn of him we shall know how to be truly brave.

Christ Jesus was the peacemaker in that he faced enmity and revealed its impotence by unfolding "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding." He could have avoided death by being a pacifist, by not cleansing the temple, by not contending with false teaching, by not declaring unpleasant but necessary truth; but by fighting the battle through for righteousness he both conquered the sin that sought to slay him and overcame death itself. It is by the threat and fear of death that wrong seeks to hold man in bondage, and he who would save life by serving wrong is the one who really loses it; whereas the Master's promise is perpetual, "Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it."

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 459) Mrs. Eddy gives an unusual picture when she says, "Committing the bare process of mental healing to frail mortals, untaught and unrestrained by Christian Science, is like putting a sharp knife into the hands of a blind man or a raging maniac, and turning him loose in the crowded streets of a city." The making of peace in such a case requires the elimination of either motive or power to hurt, or of both; and the peacemaker will need courage to stand between those whom he would befriend and their danger. In the case of the insanely willful man with a sharp knife and governed by the prepossession that he should injure right and left those whom he thinks to be in his way, it is not enough to take the pacifist's view regarding the dangerous man, that it is his weapon and a man has the right to do what he wills with his own. Yielding to the personal will of the one in error may be merely cowardice, but nobly brave is he who risks his life to establish the peace of righteousness for others.

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