Article December 7, 1918 Issue

"Periods and peoples"

SAMUEL GREENWOOD

In one of those illuminating passages with which her writings abound, Mrs. Eddy says, "Periods and peoples are characterized by their highest or their lowest ideals, by their God and their devil" (The People's Idea of God, p. 6). History verifies her statement, and it is being exemplified in world conditions to-day. The present testing time of the nations is revealing the character of their ideals, and the nature of that which has been given the highest place in the national consciousness.

In its acknowledgment that evil exists as a power and intelligence, human consciousness not only admits the possibility of any evil achievement, but itself provides the means and occasion for such achievements. Every human being, therefore, because of mortal belief, that is to say, because evil is accepted as a component part of his consciousness, possesses the latent capacity to express the worst phases of that belief, unless the unreality of evil is being understood and demonstrated by him in Christian Science.

The better human being, then, or the better nation is that one which succeeds in keeping the better ideals in the ascendancy. This was sharply illustrated by contrast in the ancient Israelitish and Assyrio-Babylonian races. The former, founded by the patriarch Abraham, who left his father's house and kindred to find and follow a higher sense of being than the material, was characterized by the highest concept of Deity then known. Their practical reliance upon the divine guidance and protection, in their earlier experience, completely differentiated the Israelites from all other nations. The Assyrio-Babylonians, on the other hand, in their apotheosis of sensualism, or the qualities of the carnal mind, expressed the lowest ideals of the human race, and were therefore characterized by their devil. They eventually attained dominion over Israel, but only when Israel had forsaken the God of Abraham for the idolatry of her captors; in other words, when belief in matter had been given the ascendancy over the understanding of Spirit.

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