Article June 29, 1918 Issue

That Men May See

FRANK BELL

These are times of supreme testing, not only for nations and peoples, but for churches and religions. The Christian Science church, it is gratifying to observe, is meeting the test in a manner which cannot fail to hasten the day when all mankind will see and acknowledge the embodiment and expression of the true Church, defined by Mrs. Eddy on page 583 of Science and Health as "the structure of Truth and Love."

It is a fact of significance and importance that the official publications of the Christian Science church were among the first to proclaim that in the great world war the struggle was not essentially between nations, but between right and wrong mental concepts, with relation to which there could be no such thing as intelligent neutrality. Knowing the inevitable tendency of right thinking to multiply "after his kind," and of wrong thinking to counterfeit the reproductive activity of good, Christian Scientists are able to see far ahead of the working out of things materially, and thus participate in each of the world's successive awakenings to the issues actually involved. They will of course continue to do this, thereby, as in many other ways, justifying their right to speak for the church "which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race," as we read on the page already quoted.

If anyone had expected that Christian Scientists, in the presence of a great human crisis, would lose themselves in a maze of so-called hypermetaphysics, the war period has provided for him a number of helpful surprises. He may have observed, for instance, the alertness with which The Christian Science Board of Directors uncovered and publicly repudiated the enemy suggestion that the teachings of Christian Science could be used as the basis of claims for exemption from military service. Of other significant developments a few only need be cited. The opportunity for the Christian Science church to be represented officially in the United States Army and Navy in the appointment of Christian Scientists as chaplains, was promptly accepted. Since the beginning of hostilities in Europe, the War Relief fund of The Mother Church has provided for the distribution of vast quantities of needful material things among suffering and destitute war victims in many lands. Busy workers in the Christian Scientists' Comforts Forwarding committees are fashioning and sending out thousands of knitted and sewn garments that carry messages of love and good will to those who in trenches, camps, hospitals, and stricken homes are making the great sacrifice for human freedom. The Christian Science Camp Welfare committee, supported by The Mother Church and the branch churches, and represented in camps and other military establishments by practical humanitarians, is serving in every possible and proper way the needs of the men in the armies which stand for righteous government.

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