Editorial January 18, 1919 Issue

The Mirage Disappears

William P. McKenzie

In the midst of the recent war a captain, who was a poet, wrote of the dreams of conquest, the plots and plans, ambitions and boastings, of a reigning family thus: "They are all the mirage of a dying dynasty in the desert it made for its burying place." This poet becomes prophet in saying: "When their race has died, the earth shall smile again, for their deadly mirage will oppress us no more. The cities shall rise again and the farms come back; hedgerows and orchards shall be seen again; the woods shall slowly lift their heads from the dust and gardens shall come again where the desert was." Such a predicted restoration comes in obedience to that order proclaimed by Isaiah as being of God: "For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited." The same hope is beautifully brought out in Ezekiel: "For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled and sown: and I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, even all of it: and the cities shall be inhabited, and the wastes shall be builded: and I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bring fruit: and I will settle you after your old estates, and will do better unto you than at your beginnings: and ye shall know that I am the Lord."

And what of that theory which gloried in ability to cause desolation? Mrs. Eddy has for all time characterized what she so aptly terms "uncivil economics." In "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 278) she declares: "Governments have no right to engraft into civilization the burlesque of uncivil economics. War is in itself an evil, barbarous, devilish. Victory in error is defeat in Truth. War is not in the domain of good; war weakens power and must finally fall, pierced by its own sword."

Furthermore, in perfect accord with what we find in the Bible in such a reference as that one which says: "The Lord looketh from heaven; he beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth. He fashioneth their hearts alike," Mrs. Eddy shows how in Truth there need not be conflict arising out of mental differences between those who have one God, for she declares (Science and Health, p. 276): "When the divine precepts are understood, they unfold the foundation of fellowship, in which one mind is not at war with another, but all have one Spirit, God, one intelligent source, in accordance with the Scriptural command: 'Let this Mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.'"

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