Article February 21, 1920 Issue

The great war has taught mankind many lessons

The Christian Science Monitor

The great war has taught mankind many lessons. The problems arising from the conflict itself and the many complexities attending their settlement, as well as the reconstruction period into which the nations have entered, have all invited the entire world to aid in their solution. The world has been so closely drawn together that men of all races and all shades of religious and political beliefs have become awakened to a realization that the time has arrived when there is not a nation so big nor a people so small or so isolated from the great centers of population and highways of travel and commerce, as truly to say that it is not inextricably involved. Thus it is but natural that for the past several years we have seen a general awakening to the significance and vital necessity of a united service, extending beyond the bounds of family, sect, or nation. Millions were drawn into the great armies of the world, unselfishly fighting for the preservation of an idea. Millions of others, actuated by the same unselfish spirit and cheerfully enduring great hardships, were engaged in the noble work of aiding those left destitute in the trail of the conflicting armies, and comforting those those who had felt the pangs of privation. These millions of men and women have accomplished much in arousing mankind from its slumbers of self-interest and greed, which had seemed to envelop the entire globe. The measure of all this service is beyond computation, and the uplift many have experienced and brought to others has indeed left mankind greatly enriched.

And yet, is not service, in its larger sense, far more than this? Must not service in its broader meaning be the outcome of a scientific and demonstrable understanding of God and how we can truly serve Him? Saul of Tarsus relentlessly persecuted the Christians, honestly believing he was doing God service; yet suddenly, when on the road to Damascus, he realized, through the spiritual illumination which he experienced, that rendering God service lay in completely forsaking his former course. And thus at that very moment did he choose whom he would serve. Saul solved for himself the very question he later propounded in his famous inquiry to the Romans: "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? ... Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness."

Now in Jesus' experience, how did he render this service which he urged upon his followers? By doing the will of the Father, divine Principle, through his ministry of healing and redemption. By works, by actual demonstration, by overcoming every phase of human bondage or limitation, whether it was the raising of the widow's son or feeding the multitude, he proved always and without a single exception, in the words of Mrs. Eddy, that "divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need" (Science and Health, p. 494). All through his ministry he emphasized the necessity of proving that all phases of human discord are destroyed by facing them with an unshaking and complete realization of man's mastery over them through spiritual understanding. Yet he clearly discerned and taught that his work was in all humility that of the disciple or servant of divine Principle, the one healer of all our diseases, declaring that it is the Father that doeth the works. Time and again he illustrated this fundamental fact; when, for instance, as a sign of true humility he washed his disciples' feet, and was impelled to say, as recorded in the gospel according to John: "If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. ... Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him."

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