Article March 27, 1920 Issue

If there is one quality more than another which the...

The Christian Science Monitor

If there is one quality more than another which the world needs at this moment, it is the capacity to "judge righteous judgment." Since the catastrophe precipitated in 1914, which in different forms is still convulsing human thought, all values and standards, moral and material, have been so completely upset that to those without the knowledge of fixed, demonstrable Science there literally seems to be no solid standing ground left. In fact, the words of Isaiah are as applicable to present conditions as when they were written: "Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter."

The world's idea of judgment has been a strangely confused one. On the one hand, it associates the word almost entirely with condemnation, and yet on the other, it clings to the true meaning of the term in its insistence on the impartiality of its legal judges, who are expected to separate between truth and falsehood with all the wisdom of Solomon. From this confusion of ideas arises the unfortunate habit on the part of some excellent people, who will allow themselves to be hoodwinked by deception or even treachery, on the ground that it is wrong to judge, forgetting that for the good of the community, as well as for their own protection, the necessity is laid upon them to separate, certainly without rancor or vindictiveness, but still to separate, between good and evil.

It is perhaps impossible to estimate exactly how far this habit has been induced amongst Protestant peoples by a literal interpretation of the symbolism used in the New Testament to describe this necessary form of education. The idea of judgment has become in the popular belief inextricably mixed up with material fires and physical tortures, with outer darkness and gnashing of teeth, and the consequence is that either men live in a constant, if unrecognized state of fear of such a future, or they have cast it away as chimerical, in both cases losing the value and interest of one of the finest of the lessons imparted by Jesus of Nazareth to humanity.

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