Signs of the Times
["Real Unity"—The Christian Science Monitor, Boston, U.S.A., Nov. 13, 1920]
On page 138 of "Miscellaneous Writings," Mrs. Eddy writes, "I once thought that in unity was human strength; but have grown to know that human strength is weakness,—that unity is divine might, giving to human power, peace." In this passage Mrs. Eddy points out that the source of all unity must be divine and not human, and it is well for every one to assure himself that he is in unity with good, and not just one of an unthinking crowd that is following the multitude without knowing why or wherefore. It is the easiest thing possible to be in so-called unity with the majority in human opinion, but where does such unity sometimes lead? In the Biblical story of the Gadarene swine, the unity that existed amongst the swine led them down the steep place into the sea to their own destruction. And that, of course, is the inevitable result of unity with evil, or error. It is now more than ever necessary to be alert and watchful to see that no subtle temptation to seek an easier path is accepted, and that our real peace and safety lie in being in unity with divine might, not human strength.
On looking back at the great war something may be seen of the suffering and disaster that can be brought about by so-called unity, when that unity is based on human strength, and not on Principle. The unity of God and man can never produce discord; but its counterfeit, the unity of mortal man and evil, can produce nothing else, for it is by its nature the very essence of discord. How then can we know that we are in unity with good and not evil? Jesus gave the people of his day one unfailing proof. "By their fruits ye shall know them," and in another place he asks, "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" And Mrs. Eddy says on page 324 of Science and Health, "Unless the harmony and immortality of man are becoming more apparent, we are not gaining the true idea of God; and the body will reflect what governs it, whether it be Truth or error, understanding or belief, Spirit or matter." It is obvious that a student of mathematics will quickly find out, in working out his problems, if he has gained or is gaining a correct understanding of the rule applying to his particular branch of study. He may, however, make mistakes in cases where he has failed to grasp the rule, and these mistakes will eventually prove a blessing, as they will effectually prevent him from uniting himself altogether to the wrong interpretation of the rule, and thus landing himself in chaos.
It does not by any means follow as the inevitable result of any individual or body of people following the right path that that path will be strewn with flowers or prove an easy one to follow. The consequence of standing against the tide of error is sometimes uncomfortable, and often to such an extent bewildering that it may seem almost impossible at first to see and know that only good can result from following Truth. This is often when the temptation comes to take the easier path, and to let error have its own way because it seems the most harmonious for the time being. But what would the result of such an action be? It would be the gradual separation, in belief, from Principle, with an ever widening of the distance that will have to be traversed again by the student when he finds, as find he must, that the wrong step has been taken. A careful study of the doings of the children of Israel will show how in every case where they wandered from the road they were commanded to follow, their steps had to be retraced and they eventually found that only through obedience to Principle could they reach the promised land.
To be obedient to Principle means to be at one with God, to be in unity with divine Love, and therefore to dwell "in the secret place of the most High." In such safe abiding, it is easy to see that though to material sense all may seem discord and turmoil, there is no sense of anything discordant to a man who knows, beyond question, his unity with God. This knowledge proved beyond all doubt by demonstration, lifts the one who has proved it above all the seething turmoil of error, and gives him something of the vision of the Christ that John, the beloved disciple, had on the Isle of Patmos. It shows him that error is powerless to affect the spiritual idea, and that just in proportion to his grasp of the infinite nature of Love,—that Love knows nothing of hate, and therefore knows nothing of evil or discord of any kind,—will he be able to see the nothingness of all that opposes itself to the true idea of unity, the unity of God and man.
The unity of good has its counterfeit in the so-called unity of evil, and in the Bible we may find many instances of the attempts of united evil in the form of great armies, or great men, or rulers of great peoples, endeavoring by their numbers to destroy or overthrow the chosen people. The children of Israel, or the chosen people, were those who had gained some understanding of God, though perhaps only a faint one, and when pressed by their foes they were able, by their unity with and obedience to Principle, to overthrow the mighty hosts of their enemies. Thus the children of Israel escaped from the armies of Pharaoh, who were themselves overwhelmed in the Red Sea; the small army of Gideon defeated their foes, the Midianites and the Amalekites; the youth David overthrew Goliath and thus destroyed the power of the Philistines to harm the children of Israel; through unity and obedience the children of Israel conquered the city of Jericho; Daniel by his obedience to Principle was protected from the lions, and the three Hebrew youths from the fiery furnace. These incidents prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that only in unity with Principle, God, is divine might, and nothing can stand against that real unity—the unity of good.
[From "Christian Unity"—by William Temple in The Pilgrim]
The most conspicuous movement among Christians at the present time is the movement toward unity. What the world plainly needs is a positive principle of unity other than the natural kinship of certain temperaments to one another, the unity of natural friendship we all appreciate. But it is no cure for natural enmity, or for conflicting interests where no friendship is at hand to avert hostility. Is there any unifying power that can hold men together in fellowship despite all differences of race, experience, or temperament, and without the help of a common enmity? If there is, it is the key to the world's progress.
[From The Watchman-Examiner]
In the projected world conference on "Church Unity," if it shall ever materialize, let all "man-made" creeds and confessions and preconceptions and claims of superiority be laid aside, and with all standing on a common level before God, let the New Testament be adopted as the sole determining authority in all matters of faith and practice. Then interpret it, not in the light of subsequent history, but in its own light, as the inspired record of Christ's teachings. ... There are those who flippantly say, "You can find support for anything in the New Testament." That is not true. It is a gross libel upon our sacred Book. It is because men interject their own ideas into it that it seems to yield so many grotesque meanings.
What we plead for, then, is an honest, unbiased exegesis made by men who approach the study, not as Roman Catholics, not as Anglicans, not as Presbyterians, not as Baptists, but as humble seekers after the truth, submissive to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and desirous only to know the mind of Christ, for the simple purpose of conforming to it.
[From The Cambridge (Massachusetts) Tribune]
Prejudice against Christian Science is waning, and taking its place is an earnest desire to learn what is its real nature, and how it may be applied for the benefit of mankind.
["Disease Books Excluded from Public Schools"—from The (Phoenix) Arizona Republican]
In a resolution adopted as the result of a protest filed by the Public School Protective League, the state board of education recently voted to exclude from the school curriculum the "Primer of Sanitation" by Ritchie, and parts of the "Primer of Hygiene" and "Human Physiology," by Ritchie and Caldwell. Objection was made to these books by the Protective League on the ground that they teach the germ theory of disease and the serum treatment exclusive of other curative methods and that they contain many passages calculated to inoculate the minds of children with a fear of disease and the thought of death. The books, according to the protest filed with the League, contain statistics of death caused by various diseases together with detailed and vicious descriptions of symptoms and statements of children's especial liability to certain ailments.
["Signs of Hope in Europe"—From The Congregationalist and Advance]
There are signs of hope in the religious life of those countries of Central Europe where Mr. John R. Mott finds evidences of social and economic recovery, as indicated by the article which we print this week. Even in Germany there is at least the great deliverance of a complete overthrow of governmental control over church activities and life. The churches are no more to be departments of the state. In the words of Prof. Albert Deissmann of Berlin, who has written a survey of the German religious situation transmitted by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, "The revolution has abolished the 'summepiscopate' (the authoritative oversight) of the reigning princes, and the German Constitution of 1919 has decreed the separation of Church and State." ...
Even in Russia there are signs of a stirring of spiritual life. The overthrow of the ruling church authorities and the many persecutions and massacres did not kill Christian faith. They have proved a call instead to the essentially religious spirit of the Russian people and in many places spontaneous revivals of religious interest and purpose are reported. When the Russian reorganization comes it will find the church as much in need of rebuilding as the state.
[From "The Problem of Martha" by A. Clutton-Brock, in The Atlantic Monthly]
If you are a Christian, you will not believe that God sets you impossible tasks ... the very sense of impossibility or futility is itself a sickness that can be diagnosed and cured. ... Fear, being entirely negative and so entirely unpleasant, always seeks to disguise itself in some positive transformation. ... The commonest disguise of hidden fear, in modern educated men and women, is cynicism. ... Cynicism, in fact, is the art of those who dare not be artists, the courage of those who will not confess their own cowardice. If we knew this, we should none of us be cynics: we should look for the fear of which our cynicism is a symptom; should seek joy in faith and not in the denial of it.
But this mild cynicism, so common and so enervating to the mind that enjoys it—what fear does it disguise? Usually, I think, the very fear that it repudiates: fear of what "everybody" thinks and does and says. ... It is this secret fear that imposes the tyranny on others; because I am afraid, I am resolved to make others afraid. If I could confess my own fear, I should wish to free others from it also. ... There is, of course, a common belief that the sense of duty is necessarily based on fear; that, if fear is abolished, the sense of duty will go with it; but this belief is itself a result of fear, a fear of human nature and, indeed, of the whole nature of the universe. There is another conception of duty, based not on fear but on hope,—namely, that it is identical with the desire of the whole self, if only that desire can be discovered. ...
The cure will not work in a moment; we are only at the beginning of self-knowledge; but at last it has begun. For ages man has been gaining power over the external world, but without any increase in self-knowledge, and so in self-control. The task for man now is to know himself, to enter upon a new age of achievement. And, first of all, he needs to confess that, with regard to self-knowledge, he is still in the stone age. All our morals, our conventions, our scientific method even, have been evolved blindly in the past of self-ignorance; but at last we are being driven to self-knowledge by suffering. We see that it is useless to tell sufferers, including ourselves, to be men and overcome their troubles. We are not yet men, or women, because we do not yet know ourselves. But, with the desire for self-knowledge, with the first glimmering conception of what it means, an immense hope has entered the world.
["The Golden Rule in Business"—From Manufacturers Record, Baltimore, Maryland]
Some years ago the vice-president of one of the greatest steel concerns of America in an address before the American Iron and Steel Institute took as his subject, "The Golden Rule in Business." He claimed that in every business relation, whether dealing with customers, competitors, or employees, it was possible to follow the Golden Rule as the surest guide in all business dealings. His address was enthusiastically received by the hundreds of leaders in the iron and steel industry who were present. Since that meeting there has been a widespread development of the thought that in all human relations men should strive to put into practice the divine command to do unto others as we would that they should do unto us. But what a revolution in human affairs would be inaugurated if all men practiced that doctrine!
If all employers would honestly put themselves mentally in the place of their employees and then study the meaning of that command, there would be a mighty change for the better. If all employees would put themselves in their employer's place and endeavor fully to carry out that teaching, there would be no slacking, no inefficiency, and no effort to browbeat and bulldoze other men who did not belong to their particular union. If all buyers and sellers would faithfully do unto each other as they would wish others to do unto them under similar circumstances, honesty would everywhere vail, and the world's business would move forward to a higher and nobler plane, with larger prosperity for all.
No man is living a true life, no man is doing his full duty to himself and his fellow men as employer, or employee, as buyer or seller, who cannot conscientiously say that to the very best of his knowledge he is seeking to carry out this supreme rule of human conduct. No man is thoroughly honest at heart who is not willing to examine himself to see if his motives square with this divine command, which is just as binding as those which say, Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit adultery. Men may follow these commands and still utterly fail if they do not follow that other command which says, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."
[From Newark (New Jersey) News]
Sensing in a phrase used recently on the editorial page of the News an implication that Christian Scientists subject themselves to voluntary self-deception, the Christian Science Committee on Publication for New Jersey asserts that such implication is erroneous and asks its correction. The pharase and its context, however, did not appear in an editorial of the News as inferred, but in an excerpt, published November 15, from an article by Henry Hazlitt in the November issue of The Financier and credited as such.
"It is quite a jump," says the Publication Committee, "from the gold reserve to Christian Science, yet you contrived to execute this saltatorial exploit in an editorial upon the gold reserve in the News of November 15. Immediately following the sentence, 'What some bankers are practically saying is that the world could get along without gold reserves if every one entered into a conspiracy or agreement to deceive themselves that gold reserves existed,' you then add, 'They advocate a monetary Christian Science.' Quite a jump, indeed. The obvious implication of your comment is that Christian Scientists enter into a conspiracy or agreement to deceive themselves. This is undoubtedly a common error of belief concerning Christian Science, but because an error is common is no good reason either for its finding currency in the News or for its passing unchallenged and uncorrected. Consequently, I am constrained to crave space for the correction of this erroneous implication.
"The truth is that Christian Scientists never close their eyes to facts; they simply refuse to accept sense testimony as incontrovertible evidence of facts. This is precisely the attitude and the practice of physical scientists for the past three hundred years. It is but little more than three centuries ago that the whole world, learned and simple, accepted sense testimony without question as proof of the facts as to God's creation. Accordingly, they all then believed that God had created a flat, circular earth, an inverted bowl-like sky, and heavenly bodies revolving somehow about a stationary earth. They were all quite sure three centuries ago that Copernicus and Galieo were deceiving themselves, or being deceived by the archenemy of the human race.
"Now we smile self-complacently at the simplicity of our forefathers, but we hold fast just as strongly as they did to such sense testimony as we have not yet surmounted. Most people still quote as conclusive the old adage, 'Seeing is believing.' Lawyers have a maxim, justified by the legal experience and wisdom of centuries, 'False in one, false in all,' and when they find a witness false in one important particular, they scan all the rest of his testimony with grave circumspection. Christian Scientists adopt a somewhat similar attitude toward sense-testimony, which has been proved false not only in one but in various other important particulars. Instead of deceiving themselves, therefore, they are, on the contrary, awake and alert against any further self-deception.
"The Ptolemaic blunder,' Mrs. Eddy writes on page 123 of Science and Health, 'could not affect the harmony of being as does the error relating to soul and body, which reverses the order of Science and assigns to matter the power and prerogative of Spirit, so that man becomes the most absolutely weak and inharmonious creature in the universe.'"
[Introduction to a Christian Science Lecture in London, England]
The world is still suffering from the aftermath of war, as evidenced by the prevailing unrest, dissatisfaction, and general anxiety on every hand. But the world has always suffered from these evils and will continue to do so until it ceases to look for satisfaction in matter. For nearly two thousand years it has neglected the remedy for this condition offered by the Master, who said, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
Christian Science has come to this age to show the world how to come to the Christ, not through creeds or old theology, but through the simple healing truth that matter and evil are unreal. This truth was revealed to Mary Baker Eddy and is found in the Bible and in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," which she wrote. This Science shows that all anxiety and fear are simply the belief that God, who is omnipotent and ever present, is in some strange manner believed to be absent and not powerful. In other words, the evil feared is believed to be more powerful than God, and more present than ever present Love.
Such beliefs are obviously absurd, and Christian Science shows how one can get rid of his fears and the consequent inharmony which they bring into experience. Christian Science also proves that all one's experiences, physical or otherwise, are the result of thought, and this Science, when properly applied, destroys all inharmony. As Mrs. Eddy says in her textbook (p. 445 ): "Christian Science silences human will, quiets fear with Truth and Love, and illustrates the unlabored motion of the divine energy in healing the sick."
[From The Observer (London, England)]
The business of religion (writes Mr. Frederic Harrison in the new Fortnightly) is not so much to tell men what goes on in heaven, and how to get there when we leave this earth—but rather to tell men how to do their duty whilst they are here: and what the brotherhood of man really requires them to do one to another. ... There will be no real peace on earth until there is promise of a common religion based on scientific certainties which all can accept, and training men from childhood to practice that personal and social conduct in life which is at once their duty and their true happiness.
[Minosuke Yamaguchi, M.A., M.D., as Quoted in The Pioneer]
The National Temperance League of Japan was organized twenty-two years ago. The League has more than one hundred active societies at present scattering all over the land, and new organizations are added from time to time. These societies are now very much alive, and most effective work is carried everywhere by respective leaders. "Dry Nippon in ten years" is the goal many such leaders are aiming for at present.
Annually for the last twenty-one years a member of the Lower House of National Diet has introduced a bill prohibiting the sale or giving away of liquor to minors for their own use. This bill has passed the Lower House eleven times, and has been several times approved by a committee of the House of Peers, but has always been finally voted down in the House of Peers. It is encouraging, however, to know that the number of supporting votes is increasing steadily, and the last fight shows that seventy-nine members were in favor of this bill against one hundred. The gulf is not very wide. Moreover, temperance sentiment is certainly increasing, and it is not difficult to predict that the final victory is very near.
Since the United States effected the national prohibition, Japanese sentiment went through wonderful changes. The prohibition in the United States was a very popular topic in our papers and magazines. Every one seemed eager to know more about why and how such a wonderful prohibition was introduced to such a free and the strongest and richest nation like the United States. Our people became very serious over it. They read and listened. Now they have begun to think. It was, therefore, my great privilege to take such opportunity to speak on these subjects everywhere I visited. Those few scientific facts I gathered in this country helped me much. Our people were very much impressed with them. It is a fact, ladies and gentlemen, your research work done in many laboratories helped to awaken many prominent scientific men and women of our country. Many able scholars were converted to carry the banner for prohibition. You will see that many university professors and college teachers are taking a part in our active campaign. Many prominent government officers, statesmen, medical men, business men, many well-known manufacturers and such, may be found among our ranks. Even many rice brewers expressed their intention to give it up.
["The Truth Still Remains"]
During the campaign for the no-license ballot in Scotland a somewhat exciting meeting was held in St. Andrews which was attended by many of the students. The Varsity students behaved in a boisterous fashion, and several of the young men of the town had become intoxicated for the occasion. But Pussyfoot Johnson held his ground with great courage and sportsmanship. It was a remarkable thing that every time he tried to voice a truth, the trouble began,—error trying to drown the truth. He said so himself. Pointing at the noisy mob, he shouted: "Do you hear that? That is the voice of evil and filth and unhappiness trying to keep good from entering your homes; but they can howl all night, yell themselves black in the face,—the truth still remains."
[From "Science and Life" by F. C. S. Schiller, D.Sc., in The Hibbert Journal]
We may consider what should be the effect of the new theory of radio-activity on the old assumptions that matter and energy are uncreate and indestructible. These assumptions were, of course, never proved facts, but essentially methodological,—that is, the simplest and most natural assumptions wherewith to approach the facts,—and the physicist ought never to have regarded them as dogmas, seeing that all his "proofs" of them presupposed the principles to be established. But this might well escape notice, seeing how prone the human mind is everywhere to turn its methodological assumption into metaphysical doctrines. The error of the physicist was pardonable, and almost inevitable. When, however, the theory of the spontaneous dissociation of the atom was adopted as the interpretation of the marvelous facts of radio-activity, the logical situation should have become clear. It plainly pointed to the corollaries that the atom was as little immutables as were its combinations, and that in every case it had probably come into being and was destined to pass away, though so far this behavior had only been established as the habit of the uranium and thorium families. These new facts should have sufficed to discredit the dogma of the indestructibility of matter. They definitely proved that the experimental evidence by which this indestructibility was supported had been grossly inadequate, and that we had never really been in a position to decide whether matter was increasing, decreasing, or constant in amount.
["The Evangel for Students"—From Association Men]
Staggering problems confront America in these days of reconstruction, but there is no question which is more vital to the very life of the nation than determining what shall be the output from our high schools, colleges, and universities. ... Students were never more responsive when faced with the real situation and challenged with Christ's solution for our individual and social problems. Even many students who have the reputation of caring nothing for religion will respond heartily when brought face to face with the real facts of what is involved in actually living a vital Christian life in relation to God and man. Most of these men are willing to attempt to go the whole way, but they have no use for religion that does not express itself in individual and social relationships.
[From Public Opinion, London, England]
"All this talk (an it is amazing how often one hears it) of settling once and for all the problems of the relations of capital and labor by a decisive victory is nonsense," says The Times. "It is the capitalistic counterpart of syndicalism. There can be no final settlement of these relations; to the end of time their successful adjustment will depend on the existence of a reasonable frame of mind, which cannot be created by a 'fight to a finish,' or even 'a knock-out blow.'"
[From The Abolitionist, the Journal of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection]
The editor of the Medical Officer, in a leaderette on "Hippocrates and Others" in his issue of September 11, casts ridicule upon "some of our so-called epidemicologists" who are "making themselves absurd by discovering 'new' diseases." ... He refers to the germ theory, and especially to "the causative organism of influenza," and admits that up to the present time "we are not really certain of its nature." The difficulty lies, apparently, in the fact that a germ can be no longer looked upon as an unchanging specific organism of a specific disease, as was proclaimed by Pasteur and accepted open-mouthed by a credulous scientific world. All that "science" has been knocked on the head, and the changing nature of these elusive micro-organisms has become the wonder and despair of the modern bacteriologist. ... There will presently be no more left of Pasteur's germ theory of disease than there is of Jenner's proud assertion a century ago about vaccine lymph. The latter has long been cast into the melting pot. The former is fast moving in the same direction.
[Rev. John A. Hutton, D.D., in Record of Christian Work]
For myself I see no way of refreshing this world with energy, and of guiding its invincible natural vitality, except by moving forward,—for surely it is wrong to speak of a return to faith, as though faith were something less energetic and adventurous than the range of mind to which man has already attained, as though in his acts of faith a man were shrinking from the facts of life,—by moving forward to some all-embracing vision of our life and fortunes, which with a new understanding and passion we shall hail as God, before whom we shall all agree that our personal purposes and our public policies shall stand or fall.
["The Church and Labor"—from Glasgow Citizen, Glasgow, Scotland]
Speaking at a public meeting held in Motherwell on Saturday night, in connection with the annual conference of the Church of Scotland Young Men's Guild, Mr.—,M. P. for the Motherwell Division, and a leading employer of labor in the district, said this country was now on the edge of the precipice, and unless all were imbued with the religious outlook, and endeavored to spread it among their fellow beings, we were much nearer the precipice than most people imagined, because, in his opinion, it was not by what managements could do but by what the church could do that our industries and our country could be saved. He did not suggest that the church should decide questions in dispute between masters and men. He trusted sincerely that the church would never come down to take part in these discussions. The church should reveal the strength and beauty of true justice.
