Editorial November 11, 1922 Issue

International Amity

Albert F. Gilmore

The Revelator saw in his heavenly vision man's perfect state depicted. Among the many glories revealed to him, he described the "river of water of life." "In the midst of the street of it" was "the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." Commenting upon this passage on page 406 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy says, "The Bible contains the recipe for all healing;" and further, "The tree is typical of man's divine Principle, which is equal to every emergency, offering full salvation from sin, sickness, and death." The student of Christian Science is assured that the healing of the individual will ultimately lead to the healing of states and nations as well, for the "leaves of the tree," the perfect remedy, as the expression of divine Principle, will remove from human consciousness everything unlike the divine idea—the perfect creation, which God made and pronounced good, and which has remained unchanged.

In the light of this revelation, strange and anomalous seems the attitude which nations have held toward one another from the time national existence began. The code of ethics generally adopted as necessary of observance in relations between individuals is practically abandoned in the dealings between nations, even among those called Christian. The Golden Rule, accepted as a perfect guide to the conduct of men individually, has apparently had little place in the interchanges between nations. This unfortunate and reprehensible situation seems to have arisen too often from the mistaken supposition that it is the first duty of a government to gain every material advantage possible in its dealings with its neighbors, and jealously to guard its dear-bought treasures from any possible encroachment; in short, the policy of "get all you can and keep all you get" seems to have obtained very generally. As a result of this wrong attitude, suspicion rather than trustfulness, greed rather than generosity, and hate rather than brotherly love, have been engendered to the obscuration of the true sense of brotherhood.

In view of the present troubled relations between nations, which, if continued, would seem to threaten civilization itself, many are asking if there is not a remedy for these intolerable conditions. The question is definite, and the answer is certain. The means for salvation for men and nations are identical, and may be had in both cases only on a spiritual basis. The establishment of the kingdom of heaven on earth includes the Christianizing of national consciousness, no less than the spiritualizing of the thought of the individual. Replacing distrust with confidence, hatred with love, greed with liberality, selfishness with unselfishness, dishonesty with honesty, are steps toward establishing that international amity which inevitably results from the application of divine Principle to human affairs. Mrs. Eddy saw this great need and expressed it thus in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 286): "For many years I have prayed daily that there be no more war, no more barbarous slaughtering of our fellow-beings; prayed that all the peoples on earth and the islands of the sea have one God, one Mind; love God supremely, and love their neighbor as themselves."

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