Article April 22, 1922 Issue

Peace and the Blessedness of Peacemaking

JOSEPH G. MANN

After every crisis surmounted, Christian Scientists appreciate more fully Christ Jesus' comprehensive outlook upon the worth-while in this world,—the reality of which he hinted in his Beatitudes with the clarity and simplicity of godliness. Out of his own clear spiritual understanding and deep experience the Master said: "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." How wonderful the vision of peace here hinted,—the peace of the children of God! As the reward of peacemaking, one is to come into one's own as a child of God; and this happy outlook is confirmed by the Master's assurance to his disciples: "My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you."

The world's sense of peace is very personal. It is often little else than a selfish compromise,—an agreement to stop fighting and to cooperate so personally as only to change the warfare from perhaps a sanguinary encounter with mortal weapons to almost as selfish a commercial competition. But even honest human efforts at peacemaking are to be justly honored; though the most effectual peacemakers are the consecrated, steadfast ones who live close to the Father and secretly radiate His healing spirit. In her Message to The Mother Church for January, 1898, Mrs. Eddy writes (Miscellany, p. 121): "In metaphysics we learn that the strength of peace and of suffering is sublime, a true, tried mental conviction that is neither tremulous nor relapsing. This strength is like the ocean, able to carry navies, yet yielding to the touch of a finger. This peace is spiritual; never selfish, stony, nor stormy, but generous, reliable, helpful, and always at hand."

When the great Master said, "My peace I give unto you," he surely must have meant the peace of Principle, divine Love, assimilated and demonstrated for others,—the peace of that unity with the Father which naturally overflows to the assurance and reassurance of others, and so carries with itself the blessedness of the peacemaker who is ever conscious that, as our beloved Leader writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 365), "the poor suffering heart needs its rightful nutriment, such as peace, patience in tribulation, and a priceless sense of the dear Father's loving-kindness." Pity is akin to peace. Never was there greater need, than in this hour, for the entire field of Christian Scientists to rise to the altitude of divine pity, which blames not personally, but tenderly impersonalizes evil to its nullification. Discouraging personal action, our beloved Leader taught invariably to lean on God with firm faith and He would bring out the right, making the individual wiser and better for the experience. The whole field of Christian Scientists is the wiser for leaning on God with unshakable faith while passing through special trial.

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