Article July 28, 1923 Issue

Perfect Peace

LOUIS A. GREGORY

Probably the world has never before esteemed peace so highly as it does now. Certainly it has never tried more eagerly than now for an enduring basis for harmony. And human expedients for bringing about agreement among nations having been tried and found wanting, people have been forced to seek divine aid. The alliance of the most powerful nations has not, so far, been able to maintain peace. Solemn treaties sometimes seem worthless, and established world-relationships but as leaves before the whirlwind that reaps the sowing of reliance upon physical force. Crumbling despotic governments show that even as a political condition the unit of peace is the individual rather than the nation, the citizen rather than the autocrat.

Christian Science healing has proved to many that peace is spiritual; and the failure of materialistic safeguards is awakening others to the fact that peace is primarily a mental state. They are learning that peace must obtain in the thought of the individual before it dominates him; and it must dominate the individuals in a nation before it dominates the nation itself; hence peace is, first of all, a matter of individual right thinking, and therefore is divinely metaphysical. Its expression, however, must be visible and practical.

So far as humanity has relied upon materialistic instead of spiritual power, it has failed to find peace. Since perfection alone is permanent, the only true concord is to be found in the perfect peace that Christ Jesus disclosed. He taught us to do away with conflict between individuals by eliminating conflict within the individual. The peace he left with us is freedom from agitation, disturbance, and fear, because it is a concomitant of the Life, Truth, and Love which he exemplified. In a very practical way perfect peace belongs to heaven, God's kingdom; yet heaven is not a distant future state. It is properly described as "on earth peace," the emphasis being placed upon it as a present condition. The seeker need not be disheartened because he does not immediately achieve perfection; for he is certain to progress only as he looks solely to the perfect standard.

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