Article December 21, 1940 Issue

Looking Up

LILA P. BASEL

SPEAKING to his disciples of the inevitable destruction of all materiality, the master Metaphysician said: "When ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass. . . . And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh." Doubtless that advice seemed difficult of comprehension to those first students of Christ Jesus, and no less so to followers in later eras of the world's history. However, in this day and age the Christian Scientist is learning how to lift his gaze from the world's panorama to the contemplation of Mind's control of the universe, and he is increasingly grateful for the Science which teaches him how to gain this higher view.

Christian Science was discovered by Mary Baker Eddy at the close of an unhappy period of civil strife in her own country, and she foresaw that struggles might precede other reforms also. She says in her inspired textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 96), "This material world is even now becoming the arena for conflicting forces." She continues, "The breaking up of material beliefs may seem to be famine and pestilence, want and woe, sin, sickness, and death, which assume new phases until their nothingness appears." And on page 340, she succinctly sums up the results to be obtained from an understanding of God as the only power, when she says, "One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself;' annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry,—whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed."

The student of divine metaphysics may feel that his individual effort can avail little in a word which today seems to be engaged in a major struggle. Newspapers with disturbing headlines, and news broadcast over the radio, may tempt one to think of the disturbance more than of the remedy. Discussion of various aspects of the struggle, and predictions as to the probable outcome, will never heal the situation; but there is something very definite one can do about it. He can look away from the testimony of the material senses to the spiritual reality. He can affirm the omnipotence and omnipresence of God and the utter impotence of evil—mad ambition and self-will. He can see in war the struggle of evil against the forces of good, not person against person or nation against nation.

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