Editorial October 11, 1941 Issue

Keeping Thought above the War Level

George Shaw Cook

It has been said that it is well to be in the world, but not of it. This advice is particularly applicable to conditions which exist in the world today, and to the right attitude of Christian Scientists towards such conditions. The considerations which have seemed to involve many nations in actual warfare, and which threaten to involve others, cannot be ignored. It is not desirable to assume even a mental attitude of isolationism and say, "This is an affair which does not concern me, and I do not intend to have anything to do with it." We are all mentally in the war, whether we are physically in it or not. It is a condition of belief, and must be dealt with as such and disposed of in consciousness through right thinking, whether or not we are called upon physically to participate in it as individuals or as a nation.

No Christian Scientist, it may be assumed, believes that war in itself is good, or that it is the ideal way of settling national or international disputes, but many students of Christian Science would agree that in some instances war may be regarded as a lesser evil than submission to aggression, and suffering the continued domination of those who are apparently willing to employ weapons of injustice and cruelty.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, in a statement made to the Boston Herald, in March, 1898, wrote (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 277): "Whatever weighs in the eternal scale of equity and mercy tips the beam on the right side, where the immortal words and deeds of men alone can settle all questions amicably and satisfactorily. But if our nation's rights or honor were seized, every citizen would be a soldier and woman would be armed with power girt for the hour."

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