Editorial May 24, 1941 Issue

The Nature and Method of Victory

Alfred Pittman

It has been too often overlooked that Christianity is a teaching of victory. The Saviour has often been depicted as unequal to the forces against him, and as overwhelmed by them, but it is unquestionable in the light of Christian Science that he was the most triumphant individual whom the world has known. What have been construed as defeats for him were, in fact, phases of a superbly conceived and controlled career, by which he proved for himself and mankind that under every type of condition in which hope seems to be gone, in which the odds seem too great against men, they have, if they but know it, all that is needed for victory.

His career could not have accomplished this purpose better if it had had no further aim. What types of conditions would he have dealt with especially to prove altogether the unreasonableness of despair? Why, disease, surely! And again and again he paused with those who were hopelessly afflicted in that way—lepers, a man born blind, one by the pool of Bethesda who had been ill for thirty-eight years, and many others. And before he left them they were healed, When the disciples were battling against an overwhelming sea, he showed them the safety and peace that were at hand for them. At last, when the might of the hostile Jews and of the Roman Empire was arrayed against himself, and he had no human defense, he advanced to still higher achievement; by his resurrection and ascension he not only saved himself but established a teaching that has far outlasted and outgrown the systems of those who believed they had destroyed him. It is not strange that just when the purpose of the Pharisees to slay him was becoming plain he should have quoted Isaiah's prophecy concerning his work: "Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; ... a bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory."

The truth is that the teaching and works of Jesus are a certain prophecy of conquest over all evil; and Christian Science shows that this conquest is available step by step, in accordance with the needs of every hour, to all who claim it understandingly.

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