Article April 18, 1942 Issue

The Christian Warfare

KATHERINE ENGLISH

It may be said that war is a state of organized conflict, in which the resources of the combatants are drawn upon in a struggle for supremacy; while peace on earth is a state of liberty and security, with obedience to law and order on all sides. When the divine order of being and its laws of love and blessing are established, there can be no possibility of war between men and nations. The only war which will ever end war is the mental struggle to establish the kingdom of heaven on earth, and to this great end the Church of Christ, Scientist, The Mother Church, as it is fitly called, has been founded, organized, and established by Mary Baker Eddy. The textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," which she was inspired to write, declares on page 450, "The Christian Scientist has enlisted to lessen evil, disease, and death; and he will overcome them by understanding their nothingness and the allness of God, or good."

Having enlisted, then, we can never desert our mental post, but must continue the overcoming of every form of evil and discord which we encounter, by knowing its nothingness. The human consciousness is the battleground, because it entertains a belief in two forces, one good and the other evil, instead of acknowledging only one Mind, God, who upholds His spiritual creation in perfect peace and harmony. It is in our individual consciousness that a just and lasting peace must be established; it is here that our personal false beliefs, fears, limitations, and faults must be conquered, and thought trained in obedience to divine Principle.

But since our own personal sense of error is not the whole of error, we also have to help to overcome, through spiritual understanding, the error, sin, and discord to which the general human mind gives consent; for as St. Paul says, "None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself." We have to reckon with our own reactions to the aggressive suggestions of fear and evil which come flocking to the door of our consciousness from many directions, and to expel those errors which we may have been ignorant or careless enough to admit As each individual does his or her duty in casting down and rejecting whatever exalts itself in argument against the Christ, Truth, the effect upon the world conditions will be incalculable. Was it not largely indifference, the habit of considering chiefly personal sense, and selfishness in relation to international affairs, which gave to mistaken ambition the opportunity of plunging the world into war?

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