Editorial May 9, 1942 Issue

Strategy

Evelyn F. Heywood

On page 102 of "Miscellaneous Writings," Mary Baker Eddy has defined spiritual strategy. She writes: "Science has inaugurated the irrepressible conflict between sense and Soul. Mortal thought wars with this sense as one that beateth the air, but Science out-masters it, and ends the warfare." Such a conflict was initiated by Jesus without human support, for in its gravest crisis his disciples forsook him and fled; and it was fought on these lines. It is to be noted in studying Mrs. Eddy's words quoted above that the initiative is not with the enemy. It is inaugurated and carried to its inevitable successful conclusion by Science, by that consciousness of spiritual knowing which exposes and defeats the efforts of material sense to gain the mastery.

Jesus could look on undisturbed at every violent, meaningless show of force which sought to arrest, imprison, humiliate, crucify, and finally destroy him, because he knew that actually it was "as one that beateth the air." His own plan of action, divinely prepared and preserved, was already outlined. On page 42 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy, in writing of this last mortal attack of the enemy upon the Saviour of mankind, has said: "Let men think they had killed the body! Afterwards he would show it to them unchanged. This demonstrates that in Christian Science the true man is governed by God—by good, not evil—and is therefore not a mortal but an immortal."

Jesus knew that those who hated the spiritual idea would come to take him by force; he foresaw the strategy of evil; he knew that a disciple would betray him, that his own people would repudiate him. When the final development came, he was ready. He had studied the Scriptures; he had discussed what was to take place with Moses and Elias on the mount of transfiguration; for him the strategy of the enemy could bring no surprise. He sought not escape; he had no purpose but to accomplish that which he had come to do, and he continued night and day preserving the consciousness of his oneness with the Father. Twice in the garden of Gethsemane, as recorded in the twenty-sixth chapter of Matthew, he came and found his disciples asleep and sought to rouse them. The third time he came, not to renew his plea, for he saw that they were not ready for spiritual awakening, but to prepare them for the immediate human happening. "Rise, let us be going," he said to them, "behold, he is at hand that doth betray me."

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