Article May 9, 1942 Issue

The Time for Challenging

PAUL A. HARSCH, JR.

In the army a soldier on guard has eleven "general orders," the last of which is "to be especially watchful at night and, during the time for challenging, to challenge all persons on or near my post, and to allow no one to pass without proper authority." Even as armies mobilize, so must Christians unite. Mary Baker Eddy discovered and founded Christian Science in the last third of the nineteenth century. Since then it has been successfully put to the test countless times and has proved itself to be the one thing needed in a world confused and misled by erroneous thinking. As Christian soldiers we must be diligent in challenging the power and reality of every destructive element which would engulf a humanity asleep to its threatened freedom. We must heed our Leader's warning in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 120), "Beloved students, loyal laborers are ye that have wrought valiantly, and achieved great guerdons in the vineyard of our Lord; but a mighty victory is yet to be won, a great freedom for the race; and Christian success is under arms.—with armor on, not laid down."

As the sentry stands on his lone watch in the long, dark night, so must each one be especially watchful to defy all claims of hatred, jealousy, false ambition, and evil thinking expressed in the words and acts of nation or individual, and deny them entry into our own consciousness. We must not let them pass, knowing that they have no authority and consequently no power to destroy or even hinder the expression of infinite good.

With so much attention given these days to material resistance, one can assume that the necessity for all this military preparation has arisen from too little spiritual preparation, too little attention to putting first things first on the part of mankind in general. Thus we frequently read in the daily papers of national leaders avowing the need of an understandable and ever-present God to solve the ills of the world; and this is a hopeful sign.

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