Article August 1, 1942 Issue

Production

JANET MC CORMICK-GOODHART

In her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 (pp. 6, 7) Mary Baker Eddy writes, "Divine Science fulfils the law and the gospel, wherein God is infinite Love, including nothing unlovely, producing nothing unlike Himself, the true nature of Love intact and eternal." Christian Scientists are faced today with a world whose efforts toward material production of things, both destructive and useful, are being strained almost to the breaking point. "Produce, produce, produce!" seems necessarily to be the modern battle cry of the United Nations. Then how are we who understand in Christian Science something of God's great all-embracing law—the law of "infinite Love, including nothing unlovely, producing nothing unlike Himself"—to make our mental adjustment to the situation and still be true to our spiritual understanding?

Shall we not make every effort to dwell consistently with the spiritual qualities we have discerned, constantly to lift them up in our thinking, and to be grateful for the fact that employment is being given to many thousands who were needing it? Shall we not be grateful for that inspiring glimpse of the realm of harmony which Isaiah has given us in his words, "And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more"? Can we not recognize that in the long view nothing is being produced but good? Those who make the cannon, the guns, the planes, the ships must, in order to do so, bring to view and exercise valuable spiritual qualities, qualities of endurance, obedience, accuracy, patience, cheerfulness, cooperation, and so forth. Thus, though error would try to tell us that the exercise of these qualities is producing weapons of war, of hate and destruction, nevertheless, the moment will come when the lie will return again to its nothingness, dust to dust, and only the noble qualities of character that come to light in the experience will endure, will shine forth untouched.

Real manhood must be revealed, and nothing be allowed to rob men of their true identity and unity with God. Mankind will no longer need to toil amid tons of steel and flaming furnaces, for they will have emerged from this ordeal purged of the dross, purified and strengthened, and more fully able to enjoy the blessings of God. Indeed, as the great pieces of metal are forged and welded together, let us know that in reality they but symbolize righteous qualities—brotherhood, a higher sense of fellowship based on unselfish service, on love of right, on loyalty to Principle—that are being welded together. Yes, there is great human production today; but there is a production that is purely spiritual, wholly righteous, which is ever going on; it is the manifestation of that which is, and no counterfeit manifestation can interfere with this fact, for God is supreme, All-in-all. Thus do we "render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's and to God the things that are God's"

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