To those who are now going through fiery trials with attendant loss and suffering, the thought of the permanent peace which may arise out of the debris of today is encouraging and stimulating. Their sacrifice will not have been in vain if in the aftermath of the present conflict self-abnegation has helped to build peace in which future wars are outlawed, the means of making them debarred, and those now engaged in waging them are trained instead in the fundamental truths upon which permanent peace is based.

In the transformation from the old to the new and the building of better world conditions, Christian Science is playing an indispensable part. Spiritual truths alone are adequate to destroy belief in material fables and philosophies, which are responsible for world unrest, human warfare, and "man's inhumanity to man." This Science reveals the spiritual facts of being, proclaiming the real man's indissoluble relationship to God, from the understanding of which men and women during the dark and difficult days are deriving vision, resourcefulness, and strength. For Christian Science shows that evil, being unreal, vanishes away, while spiritual good forever remains panoplied in its own imperishable glory.

Referring to the hope of immortality, Paul declares: "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. ... Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." Mary Baker Eddy, referring to the demonstration of spiritual facts, writes in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 428): "To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being mayappear,—this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true. Thus we may establish in truth the temple, or body, 'whose builder and maker is God.'"

The reality of being, which is revealed in Christian Science, and which, when understood, transforms the human consciousness, is the spiritual fact that God, divine Love, infinite Spirit, maintains man in His own image, and that the real man, including all true selfhood, is therefore wholly spiritual and immortal. As we accept and hold thought firmly to this truth, the Christ-idea will effect a transformation in our thinking which will have its proportionate influence upon the whole world. For it can be readily understood that the spiritually mental process through which healing is effected in Christian Science also accomplishes something towards a transformation of the human consciousness. The individual who understands and expresses spiritual qualities, such as purity, humility, sincerity, and love, is contributing towards world betterment. The world must become better through the purging away of selfishness, tyranny, and ungodliness, and the expression in their stead of the truth through which men are healed and blessed.

Paul said in his epistle to the Romans, "Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

And what better example of transformation could be afforded than that of the apostle himself who, through his conversion and acceptance of the truth taught by Christ Jesus, was changed from a persecutor of the Christians to a notable disciple of Christ's Christianity?

When Nehemiah commenced to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, the workers alertly wrought the work with one hand, "and with the other hand held a weapon." How similar to this situation is the state of affairs in the world today, when apathy, treachery, atheism would tear down the ramparts of Truth, undermine the bulwarks of Christianity, and flood the world with pagan doctrines and practices! And how applicable to the correction of this situation is the method employed by Nehemiah in rebuilding the wall! Combining prayer with watchfulness and inspiring men to work with might and main, he turned their thoughts to contemplate the omnipotence of God, good, as the sure defense against the claims of evil.

Christian Science is showing us today how to work in accordance with divine Principle. This Science, through its revelation of God's allness, equips us for any unselfed labor of love required in the interests of humanity, and provides for us the shield of absolute faith in the triumph of Truth over error. Thus armed, we not only can work unitedly for the salvation of mankind from belief in the reality and power of evil, but also can prove on all occasions the nothingness of whatever opposes God, or good.

Christ Jesus, our great Exemplar, through the power of God overcame sin, disease, and death. The import to mankind of his unparalleled demonstration of the power of divine Mind to heal, transform, and rebuild, is that for the world, struggling beneath a weight of anguish and suffering, there will come an awakening from belief in the reality of evil to the joyous sense of the real man's spiritual existence as the reflection of God. Thus the purport of transformation and rebuilding in Christian Science is that, while a transformation of human experience can be effected through spiritualization of thought, it is only to the end that belief in matter and evil may disappear from human consciousness, while Spirit, God, and spiritual man continue forever unchanged as the only realities of being.

While opposition to the Christ-idea continues, there will seem to be fires of affliction, mental anguish, distress of nations. But as Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health, p. 191), "As a material, theoretical life-basis is found to be a misapprehension of existence, the spiritual and divine Principle of man dawns upon human thought, and leads it to 'where the young child was,'—even to the birth of a new-old idea, to the spiritual sense of being and of what Life includes. Thus the whole earth will be transformed by Truth on its pinions of light, chasing away the darkness of error."