Editorial February 6, 1943 Issue

The Irrevocable

Evelyn F. Heywood

The dictionary defines "irrevocable" as that which is "incapable of being revoked; unalterable." And this is what Mary Baker Eddy, its Discoverer and Founder, declares Christian Science to be. On page 12 of "Christian Science versus Pantheism" she writes, "Christian Science is irrevocable—unpierced by bold conjecture's sharp point, by bald philosophy, or by man's inventions."

No weight of intellectual reason, no mortal skill or brilliance, can alter eternal facts. And he who identifies himself with Christian Science, who knows himself to be, in the words of the writer to the Hebrews, "made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life," lays hold now of spiritual law, thus subordinating or annulling all hitherto conceded material law. He sees that he has the sanction, the authority, to claim for himself and for those who do God's will, in faithfulness and in devotion to duty, the truth which preserves and maintains at all times, even, if need be, in the face of violence and ruthlessness; even when confronted by those inventions of war the only purpose of which is to destroy.

Christ Jesus, in talking to the Jews, thus described the devil: "He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him." We can be assured that this is the only murderer there is. He who is called upon, in obedience to his country's or the world's need, to take up arms in order to save humanity from destruction or enslavement, acts not in the interests of death but of life, of civilization, of moral law. Whether his task be that of protecting the lives of peaceful citizens, whom the murderer would destroy, or he be called forth into a wider field of warfare with evil, he will seek to fulfill his mission without hatred, without revenge. He knows that, whatever the present and immediate necessity, his motive is to free men from the mesmerism of a totalitarian mental and physical slavery which would complete a conquest already begun. He has perceived how, if permitted, it would enforce its doctrines and impose its ruthless might upon those rendered helpless to withstand it.

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