Article February 20, 1943 Issue

How Are Soldiers and Their Parents Helped?

NELLIE B. MACE

Many anxious parents are asking serious questions concerning the welfare of the loved sons who are now gathered into the world's armed forces. And many a youth is asking questions no less serious concerning the significance of the interrupted course of his life and the possibilities of his return to familiar home environment and accustomed individual occupations or pursuits. What assurance can be had by these parents and these sons that there is a supreme loving Providence embracing the universe and man? That a divine Providence already exists is certain, else there would be no recourse for troubled hearts.

It was Jesus' sublime contribution to the spiritual education of mankind that he answered the deep questionings of the human heart in his revelation of the nature of God as Father. His teaching was both corrective and illuminative. He had to turn human thought from its false sense of existence in matter, apart from God, and he said, "Call no man your father upon the earth." This admonition might have seemed disruptive had he not added the illuminating assertion, "for one is your Father, which is in heaven." Applying his words in his own experience he gave this immortal assurance: "As the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself." These sacred revelations of the nature of God and of the Christ, or Son of God, establish the eternal relationship that exists between each child of God and the Father, the one infinite Life. Herein is humanity's hope of safety and of immortality.

Jesus went further in his revelation. In showing the complete, universal, and individual relationship of the Father and the Son he said on one occasion, as he pointed to his disciples: "Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." Here, then, in the Master's revelation of true being, is found the spiritual fact underlying every relationship held dear by the human mind, even while it is misinterpreted as being involved in matter. God is Father, and the truth concerning all relationships—mother, sister, brother—is found through the Christ, or Son of God.

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