The thoughts of earnest men everywhere are turning towards the magnitude and the significance of the tasks that lie ahead in rebuilding a stricken world. Construction, rather than reconstruction, is what will be demanded of us; not replacing, remodeling, reconditioning the old, but the building of a new world, with materials not worn and faded with memories of the past, but fresh and bright, chosen by those whose love and confidence are great.

The construction that is to take place will demand of us a newness of spirit which is not easily daunted; it will call for service which does not quickly tire. Uncovered, discredited, discarded forever should be the methods, policies, the intentions and ambitions, which through every form of inhumanity have brought misery and disintegration in their wake. Those who have learned anything from the present are aware that unless that which we construct means the guaranteeing of the rights of the individual to live equably in a free world, the foundation on which we build will not endure. Human justice, human freedom, human kindness, must be safeguarded if the warfare is to have proved worthwhile. And how is this to be done?

On page 11 of "The People's Idea of God" Mary Baker Eddy writes, "Above the platform of human rights let us build another staging for diviner claims,—even the supremacy of Soul over sense, wherein man cooperates with and is made subject to his Maker."

All the efforts of legislation, the labor of statesmen, of philanthropists, of architects, economists, educators, will fail, if men attempt to construct truth and justice upon a material basis, by human means, however conscientious, however efficiently planned and organized. The Psalmist uttered a great truth when he declared, "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it."

To go forward in the determination to build a world wherein the supremacy of Soul is unchallengeable; wherein all co-operate in brotherhood, in common partnership, based not upon many wills but upon the one divine purpose—such alone is worthy of construction, and assured of success.

"Let not him who is homeless," declared Abraham Lincoln, "pull down the house of another, but let him labor diligently to build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence." This indeed will be the work of all lovers of their fellows, to turn them from retaliation and vengefulness to build with faith and energy, with vibrancy of expectancy, the old fears and miseries gone; to prove that cruelty and rapacity are broken and the kingdom of heaven is here.

Of what is man constructed, and what is it that he constructs? Truly Christ Jesus proved to humanity that man is not constructed of matter. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up," he told the Jews. Everywhere he went he brought the constructing power of health, of harmony, of virtue, of plenty, where faith in God had been absent. The world he offered men, built of the qualities of Mind, of compassion, of gentleness, of innocence and joyfulness, how safe from violence he proved it to be, even the violence of the cross! "History repeats itself," writes our Leader on page 1 of "Christian Healing"; "to-morrow grows out of to-day. But Heaven's favors are formidable: they are calls to higher duties, not discharge from care; and whoso builds on less than an immortal basis, hath built on sand."

Today we ask ourselves, as we survey the wreckage of so much which we believed stable and productive: How can I be assured that my universe will never again be threatened, wrecked, invaded, by any cataclysmic happenings? The answer is to be found in the teachings of Christ Jesus and Christian Science. Jesus made it clear that the house built upon the rock, though the rains and winds beat against it, does not fall. Violent and continuous have been the storms, physical and mental, which have battered and raged around many an individual consciousness during these years, but he who trusts the constructive energy of Spirit, remains undisturbed and unharmed. He knows that ahead of him, when the battle is stilled, there will be no "discharge from care," but the continuing unfoldment of divine Science in the world, thus bringing to others the understanding of that which Spirit alone can fulfill.

Great was the assurance which came to the prophet Jeremiah of the constructing power of God, despite the evidence before him of his own people, tragically vanquished and ruined, captive and scattered. Today, the promises which came to him are ours also. But greater than that; we have had revealed to us not only the promise, but the light of Truth, the love of Love, whereby we may prove for ourselves and for others that the basis on which we build, the design and substance of our building, are provided and preserved of God. He who knows this, be he the architect of his own life, of a business, a city, or a nation, can take comfort from this promise to Jeremiah: "So will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the Lord." No discharge from care, but ever greater calls to the love and labor which heaven's favors supply!

Evelyn F. Heywood