More than ever before in the world's history, the hope of liberation from war-forged bondage inspires the effort of millions. A promised day of world order is shining like a rainbow against the cloud—a day not impossible and Utopian, but attainable and Christian, a day of decency, justice, and social freedom.

Even so, some are saying that world peace is more than this century can achieve. They are predicting that reaction, depression, and another war are sure to appear in future generations.

Christian Scientists, knowing that God's allness furnishes the standard of demonstrable reality, should be quick to challenge these arguments of evil. Such claims cannot be ignored, for unless the spirituality which confutes them is laid hold of, their plausibility is accepted. If limiting suggestions are allowed to run rampant, they apparently gain further dominance thus delaying spiritual victory and preventing the present realization of good. As followers of Jesus, Christian Scientists do not give evil a chance by letting it flourish for a time, but instead they steadfastly pray: "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."

Praying thus, they expect God's answer. Christian Scientists are confident that God's kingdom cannot be obscured. In reality. His is the only power; His will must be done: His will is universal law. Indeed, Christian Scientists understand that prayer means beholding the universe as it now is— secure under God's government; prayer disposes of the false, misleading evidence proposed by the physical senses, and acknowledges as true only what God admits.

"More effectual than the forum are our states of mind, to bless mankind," declares Mary Baker Eddy (Pulpit and Press, p. 87). The vital influence exerted by the forum of public opinion is well known, but Christian Scientists understand that the real strength or weakness of public opinion depends upon the degree of its spiritual rightness. Christian Scientists do not undervalue the contribution they can make by positive right thoughts. Neither do they feel themselves alone. "One on God's side is a majority."

Divided faith is not prayer. Knowing the truth is prayer. And truth has to do with reality; it does not compromise. In plain, unswerving confidence, Mrs. Eddy presents the possibilities of the present. She writes on page 371 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "The necessity for uplifting the race is father to the fact that Mind can do it; for Mind can impart purity instead of impurity, strength instead of weakness, and health instead of disease. Truth is an alterative in the entire system, and can make it 'every whit whole.' "

Then the duty of Christian Scientists involves such a reliance on the power of Mind as inspires the determination actively to encourage and support all upward-reaching, freedom-loving tendencies cherished by the human race. Christian Scientists are not shallow optimists, for their hope and vision are based on the reality, immediacy, and availability of infinite good.

Always, in human history, when good has been about to triumph, and evil has seemed to find some means to block its way, the failure has resulted from humanity's disposition to accept evil on its own terms, to fear it, to acquiesce in sorrowful resignation to its inevitability and power. Some systems of thought ascribing power to fate, to the planets, or to forces beyond control, support this tendency. As a matter of record, wherever human advancement has been achieved, either by individuals or by nations, it has been because the illegitimacy of evil has been discerned and the normalcy of good appreciated. True spiritual revivalism revealing God's certain care, has awakened men since the dawn of time to rout the hosts of evil and replace them with the powers of righteousness.

Many passages in Science and Health encourage Christian Scientists to declare the baselessness of war and to affirm that spiritual reality, or heaven-embraced activity, is present. Certainly Mrs. Eddy teaches that peace is not a physical condition but a spiritual idea. "To love one's neighbor as one's self, is a divine idea; but this idea can never be seen, felt, nor understood through the physical senses," the textbook points out on page 88. Being a spiritual idea, true neighborly love is as omnipresent as God, and, rightly viewed, it is seen as an inseparable quality of Mind.

Mankind learns its lessons in various ways, and there can be no human outlining of the steps whereby progress is achieved. "See that ye be not troubled." was Jesus' concise command. What properly concerns students of his teaching are the quality of their own praying and the consistency of their own living. Let each one ask himself: Am I an isolationist in personal practice, a narrow thinker, a bystander, a provincialist, interested only in my own concerns and unaware of the world at large? If the answer is affirmative, then let him awake, cast off all temptations to self-love, and allow the grandeur of his stature as a witness to all-inclusive Love to gain evidence through deeper prayer for universal peace in living that matches the Master's standard of brotherhood.

In prayer where healing for another is sought. Christian Science teaches its students to hew close to the truth and regard the situation as involving, not a person who is sick, but a false sense insinuating that such is the case. In this way they free themselves from the handicap of believing that the success of the treatment can be threatened by a sick person's answering assertion, "Yes, but evil seems very real." Prayer beholds the real man one with God and thus replaces false thinking with spiritual knowing.

Prayer for the sick and prayer for the nations are closely related; the method is the same. The enemy to peace is false belief. God has no rebellious children, no peace-breakers. In Him exists nothing that resists love.

"The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof." It is the work of His Christ to save mankind, the work of Christ's followers to behold the risen Saviour. Christianity does not ask for pacifists but for peacemakers, and peace is the result of individual and collective overcoming of the fears and theories which obscure the real man's native activity as the likeness and witness of God.

Pray because of the human need for contact with the divine; because He has encouraged us to go to Him and ask; because He has answered our prayers and those of others in the past; pray because of our responsibility in prayer, that peculiar power which the Christian may wield in the world through prayer.—Selected.

Copyright, 1943, by The Christian Science Publishing Society, One, Norway Street, Boston 15, Massachusetts. Entered at Boston post office as second-class matter. Acceptance for mailing at a special rate of postage provided for in section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized on July 11, 1918. Published every Saturday.