In the newspapers, over the radio, by the fireside, in the trenches, one question is being asked again and again: "When will the great offensive on the western front begin?" Everyone, including the enemy, knows that it is inevitable, and somehow everyone knows that it will be successful. Likewise the world knows that it has already begun, because every step of planning and preparation is essential to the campaign itself. In fact the success of the offensive depends largely on intelligent preparation.

Furthermore, there is not a single lover of true freedom and Christianity in the world who is not asking himself, "How can I help in this great offensive?" The men at the front are keyed for it. The workers in the factories are working long hours for it; the generals have been planning night and day for it. All of this is important, but the Christian Scientist knows that even more important is the mental preparation, the righteous prayer that brings thought and action under the complete control of infinite Mind.

Through false education, superstition, and belief, mankind has been taught to think of evil as aggressive; that it can move, that it can spread and grow, that it can consume and finally destroy good. Sometimes mankind has been tempted to believe that evil is running rampant, that it has gone on a great offensive. How grateful we can be that through Christian Science the world is learning that good alone is now and always omniactive. Since good has and is all action, evil cannot go on the offensive, it cannot be aggressive, it cannot spread, it cannot even move. It remains inactive and nothing before the omnipotence and omniaction of God.

When we in our thinking endow evil with the capacity for action, we are unfaithful to God and His activity, for we are in belief furthering that false belief which is the enemy of mankind. Let us rather challenge this lie with the truth that evil cannot act. Before the omniaction of God, evil is paralyzed. It cannot move. It cannot run riot. It cannot escape its own self-destruction. It can only be nothing. What a privilege it is to understand and demonstrate these divine facts and thus aid in the establishment of that reign of peace on earth that knows no aggressive evil.

Our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, has written in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 29), "Christians must take up arms against error at home and abroad." We must take up arms against error because the omniaction of God demands active opposition to all evil. The omniaction of God is a law of annihilation to every claim that evil can act. And this divine law operates throughout the universe. The manifestation of God's power, presence, and action is not confined to one country, to one race or one people. God's law is universal and works everywhere. In Spirit, God, there is no selfish isolationism; there is only Love's universality and unselfishness.

In a sense good is on the great offensive. Mrs. Eddy recognized the omniaction of Truth in these words on page 559 of the textbook: "The 'still, small voice' of scientific thought reaches over continent and ocean to the globe's remotest bound." Truth impels wise action so that the enemy cannot conceal itself. In its great offensive good has all the resources of the creator of ideas to help it carry through its work to the complete destruction of all evil. Good is fearless in the great offensive because it knows that in the presence of infinite, omniactive good evil is nothing. The forces of enlightening good enable us to say, in the words of the Psalmist: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me." Can light be overcome by darkness? No, because it has within itself the power to destroy the darkness. Can the children of light fear to participate in the great offensive of good against evil? Hardly, for they know the victory of good is assured.

In its great offensive, good does not just establish a little beachhead against error and then come to a stop. The power of good cannot stop in its overcoming of all evil; it just has to go on and on because by nature it is omniactive. It is only the suppositional activity of evil that can be stopped. Good moves forward as the one irresistible force. Matter cannot stop it. Enemy guns, mines, tanks, airplanes, gas cannot stop it. Hatred, fear, revenge have to give way before it. And at last even the memory of evil must disappear before the flood tide of Love's great offensive—the omniaction of good.

Over twenty-five years ago the Allied Nations joined in a war to stop and silence the claim that evil can express itself aggressively through military action. They united in spirit and effort and accomplished a great task. But after the armistice was signed they allowed themselves to be lulled into a mesmeric dream that the war against evil was over. Had the peace-loving people continued to carry on the great offensive against error and injustice with the energy and devotion to a noble cause they had manifested during the days of the military campaigns, we should undoubtedly not be faced with the necessity for again warring to end war.

The war against evil will never be over until all error is destroyed in human consciousness. There can be no armistice in the great offensive against evil. When error feels the influence of the omniaction of good, it sometimes cries out, as did Sanballat and Geshem, "Come, let us meet together in some one of the villages in the plain of Ono." But Nehemiah did not consent, for he was aware that they sought to do him mischief. Likewise good is not deceived and knows that its power does not and cannot compromise with evil. Evil must surrender, completely, finally, and forever. The omniaction of good enables us to say in the words of Nehemiah, "I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?" No, the great offensive must go on until the complete victory has established the reign of harmony on earth.

Evil has no defense against the omniaction of good. It cannot build a wall around itself and defy God. Evil cannot entrench itself in the human consciousness and stop the operation of God's ideas. Evil has nothing to support it; it has no resources, no supply, for all supply comes from God, the Most High. Furthermore, evil does not have the ability to communicate. Evil cannot speak, it cannot transmit messages, it cannot hear, it cannot see. All that it can do is surrender before the omnipotent omniaction of God.

One of these days the cannons will cease firing, the rifles will be stacked in neat piles in warehouses, the war planes will no longer roar overhead, and the war plants will close down. Then will the people rejoice again, crying, "The war is over!" But will the great offensive of good against evil be over? Will it not be just one phase of the conflict that is finished? If mankind again allows itself to be lulled into a false sense of peace known as the absence of military activity, then it may find itself again at war years hence, again fighting a war to end war.

But there are mental signs today that the world will not repeat its mistake of two decades ago. The campaign is already started to guarantee the peace. When the military operations are over, may the citizens of the world continue in the spirit of that great hymn,

May we continue to take up the spiritual arms against error at home and abroad. The uniforms may come off, but may there be no demobilization in the spirit of our efforts to rid the world of those elements of thought and action that cause war. May there rather be the spirit of enlistment and reenlistment in the great task of establishing and maintaining peace and harmony on earth, not in just one country or one hemisphere, but in all the world.

The great offensive is on. Let us rally in our prayers. Let us march, and let us sing songs of joy as we march. The victory over evil is assured.

Copyright, 1944, 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.