Article November 7, 1953 Issue

"DURING THE BATTLE THE VICTORY CLAIM"

JEANNE ROE PRICE

When the poet wrote, "During the battle the victory claim" (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 204), she must have known that to claim victory after a battle is won is easy enough for anyone; but to claim it during the battle, right in the midst of the fury and the fighting, the tumult and the smoke, is not always easy. Christian Science asks us to do just this. And it bases its demand upon the words and works of Christ Jesus, who, in the face of seemingly indisputable evidence to the contrary, proved the victory of good over evil, of supply over want, of health over sickness, of Godlikeness over sin. He saw victory, and victory only, for he saw God and God's workmanship only. "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick." So writes Mary Baker Eddy in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 476, 477)

Jesus claimed victory in the midst of the battle despite a host of aggressive suggestions acclaiming the supremacy of evil. So, too, must we. And Christian Science lovingly and wisely instructs us how to do so. A young mother was able to do this as she sat beside the bedside of her young son, who to all appearances was desperately ill. Into her thinking rushed the most alarming suggestions of a much-propagandized, dreaded, and crippling disease. Then, like a fresh breeze, the words of the hymn quoted at the beginning of this article came to her and literally blew the mists of fear and tension away.

Right there in the midst of the battle she claimed victory instead of defeat, health instead of sickness, strength instead of weakness, the presence of good instead of evil. She could do this because Christian Science had taught her that God is the only cause, the only power, the only lawmaker, and that nothing can obstruct His law of infinite, ever-present, ever-available good. She beheld in Science the perfect child of God's creating. She accepted with reverent gratitude God's promise of help in time of trouble. She acknowledged the inevitable victory of divine law, "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," which has made us free from "the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8:2). And the child was healed, for this correct view of God and of man, this confident, holy prayer, effectually freed him from the so-called laws of pain and death.

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