We can cope with a crisis if we understand the elements of conflict involved, and if we apply to these elements the power of God.

Every Christian Science healing proves that this can be done successfully. It proves that anyone who sincerely acknowledges the reality of Spirit and the unreality of matter, as taught in Christian Science, can apply God's power.

When there was a conflict between Ahab and Elijah, Elijah knew exactly what to do. He saw that the conflict was not political but that its opposing elements were materialism versus spirituality. He challenged the prophets of Baal to prepare a sacrifice, and he said to them (I Kings 18:24), "Call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God." Although Elijah was in the minority, four hundred and fifty to one, the materialism of Baal produced nothing. But Elijah's prayer to God brought fire.

Christ Jesus throughout his ministry emphasized and demonstrated the power of spiritual truth over material error. And he spoke of the necessity of quickly placing a conflict on this basis, saying (Matt. 5:25), "Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison."

If a nation seems to be moving toward a crisis on a question that is charged with emotion, we can begin with the one Spirit, and with spiritual sense see through the personally sensitive exterior crust on both sides of the question. We can work and pray to resolve the conflict on the basis of Spirit versus matter. This basis alone assures a quick settlement through the overcoming of error.

We may find ourselves standing alone at first, reviled by personal opinions from both sides of the question because what we advocate would give neither side what it wants for itself. Yet what we have to offer is the invincible Christ, Truth—the truth of God's spiritual reality.

When a crisis threatens to produce violence, we may face it individually and collectively on the basis of truth. Divine Love is the Principle of man, and man is the image, the idea, of Love. Matter is not Principle. The belief that matter can originate man and produce inharmony is error. All that is real comes from Spirit, which is Love. Whatever lacks love is untrue. Our prayers affect the universe in which we live in the degree that we plead the truth and deny error.

The method of healing in Christian Science is applicable to the healing of national or international discords as well as those suffered by individuals. Both may be classed as disease, and both may be treated by our identifying man as God's image, denying evil and affirming the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence of the one Mind.

Mrs. Eddy gives specific instruction, however, regarding treatment during a crisis, which she indicates is the coming of evil elements to the surface of human thought so that they may be destroyed. She writes on page 421 of Science and Health: "If a crisis occurs in your treatment, you must treat the patient less for the disease and more for the mental disturbance or fermentation, and subdue the symptoms In removing the belief that this chemicalization produces pain or disease. Insist vehemently on the great fact which covers the whole ground, that God, Spirit, is all, and that there is none beside Him. There is no disease."

On such questions as that of racial integration we must dissect our own thoughts and make certain they have not evolved from a materially personal history, but that they begin with and emanate from the divine Principle, Love. Then we shall be able to discern spiritually the true and false elements in the conflicting thoughts of others. Conscious of Principle as the source of true thought, we shall know the divine power that is available to us, and through prayer we can apply that power to the scene we face.

With spiritual authority we can deny such claims as selfishness, shortsightedness, isolationism, and egotism. We can exercise the power of Truth to defeat these errors and to identify man with unselfed love, limitless vision, spiritual unity, and humility. Such prayer has a practical effect because its basis is above the human in the divine understanding. As we understand Spirit's allness and matter's consequent nothingness, our prayers invoke the power of divine Mind.

In her "Miscellaneous Writings," our Leader gives us these words in reference to a sermon on the Fourth of July (p. 176): "The great theme so deeply and solemnly expounded by the preacher, has been exemplified in all ages, but chiefly in the great crises of nations or of the human race. It is then that supreme devotion to Principle has especially been called for and manifested. It is then that we learn a little more of the nothingness of evil, and more of the divine energies of good, and strive valiantly for the liberty of the sons of God."'

Carl J. Welz