Editorial January 28, 1967 Issue

Defending Right Institutions

Helen Wood Bauman

Certain institutions have evolved in human society which help to stabilize it and lead the race into higher states of existence. Perhaps the two most important stabilizing institutions are the Church and marriage. Regardless of the corruption of Christianity which the Church represented through some centuries of its existence, the Church has had its beneficent influence on mankind. It always preserved the Bible and reminded its adherents that there is an invisible God to be worshiped.

Purification of the Church and improvement in the social order have gone hand in hand in countries predominantly Christian. Moral standards set forth in the Ten Commandments have slowly crept into legislation. The love that protects individual rights and life has emerged as humane steps taken to help the downtrodden. In this age, through the discovery and founding of Christian Science by Mary Baker Eddy, the Church of Christ, Scientist, is bringing to mankind the truth of being and the understanding of spiritual power that heals sickness and sin and all discord. In fact, it is restoring the lost element of healing to Christian worship.

Marriage, the second vastly important institution which stabilizes society, is described by Mrs. Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures'' in these words: "Marriage is the legal and moral provision for generation among human kind."^{Science and Health, p. 56;} There is more to marriage than a love affair. Marriage is a legal contract with certain responsibilities attached to it. It concerns both parents and children. It has the almost universal approval of society. It imposes financial accountability. The family is essential to a wholesome society. In the family children are trained—or should be—to become useful citizens of the world, to get along with others, and to uphold right rules of social conduct. Their education is cared for under normal conditions.