Editorial June 27, 1977 Issue

Help for Innocent Victims

Naomi Price

There is always something we can do to help others in times of trouble. This is true even in situations where onlookers feel that conditions make help impossible, or that it would be presumptuous to interfere in other people's affairs. Disasters affecting thousands; incidents of mental or physical cruelty inflicted on innocent individuals, perhaps by their relatives; the brutal treatment of animals; other forms of injustice, victimization, or vandalism arousing indignation or pity—whatever the painful circumstances are, there never can be one that puts us in the position of being unable to help. There is always something we can do. We can pray, and nothing could be more effective.

Spectators to brutality and the pain suffered by its victims sometimes say they feel such anguish that they can hardly bear it. They may describe the situation as tearing at their hearts, making them sick with frustration, anger, or revulsion. Yet the Bible promises goodness and mercy for all, and it teaches the efficacy of prayer to establish these gentle qualities of God's government on earth, and thereby heal all kinds of human difficulty.

A New Testament writer said, "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." James 5:16; He was referring to the healing not only of people who are sick but of those who have need to be healed of sin and faults of character. And Christian Science shows how even the discord of human beings' grossest inhumanity to each other can be dissolved through the loving, prayerful recognition of the true facts of being by one who has spiritual understanding of God and His perfect creation. How much better, then, to stop agonizing over the world's sufferings, and through fervent prayer help destroy the bestial characteristics of mortal mind that are apparently causing earth's people and animals to suffer.

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