In a full-page article on "The Meaning of Patriotism"...

Thorwald Siegfried

Yakima (Wash.) Republic

In a full-page article on "The Meaning of Patriotism" the statement is made that certain people "would conduct our national affairs upon the assumption that the world is today what they want it to be. This Christian Science method of diplomacy will destroy any nation which attempts to follow it."

Christian Scientists will agree that those who act on the belief that "the world is today what they want it to be" will come to grief. This ready agreement springs from the fact that the mental process to which the writer objects is not Christian Science at all, but exactly and diametrically its opposite. It may accord with so-called mental science, hypnotism, and other processes intended to help people get what they want when they want it. For that reason their modus is as readily used for evil designs as for good ones, perhaps more readily. Opposed to all this as day is to night, Christian Science is the Science of being, bringing into knowledge those things which were created by God, infinite Spirit, and which therefore endure untroubled by the passing vanities of human conception. A Christian Scientist seeks to know the truth, not to make the truth conform to his wants.

Each Christian Scientist is free to work out for himself the application of this teaching to human problems of defense against evil. However much the conclusions of Scientists may be varied by personal bias, a general agreement may be found among them to the effect that evil in any form, be it disease, military invasion, or poverty, cannot be overcome by ignoring it. To the physical senses evil is a very potent reality that cannot be rendered less real or less potent by merely shutting the eyes to it. It cannot be overcome by merely looking away from it, but rather by looking through its seeming reality and power with the spiritual conception that recognizes God as omnipotent, the only power. It is then, and only then, that evil is dissipated like a cloud pierced by sunshine.

Christian Scientists are constantly overcoming evil by the knowledge of spiritual truth; it is not too much therefore to look for the time to come when they, like David, will lay off the armor of worldly power and overcome the Goliath of militarism "in the name of the Lord of hosts." When they achieve this, there will be no secrecy about it to those who will see; until then they may be relied upon to support every human activity tending to preserve our nation from corruption within and from foreign attack. Christian Science first builds an immovable pillar of rock under the house of human affairs; then it removes the props which may have previously supported it, but which become both unnecessary and troublesome when a firm foundation has been established. In this immediate connection Mrs. Eddy wrote in 1908, "It is unquestionable, however, that at this hour the armament of navies is necessary, for the purpose of preventing war and preserving peace among nations." And in 1898 she wrote, "If our nation's rights or honor were seized, every citizen would be a soldier and woman would be armed with power girt for the hour" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, pp. 286, 277).

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