"Suffer it to be so now"

Archibald McLellan

In March, 1898, just previous to the declaration of war by Spain upon the United States, Mrs. Eddy wrote as follows: "Whatever weighs in the eternal scale of equity and mercy tips the beam on the right side, where the immortal words and deeds of men alone can settle all questions amicably and satisfactorily. But 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" (Miscellany, p. 277).

Ten years later she published in The Christian Science Journal this intimate glimpse of her daily practice: "For many years I have prayed daily that there be no more war, no more barbarous slaughtering of our fellow beings; prayed that all the peoples on earth and the islands of the sea have one God, one Mind; love God supremely, and love their neighbor as themselves. National disagreements can be, and should be, arbitrated wisely, fairly; and fully settled. 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" (Miscellany, p. 286).

In the mean time there had been war between Spain and the United States, during which period Mrs. Eddy, like other patriotic citizens, displayed her country's flag at full mast on her spacious grounds in Concord, N. H.; and when the New Hampshire troops returned from service she fed them and comforted them. Seemingly it had been impossible in this instance to "settle all questions amicably and satisfactorily," and Mrs. Eddy's attitude during the war, and after it closed, fully indicated her approval of the course of the United States Government in its resort to arms as the only humanly possible means whereby to maintain national rights and in the name of righteousness and humanity give freedom and peace to the weak and oppressed.

It is quite evident from Mrs. Eddy's words and acts that it was not war in the abstract which she approved, but rather her approval was directed to the doing of those things which seemed to the world necessary to be done in order that humanity should make progress toward righteousness and peace. "Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness," was the Master's reply to John's protest against baptizing him. In the same sense our Leader must have regarded the war with Spain as a concession to the general belief that only through physical force, applied at that time, could liberty and justice be advanced.

Today the United States Government is again confronted with a situation in which national rights and honor are assailed, when notwithstanding every appeal that could be made and has been made for a peaceful settlement, there seems to be no other alternative than one that may lead to war, or else a shameful submission to a definite lowering of that standard of international righteousness and humanity which this country has already paid so great a price to establish and maintain.

Whatever the outcome of the present situation may be, Christian Scientists will not be unmindful of our Leader's declaration that "the history of our country, like all history, illustrates the might of Mind, and shows human power to be proportionate to its embodiment of right thinking;" and that it is still necessary to take "further steps toward the banishment of a world-wide slavery, found on higher planes of existence and under more subtle and depraving forms" than was African slavery; also that "the voice of the herald of this new crusade sounded the keynote of universal freedom, asking a fuller acknowledgment of the rights of man as a Son of God, demanding that the fetters of sin, sickness, and death be stricken from the human mind and that its freedom be won, not through human warfare, not with bayonet and blood, but through Christ's divine Science" (Science and Health, pp. 225, 226).

Until humanity has fully grasped the truth of this universal proclamation it will be necessary for Christian Scientists, as well as for all others, to do whatever the world's highest sense of human rights demands of them; not forgetting, however, as Mrs. Eddy again reminds us on page 226 of the text-book, that "God has built a higher platform of human rights, and He has built it on diviner claims. These claims are not made through code or creed, but in demonstration of 'on earth peace, good will toward men.'"

Archibald McLellan.

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