Was the Psalmist David just an indefatigable optimist, or were his cheering songs born of a settled, proven understanding of the actuality and availability of spiritual power? The Christian Scientist subscribes to the latter concept.

When the giant Goliath was terrorizing the Israelites and calling for a man to meet him in combat, David, as will be remembered, volunteered his services to King Saul. The king, however, endeavored to dissuade him from what could seem only a foolhardy mission. He reminded his enthusiastic young subject that he would be no match for the Philistine, for, he said, "Thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth" (I Sam. 17:33). David then proceeded to give his testimony as to the saving power of Spirit over matter. He had demonstrated in two notable instances that God, Truth, can and does deliver the sons of men from fearsome mortal mind experiences, when they turn to Him understandingly. Therefore he faced this new opportunity to prove the supremacy of good over evil with sublime confidence. Like Macbeth, he could say, "I have almost forgot the taste of fears!"

But David's assurance sprang from practical demonstration of God's nearness and power. Thus such statements in the Psalms as the following may be received by the seeker after spiritual facts not as expressions of optimistic, wishful thinking, but as proven truths: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble" (Ps. 46:1); "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" (Ps. 27:1.)

How the human family needs such comforting and strengthening during these days when Israel again faces the Red Sea and the wilderness! Right here may the attention of the Christian Science student be called to the profitable practice of companioning frequently with a comprehensive Bible concordance. A most helpful and interesting study unfolds when, for instance, one looks up the references under such words as "strength," "strengthening," and "power." Of course very few men and women in the armed forces can include a bulky Bible concordance in their equipment; therefore, families and friends at home, when writing to loved ones overseas, could well send Scriptural references of, or copy the verses dealing with, the glorious, healing statements of God's love and law which abound in the sacred volume.

Reports from the front these days give much prominence to a malady among our troops called 'exhaustion" or "combat fatigue," akin to what was known in World War I as "shell shock." Hardworking, self-sacrificing medical men at the front state that through "varied systems of treatment" they have brought relief "at least temporarily" to a majority of the cases. But, adds one report, "when they turn their efforts toward prevention, they find that a formula lies mostly out of their hands. The battle-born malady is simply a condition wherein the human body and mind no longer are able to shake off normal reactions and fears which stem from literal physical exhaustion and constant repetition of combat." (Associated Press report of Kenneth L. Dixon.)

Now comes the Science of Christianity to the rescue. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 369) that great latter-day exponent of Christ-healing, Mary Baker Eddy, writes: "The prophylactic and therapeutic (that is, the preventive and curative) arts belong emphatically to Christian Science, as would be readily seen, if psychology, or the Science of Spirit, God, was understood. Unscientific methods are finding their dead level. Limited to matter by their own law, what have they of the advantages of Mind and immortality?" Here we find Mrs. Eddy lifting the term "psychology" from the realm of the human mind and restoring it to its rightful home in Spirit. Does not the Greek psycho convey the meaning of life and soul? The true psychologist, therefore, must needs bring to the human mind and its maladies the unction of Soul, of that serene spiritual consciousness which is the polar opposite of sentient materiality.

Let every Christian Scientist, therefore, when writing to the men or women in the service of their country and to any of those confronted with the heinous pictures of war, send them statements of divine Truth with which to combat and surely destroy the unthinkable suggestions of the carnal mind. Christian Science likens a discordant experience of material sense to a dream, to that which seems to be true but which in reality has neither cause, law, nor existence.

Let us, then, in our prayerful ministrations for all who are enmeshed in the nightmare of war, be joyously, confidently steadfast in repudiating as mythical and unreal the awful pictures of conflict, and in maintaining the actuality, the presence, of man's harmonious, scatheless status as the son of God. Let us unfalteringly aver that man, the expression of Spirit, can know no exhaustion, for he is the very reflection of all-powerful good itself. Expressing that infinite Mind which can neither receive nor record its opposite, man cannot be stamped with appalling, gruesome impressions. Safe in the secret place of Soul, he can know no shock. Dwelling in the light of Truth, he cannot be haunted by unspeakable dream-shadows and hideous memories.

This recognition of the real man and his relation to God is not the chimerical, impractical averment of visionaries. It is workable truth, provable law. It has healed, and it will continue to heal. Here is the promise of the great Master to those who understandingly turn from matter to Spirit, from dreams of sense to Truth (Luke 10:19): "Behold, I give unto you power ... over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you"!

John Randall Dunn