Arresting in both its simplicity and its profundity is the statement by Mary Baker Eddy in her book "Unity of Good" (p. 56), "The chaos of mortal mind is made the stepping-stone to the cosmos of immortal Mind." A demonstration of this sequence is based upon the self-evident premise that the reverse of error is true. A dictionary definition of "cosmos" is: "The world or universe considered as a system, perfect in order and arrangement: opposed to chaos. Hence, any harmonious and complete system evolved out of complex details. Order; harmony." The cosmos considered as the material universe, including man, is but a hint of the glorious spiritual cosmos, whose noumenon is divine Principle, God, the cause whose phenomena are perfect, from the infinitesimal to infinity. A careful study of all the references to cosmos in Mrs. Eddy's prose works, together with their preceding and following paragraphs in some instances, will richly repay the student who wishes to pursue this subject further.

Christian Scientists have become quite accustomed to correcting the disorders, diseases, and inharmonies of the human body through their understanding of the fundamental fact that God, good, alone is cause and creator, and that His creation, including man and the universe, must necessarily be good. Acknowledging the universal, inexorable laws of God, they repudiate the lawless so-called laws of supposititious mortal mind and its subjective condition, matter, and this correct reasoning reveals health, harmony, and orderly action to be the natural status of man.

In like manner the body politic, whether social, industrial, national, or international, if seen to be subject to this beneficent law of God, the one divine Mind, can be rescued from the confusion of many minds, manifested in differing ideologies, misunderstandings, suspicions, fears, anger, greed, aggression, and so on. Thus may all forms of human government be made to conform increasingly to the reign of Christ, Truth, manifested in law and order, or the economy of divine Mind.

Human reason unaided by divine Science is inadequate to explain the confusion and disorganization of this critical period in world history unless it be stated in the dour pronouncement in Hosea (8:7), "They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." Certainly it appears that the wind of materiality is producing a whirlwind of suffering, strife, and chaos. It is the ignorance, false theology, and selfishness of men and of nations that are accountable for the present excesses of evil, since human history supports the fact that godlessness inevitably reaps the fruits of discord, sin, and death, while spirituality has its fruitage in harmony, health, peace, and security.

In the Glossary in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, is to be found an enlightening definition of "wind" (p. 597): "That which indicates the might of omnipotence and the movements of God's spiritual government, encompassing all things. Destruction; anger; mortal passions." Resolutely turning from mortal mind or matter with its reign of mortal passions and chaos, we adopt the standpoint of divine Mind and acknowledge the all-pervading harmony or cosmos of "God's spiritual government, encompassing all things." This corrective is mankind's glorious hope of salvation and enduring peace.

The student of Christian Science who faithfully denies the existence of a finite, carnal mind with its subjective states of evil, and affirms with understanding the omnipresence and omnipotence of the one infinite divine Mind, God, and its universal manifestation of good, is a genuine peacemaker and promoter of spiritual leadership. Such spiritual leadership is imperative if peace and security are to replace the strife and turmoil so apparent in many departments of current human experience. Christian Scientists need not necessarily be in positions of prominence and authority to promote in the affairs of their nation and the world the leadership and government of the Christ, Truth. Whatever their pilgrimage, they can daily, through a correct spiritual perspective manifested in Godlike living, demonstrate the prophetic words (Isa. 9:6), "The government shall be upon his shoulder."

In "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (pp. 180, 181) Mrs. Eddy has clearly stated the practical peacemaking possibilities of Christian Science. There she writes: "No warfare exists between divine theology and Christian Science, for the latter solves the whence and why of the cosmos and defines noumenon and phenomena spiritually, not materially. The specific quest of Christian Science is to settle all points beyond cavil, on the Biblical basis that God is All-in-all; whereas philosophy and so-called natural science, dealing with human hypotheses, or material cause and effect, are aided only at long intervals with elementary truths, and ultimate in unsolved problems and outgrown, proofless positions."

Christ Jesus' oft-quoted promise (John 8:32), "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," affirms the absolute potency of Truth-knowing. The Master proved irrefutably that the ever-present forces of good consonant with spiritual understanding annul and counteract the supposed forces of darkness and evil.

Since knowing is coincident with being, stated in the familiar words of Plato, "What thou seest, that thou beest," any Christian Scientist who clearly understands and consistently claims the spiritual, fundamental fact of harmonious being, God and His idea, man, is bound to express a greater degree of freedom and usefulness, together with adjustment and restoration, wherever these are needed in his individual experience. This work of maintaining the absolute facts of being from a correct spiritual standpoint, and thus rejecting counter errors, is not only the privilege but the definite responsibility of Christian Scientists.

The student who knows that right decision, unerring direction, intelligent action, are inherent in God and necessarily reflected by man, reverses and, in proportion to his enlightened faith, annuls the beliefs of wrong decision, misdirection, inaction, or unwise action resulting from conflicting ideologies, interests, and wills in local, national, and world affairs. The certain manifestation of such clear thinking will be that industrialists, labor leaders, national lawmakers, and international statesmen will more and more yield to the intelligent, wise government of divine Principle, instead of to supposititious evil forces of which they maybe ignorant. Thus will the tangled relationships of individuals, classes, and nations mercifully respond to the corrective, harmonizing law of the one omnipotent divine Mind, God, and thus, to quote again the heartening words of our Leader which open this article, will "the chaos of mortal mind" be "made the stepping-stone to the cosmos of immortal Mind."