Realizing the gravity of conditions confronting the civilized world today, one of our representatives at the United Nations Council called upon the people of the United States to stop all material activity one day for several minutes, and pray. This is an encouraging sign. It is the visible evidence and indication of right-minded men and women of all faiths turning away from the material sense of things to Spirit, God, as the only answer to humanity's unsolved and pressing problems.

As, a matter of fact, there is no material answer, no merely human solution. If mankind is to continue and be permitted to work out the good life in spiritual progress and thus maintain freedom—freedom from poverty, freedom from disease, freedom from fear—and to live a life of peace. Christian Science declares that these essentials can and will be found only in a correct, scientific knowledge of God and of man's coexistent and inseparable relationship to Him. Almost every day one hears of some well-known and highly regarded public citizen emphasizing spiritual values and urging upon the people the paramount need of prayer.

On page 95 of her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy writes, "Lulled by stupefying illusions, the world is asleep in the cradle of infancy, dreaming away the hours." And she continues, "Humanity advances slowly out of sinning sense into spiritual understanding; unwillingness to learn all things rightly, binds Christendom with chains." Mrs. Eddy points out that it is mankind's unwillingness to live and think rightly that lays the basis of slavery. This also is responsible for the apathy and lack of alertness to the evil elements of the so-called carnal mind which, if not uncovered and destroyed, would again engulf mankind in mental darkness.

The intelligent Christian Scientist would no more close his eyes to the gravity of the world picture than he would to a seeming condition of disease that obviously needed his alert and loving attention in order to be healed. Today there is no more important demand upon Christian Scientists than effective and constant prayer, prayer in its highest and truest sense, expressed in a devoted and continuous realization of Love's allness and ever-presenee. In view of what humanity is facing, it is clear that business affairs, one's activities in and with the home and family, and most of all material pleasures and enjoyments, must not interfere with the needed prayers of those who love and value freedom.

As the great truths which our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, has enunciated in her teachings become clearer, we no longer can conceive of God as a distant deity or entity to whom petitions for safety and protection are directed. On page 16 of Science and Health we read, "The highest prayer is not one of faith merely; it is demonstration." Prayer in Christian Science, then, is spiritual realization and affirmation of Love's all-power and all-presence. It is the understanding that all true consciousness is Love and that that consciousness is one, and therefore by reflection is the consciousness of man.

Because Mind is one and infinite, it is the Mind of man. Mind's infinite expression. This divine and self-evident fact sets aside and annuls the sense testimony of many-minds in discord and in fratricidal conflict. All men in the truth of being have one Mind, one Life, one Love; and this truth Christian Science declares can be demonstrated in our human experience.

In an inspired article entitled "How Strife may be Stilled," Mrs. Eddy writes (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, pp. 278, 279): "The Principle of all power is God, and God is Love. Whatever brings into human thought or action an element opposed to Love, is never requisite, never a necessity, and is not sanctioned by the law of God, the law of Love." And in the next paragraph she adds: "God is the divine Mind. Hence the sequence: Had all peoples one Mind, peace would reign. God is Father, infinite, and this great truth, when understood in its divine metaphysics, will establish the brotherhood of man, end wars, and demonstrate 'on earth peace, good will toward men.' "

Christian Scientists are deeply grateful to Mrs. Eddy for revealing to them a practical understanding of the spiritual facts underlying the unity and harmony of nations. She has given to the world, in concise and clear statement, teaching which, if followed, will bring about a practical demonstration of the brotherhood of man. Three times each day in her busy life she stopped to pray for the health and happiness of mankind. Is this too much to ask of anyone who today has the freedom and happiness of the human race at heart?

Christian Science teaches that the brotherhood of man, scientifically understood, is the unity and harmony of Love's ideas expressed in the oneness of being. With courage and consecration, let us work for the present fulfillment of Isaiah's inspiring prophecy (Isa. 2:2-4): "It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths. ... And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

Richard J. Davis