Faced with major challenges to their safety and security, Christian Scientists choose to depend upon methods that they have proved to be effective in what might be termed "minor challenges"— much as a mathematician uses the principle of mathematics in solving whatever problems he may be confronted with. Whether the integrity of their nation is challenged, or that of their church, their home, or their person, they seek to do what Paul counseled in his second letter to the Corinthians when he spoke of "casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (10:5).

Because technological and productive skills will ultimately become available to all men, no nation can find security in an ability to annihilate its opponent. In an attempt to reach a point where they can utterly destroy each other, men have reached the ultimate of military folly. Under these circumstances Christians have no choice but to turn confidently to the Bible for direction and guidance in order that they may help to solve what otherwise might be unsolvable problems.

What do they find? They find a way to overcome their enemies without harming them. "Love your enemies," said Christ Jesus, "bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 5:44, 45). This directive cannot be repeated too often. Is love too high a price to pay for peace, when the lack of it threatens to wipe out the civilization and culture that have been centuries in developing on the earth?

To love our enemies is to bear witness to what is spiritually true of them regardless of what false material sense presents to the contrary. Men are held together in the spiritual bonds of Truth and Love, bonds which mortal mind, or Satan, the enemy, would replace with bands of error and hate. The first step in loving our enemies, then, is to differentiate between Satan and those whom this would-be perverter would have us believe are our enemies.

Satan is merely a term used to depict the personification of evil; it is a Hebrew word signifying adversary, enemy, accuser. This enemy of men is mentioned in the Bible in connection with many vicious attacks upon those who sought to worship the one God.

The wilderness experience of the Master was a necessary prelude to his successful spiritual mission in establishing Christianity (see Luke, Chapter 4). It is an experience which every Christian must share in some form if he would follow in the footsteps of the Master. Then angels will come and minister to him, as they did to Jesus.

The Master highly commended those who are able to overcome hate with love, saying (Matt. 5: 9), "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." Peacemaking is an art, and when it begins at the grass roots—in the hearts of the people—the efforts of statesmen at the top will be successful.

Because this is true, a great step forward would be taken if during the coming year all of us who are followers of the Master would prayerfully resolve to devote ourselves to loving our enemies in complete assurance that no enmity can exist since God is the one and only Mind, and in this Mind one idea is not at strife with another. Such a spiritually enlightened approach to the new year would raise up an army of peacemakers who would merit the title of "children of God."

To fear or hate those whom material sense would designate as our enemies would play directly into the hands of the enemy. But to love them in the way spiritual sense makes possible is to overcome the enemy. And we can thwart Satan's devices in no other way.

During the Christmas season Christendom has been reminded that Christianity was ushered into the world by the joyous activity of the Christ in human hearts. Its message was, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men" (Luke 2:14). And that is the message of Christianity today. However, the benefits of Christianity may not be eagerly sought until materially minded methods are seen to have failed to accomplish what is possible only to spiritual-mindedness. Material-mindedness is the darkness that the Christ dissipates with the enlightenment of Truth and Love.

The peace of God is positive. Nothing but this peace can quiet the human heart and establish peaceful relations with others. It casts out hate and fear, ignorance and poverty, and directs the abilities of men to constructive purposes. Fear induces hate, and hate feeds upon fear, in a vicious circle of error's devising; but the Apostle John wrote (I John 4: 18), "Perfect love, casteth out fear: because fear hath torment."

Mrs. Eddy presents the effective way for men to deal with each other in an article entitled "Love Your Enemies," which begins on page 8 of "Miscellaneous Writings." In this article she brings out that those individuals who hate us without cause are virtually our best friends, and she states, "Primarily and ultimately, they are doing thee good far beyond the present sense which thou canst entertain of good."

Then she adds with penetrating spiritual discernment: "We have no enemies. Whatever envy, hatred, revenge—the most remorseless motives that govern mortal mind—whatever these try to do, shall 'work together for good to them that love God.'"

Ralph E. Wagers