Centuries ago Isaiah foresaw a time when the people would gather together to learn how to live with each other under the government of divine Science. As a result, swords and spears would be converted into plowshares and pruning hooks. There would be no more war. This is the way the prophet put it (2:2): "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."

In this "mountain of the Lord's house" God will teach men of His way and they will walk in His paths, "for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem" (verse 3).

Divine Science reveals that the highest goal attainable to men is to understand and prove that they live in a spiritual universe governed by divine law. As Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 209), "Mind, supreme over all its formations and governing them all, is the central sun of its own systems of ideas, the life and light of all its own vast creation; and man is tributary to divine Mind." This divine order is the Science of being, understandable and demonstrable.

It is helpful to think of the kingdom of heaven as the spiritual order of being. In this order man has no will of his own and claims none. God's will is supreme. Man accepts the will of God as the governing power of the universe and is in complete accord with it.

Through his words and works our great Exemplar, Christ Jesus, showed us how we can bring every phase of human existence under the perfect government of divine Mind—even the functioning of the human body. Because he exalted God's will above his own, he could act and speak with divine authority. To the one whose hand was withered, he said (Matt. 12:13), "Stretch forth thine hand." And it was immediately restored. The power he exercised was God's power. Everything he had he received of his heavenly Father. His glory was the glory of the Father reflected. His life was immortal Life individualized.

When men learn from Jesus how to live in accord with the divine source of their being, they will bring themselves as well as their institutions and systems under the control of divine Principle, Love. Men will co-operate, not compete, with each other. They will love, not fear. They will protect, not harm, each other.

Mrs. Eddy speaks of the divine order where she writes (Science and Health, p. 518): "God gives the lesser idea of Himself for a link to the greater, and in return, the higher always protects the lower. The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood, all having the same Principle, or Father; and blessed is that man who seeth his brother's need and supplieth it, seeking his own in another's good."

Humanly speaking, men have come a long way from swords and spears to hydrogen bombs. They have taken spectacular steps forward in their attempts to subdue the earth, that is, to come into a better relationship with their environment. But many are still in the sword-and-spear age so far as their spiritual growth and development are concerned. They still think of God as a glorified human being and of heaven as a place they may go to after they die. Men have allowed their technological achievements to greatly exceed their spiritual achievements. That is why we face such serious challenges and will continue to face them until divine Science gives to us a true sense of God and our relationship to Him.

If we draw conclusions from human history, we have no assurance that freedom from warfare and devastation will ever be achieved this side of the grave. And yet deep in our hearts there is hope that men will live together peaceably in a spirit of mutual trust and helpfulness. Christian Scientists have a great work to do in strengthening this hope by helping nations to flow to "the mountain of the Lord's house," there to bring human existence into accord with Spirit and its beneficent laws.

As men seek "the mountain of the Lord's house," the next great thrust forward must be a spiritual one. Recognizing God to be divine Principle, men will bring themselves under the divine government. They will establish the kingdom of heaven, the reign of harmony, on earth.

This achievement will be aided by Christian Science, which is the application of divine Science to humanity, the restoration of primitive, spiritually scientific Christianity. In all their materially scientific progress men have not even begun to exercise the superiority over their environment that Jesus did. Divine Science, the Science of Spirit, holds the answer to all humanity's problems. It is supreme. It is the God-provided religion for the modern scientific age.

Christian Science is interpreting and demonstrating man's relationship to God in such a practical and useful way that it is turning the thought of many individuals away from a material to a spiritual sense of life. It is at work acquainting men with God's ways, enabling them to place themselves under His laws. It is helping an ever-increasing number of people to realize that the unity of men and nations is established in the Science which reveals God's allness, for as our Leader tells us (ibid., p. 292), "Divine Science alone can compass the heights and depths of being and reveal the infinite."

Ralph E. Wagers