Never since the days of the Great Rebellion has the country been in such a turmoil as we now witness. Capital and labor is engaged in what is believed by at least one of the combatants to be a death struggle. The working classes as represented through their various labor organizations sincerely believe that if they now surrender to the demands of capital, they will be undone for many decades, if not indeed for all time. Capital believes that if it now surrenders the principle that it cannot conduct its private business affairs in its own way, unmolested by its employees or by any other outside influence whatever, it will have made a concession which would forever place it beyond the scope of this inherent private and individual right.
Thus it is that the labor organizations, on the one hand, and capital on the other, are each slow to yield one inch of ground. It is in such times as these, speaking in a general sense, that Christians must be Christians. Mere pretence to Christianity unaccompanied with the ability to demonstrate the fact, becomes in such times, the sheerest mockery. Shall we as Christian Scientists stand firm to divine Principle, and in the face of all seeming emergencies, demonstrate our unfaltering trust in and understanding of the supremacy of Good, the allness of the one divine Power? Now in a peculiar sense are each individually, and all commonly, put to this test. Shall we become touched by the external upheaval or shall we retire to the closet of spiritual communion and pray? Pray as Jesus prayed, and as he taught his disciples to pray? Pray, so that our prayers shall reach out through the channels of human thought and touch to higher issues human purpose and human desire. Oh that the turbulent contending forces could be made to hear the pleading voice of Jesus of Nazareth in the might and power of his meekness and humility, in the deep pathos of his great human love, as he cries to poor, tired, struggling mortals in pleading admonition: "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!"
Is this not a fitting time to submit the sober, serious inquiry: Has the Christian world heeded this admonition? Has it given true ear to it? Had it done so, would these dire conditions be now possible in that land whose chief boast is its advanced Christian civilization?" Christian Scientists, one and all, place your feet upon the Rock Christ Jesus, and stand firm.
