Prominent among the questions which to-day challenge the attention of thinking people is the demand for civic righteousness, with all it implies. So much of un-righteousness has been uncovered of late years that its long concealed hideousness has brought the needed recoil, now that men are face to face with it, and pulpit and press unite in condemning dishonesty and corruption in high places. That there is not yet the same unity of thought as to the remedy is to be regretted; it is, however, well that evil is now admitted to be destructible and the trust expressed that good must survive every deluge and upheaval of human opinion. Thus is the teaching of Christian Science justified; for whether consciously or no, the good is admitted to be the real,— that which endures,—and the evil that which leaves no loss nor void by its disappearance.
Some years ago the late Professor Drummond called attention to St. John's startling statement that heaven is to be found, not in Elysian fields, not in a garden, but in the intense life of the city, and that as John saw a "new Jerusalem" we must see the divine possibility of our own cities and work for its realization. If we turn to that wonderful 21st chapter of Revelation we shall note that the ideal city comes down to men "prepared" by God himself. There can be no question as to the civic righteousness of such a city, for God is to dwell there, at once ruler and Father of His people, and nothing can enter into it that defileth "or maketh a lie." How startling this is when we contrast it with the human concept of a city—a place where there may be great opportunities for good, but where the weak perish and where vice keeps its Moloch fires perpetually burning for the hapless victims of sensual desire.
As this chapter is read in the light of Christian Science we see as it were a dissolving view; we see the awful manifestations of evil belief,—the sin and the suffering,—but we also see God wiping away the tears, healing sickness, and overcoming death. Then like St. John, we hear a great voice out of heaven, telling us that "the former things are passed away,"—the fear, the greed, the lust, the pain, the ignorance of God,—all these are consumed in the purifying fire that burns forever but never consumes aught that is good.
