One would scarcely attempt to surmise how well this country would have survived the processes of its birth and its many years of civic advancement, had there not been in the Federal Constitution of the United States the one all-important clause relating to religious liberty. Since a wise creator guides and governs man through his spiritual gifts and religious yearnings, and since progress implies growth into purer ideals and a higher order of citizenship, could the framers of our Constitution have bequeathed to us a greater boon? The declaration of the right to worship God without let or hindrance from any previously existent doctrine was at that time a divine leading far in advance of all previous history. Has not this single proclamation been the stabilizing motif which has given the American nation an individuality and prominence far exceeding the most sanguine dreams of statesmanship?
As evidence of the magnitude of this proclamation of human rights, let us remember that the vital clause, remarkably brief and simple in wording, was made a part of the very first amendment that was made to the Constitution. It reads as follows: "Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." By divine right and to find its true place in history, our country could never have been other than religiously free, for God had put into the hearts of those early patriots a sacred desire forever to escape the encroachments of all ecclesiastical dictation. Thus it came about that an amendment to the Federal Constitution was made to insure this right to our people forever.
Mrs. Eddy has said (Pulpit and Press, p. 4): "Who lives in good, lives also in God,—lives in all Life, through all space. His is an individual kingdom, his diadem a crown of crowns. His existence is deathless, forever unfolding its eternal Principle." An "individual kingdom"! What heights of glory such a kingdom presents, with God as its eternal sponsor! The birth of a nation may fittingly date from the hour when the freedom to worship God leads all other rights accorded to its people. Can a nation whose laws are framed under divine guidance fail to achieve greatness?
When contemplating the subject of our inherited freedom, the average thinker may wonder how our "Ship of State" keeps afloat in times of war with other nations, or during great internal conflicts. The devout student of religion would wonder greatly if it were not preserved. Why? Because of the invariable rule of the survival of the fittest. Freedom to think, freedom to do God's will to the utmost, gives prestige to a race that uses with love and discretion a privilege so vast. The gospel taught by our Master resulted in a church founded upon a rock, the rock of Truth. Should not governments also be reared upon truths such as presage a posterity that will endure because of righteousness? The boasted sinews of the flesh do not imply real strength, and warriors and malcontents are alike weak who set out to oppose divine justice. Absolute faith in God is the deep undercurrent that bears the "Ship of State" of a liberty loving land into safe waters, even while the Pharaohs are floundering in the destructive floods of their own vanity and conceit. The one who has real faith in God relies not on a chance survival of worldly prowess, but on the eternal verity of the supreme rule, the same rule which times the movement of the planets with such marvelous accuracy.
Christian Science, revealing God's unalterable laws, verifies the harmonious trend of all human progress. Man, as a spiritual idea, perfect and sinless, must perforce shake off every semblance of mortality. If mortals seem to be in the dark or in troublesome shadows of sin and suffering, they can rightfully call themselves to account by knowing that Truth harbors no shadows which the sun of a cloudless spirituality will not dispel. If the clash of worldly conflict emits a flame of passion, the soothing "Peace, be still," has a might of its own, greater by far than that of the retinues of kings. Thus does God direct our goings and comings in ways which mortal mind knows not. Yet Christian Science teaches us, and proves to us beyond a doubt, that the kingdom of harmony does exist, even though mortal man does not and cannot behold it.
True government, then, is heaven-sent, and every government of the past which has not stood the test of truth as an ultimate has fallen by its own overweight of doubtful legislative enactments. As to the problems growing out of the great war, can we not patiently await their logical outcome? Can we afford to doubt the outcome of any contest with God at the helm? Into our nation's thought has come the slogan of freedom; it has grown, it has been nurtured as our most sacred tenet of right, and it is ordained by the overshadowing presence of divine Principle, which is forever expressing itself. This instills into the hearts of our defenders a vitality and prowess sufficient to cope with the enemy's most carefully laid plot against human rights.
The world's ideals are changing, must necessarily change to keep pace with an inevitable progress ordained by supreme intelligence. We can safely predict that the posterity which endures will be such as has the gospel of Christ for its beacon light. This assurance has been outlined and foreshadowed for us in advance and will keep the spiritual altar fires burning for ages to come, so that we need only to go forward with willing zest and with purpose so obedient that doubt shall find no place in our worship or in our overcomings of the errors we encounter by the wayside.
Finally, let us be content with the thought that the nations which survive will be those that worship not a God of vengeance, but a God who is Love; not a brazen idol of self, but a Deity of endless mercy, for thus alone can Christian worship achieve the prestige belonging to it. The kingdom that is rightfully built from out the ruins of cruel warfare cannot be one of human planning. Every soldier of Christ, Truth, must work for a dominion within that will forbid further assaults of evil. Lincoln, when the storms of error were fiercest, proclaimed the dominion of right. Could a prophet with less love in his heart have spoken so well as did he when he said, "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right,—let us strive on to finish the work we are in: to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations"?
