The world is supremely tired of the people who go about offering new lamps for old. It has learned that it is usually all in the way of trade, and that the main object is that the trader should be enriched in the process. Thus when the second international usurped the pontifical functions of the first international, and the third international clothed itself in the garments of infallibility at the expense of the second, the world realized, a little wearily, and with just a touch of amusement, that all that was happening was the substitution of the control of one group of people for that of another, and that the political millennium was as much a dream of the future as ever.
Yet there is in this question of internationalism something of the utmost consequence to mankind, and that is precisely what raises the human passions so terribly whenever it comes to be considered. It is then that nationalism quivers all over, and the flags of the world strain out upon their halyards. It becomes abundantly clear, in other words, that the human mind is being touched to the quick, and what this means may best, perhaps, be understood by Mrs. Eddy's "Definition of mortal mind," on page 114 of Science and Health: "Usage classes both evil and good together as mind; therefore, to be understood, the author calls sick and sinful humanity mortal mind,— meaning by this term the flesh opposed to Spirit, the human mind and evil in contradistinction to the divine Mind, or Truth and good." Believing, then, in good and evil, this human mind sets to work, periodically, to refashion the universe, and the result is the drafting of the latest international in the interest of the drafters thereof. Yet the true international must conserve the interests of all men, "from the least of them unto the greatest."
An international, in other words, which is confined to a specific class interest is a veritable travesty of internationalism. The only true international which can ever be achieved will be achieved through the demonstration of the atonement, since it is obvious that the only permanent unity of a family, of a nation, and so of the world, which can ever be reached is that founded upon a family, a national, and so an international acceptance of Principle. This being the case, a clear pronouncement by the churches as to the meaning of the atonement would go far to create an appreciation of the only way in which the true international can be created. Such a definition is, however, an impossibility because whilst the churches themselves are not entirely united on the subject, a certain orthodox dogma has been promulgated which, by the simple process of deflecting the meaning of the word, as in the case of miracle, has arbitrarily endowed it with the meaning of the vicarious sacrifice, in utter disregard of its significance in either Hebrew, Greek, or English.
