IN the first sentence of the first chapter in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy may be said to have summed up the entire gospel of reformation and healing. She says, "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love." Truth and Love have always been recognized more or less clearly as having something to do with religion. From Moses' day to the time of Christ Jesus, for instance, there were many changes in religious thought; and from the days of the Galilean Prophet to the present, many, many more changes have been wrought in sacred ideals. But in all those cycles of time one thing has remained unchanged; and that is the universal recognition that love and truth are the principal factors in true spiritual progress. Theories and creeds may come and go, and men may dispute or even quarrel about doctrinal points; but that which proves by thought and deed that unselfed love has come to be the lodestar of a human life will always get the right of way in human thought about spiritual things.
True human progress, therefore, must be said to be measured, not by material wealth and comfort, nor even by the number of churches and communicants a nation or a people may possess, but by the unselfish lives which are revealed day by day. As yet the world is liable to sneer at unselfishness and honesty; but in the judgment of God nothing is more certain than that the time is approaching when these qualities will be greatly honored. The world may also say of the life of Christ Jesus, our highest Exemplar of unselfed love, that it is to-day impracticable; but the time is near at hand when nations will be convinced that not only individuals but peoples must manifest, at least in a measure, the same unselfed love which the Master exemplified, if they wish to retain their hold on true civilization. In the daily press, for instance, one frequently finds a conclusion such as the following, taken from an editorial: "Reviewing the wonders of modern invention has become the tritest exercise of the schoolboy essayist. But the profoundest of our philosophers are beginning to reckon the time when civilization must break under the weight of its complexity and its increasingly ungovernable mass." Yes, civilization, if it be reckoned as wholly material, must break,—is breaking on every hand.—until the great fact is universally recognized that no man or woman can afford to despise or set aside the example of Christ Jesus; nor can any nation do so with impunity. It is not matter or material intellectualism that can form the foundation of the civilization that will endure; it is unselfed love. This alone points unerringly to divine Principle.
Of this great spiritual fact, therefore, the poets of Israel sang; and of this fact, on many occasions and in differing ways, the prophets spoke. One of their familiar sentences is that in which they speak of nations flowing unto mount Zion, which simply means that nations will come to see the great value of divine Principle, expressed in unselfishness, in its entire relationship to individuals and peoples. This does not mean that petty human theories with attractive names will displace the wisdom of God; but it does mean that that which is considered spiritually basic in the life of an individual will also be considered as an essential to the life of a nation or a people.
