One of the great lessons learned by wearing an Army or a Navy uniform is that one's individuality is unchanged thereby. His manner of living has changed; work, companions, environment are different, but his thoughts, his character, are still of the same caliber as before. Progress is mental and so is not dependent on the type of clothes a person wears. If one is spiritually active, he is progressing. No one in the service of his country will lose two or three or four years' progress. In the physical warfare which is waged for the prevention of evil and the consequent protection of good, qualities of accuracy, order, courage, perseverance are developed. These qualities may likewise be brought out in peacetime activities, whether one is in a bank, a shop, or an office. Though the work differs, progress will be sure and fast as one applies oneself closely to the job in hand.
Many valuable lessons are learned by the soldier under Army discipline. He learns that by subordinating his personal desires he is helping to bring out an efficient and smoothly working organization, and, in a measure, is demonstrating divine Principle. In fact, nowhere else is. it more important to live according to Principle than in the Army. The man who puts his personal desires ahead of the necessary cooperation with Army regulations, acts as a brake to the accomplishment of a common purpose. The man who is usually late on a pass, who is always planning how little he can do and yet get by, who fails to enter into the spirit of forming a unified organization, is missing a great deal of real business experience as well as of spiritual growth. Every effort directed to the subordination of self, that is, to bringing one's thought into obedience to divine Principle, is a distinct contribution towards the winning of the war. Every time one serves his own interests at the expense of the common good, he is obstructing the path to early victory.
Metaphysics challenges sense testimony scientifically, and such handling of a situation is effectual. Error would always suggest to us that the five corporeal senses present the true facts. It is obvious, then, that Christian Science is as available and as operative when the material senses are testifying to shot and shell as when the false evidence appears as disease or limitation. Science is always present to destroy the false mental pictures of sense testimony. One's concepts are changed and improved as one meditates on the absolute facts of being.
