WHEN Isaiah with prophetic vision foresaw and then foretold the coming of "The Prince of Peace," he put into one graphic phrase the hopes of untold thousands. Peace in his time seemed far away. Dissension, discord, and the clash of arms marked his day. But through the mists he discerned peace to be inherent in spiritual reality. A later seer described his spiritual vision thus (Mai. 4:2): "Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings."
Centuries later the master Christian set forth the true nature of the peace which the prophet had envisioned. A study of two frequently quoted statements of Jesus' concerning peace is therefore helpful. In one instance, instructing his disciples, he said (Matt. 10:34), "I came not to send peace, but a sword." Yet John, "the beloved," reports Jesus as saying (John 14:27), "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." In the light of divine Science the apparent contradiction disappears and the true nature of peace appears.
This illuminating Science, Christian Science, reveals the sword of Truth as ever present to destroy any and every sense of peace which mistakenly depends upon material conditions or human personalities for stability and permanence. From reliance upon such a broken reed the sword of Truth must and always does deliver. The peace that was promised by Jesus as a gift is peace based upon a knowledge of God as infinite, unchanging good, present everywhere and operating always with supreme power.
Observe here what a priceless gift to humanity this divine Science is! To clarify at once and so simply the seeming ambiguity of these and many other Biblical statements is indeed a boon. At once we see that no individual need be deprived of peace, even though the world still seems to be threatened with wars and rumors of war abound on every hand.
War cannot express itself in armed conflict unless the concept of war is first entertained and expressed mentally. War is produced by the carnal mind. A consciousness in which there is no knowledge of such a thing as war or the multitude of causes which seem to produce it cannot originate war. The purpose of Christian Science is to acquaint human consciousness with the truth regarding the one God and man as His reflection. When men accept the fact that there is but one divine Mind or infinite consciousness, they will understand that this divine consciousness is a warless consciousness, and that war will become obsolete as each one proves that as God's idea he has no other consciousness or Mind.
Hence, when one speaks of war or fears it, just exactly what war does he have in thought? With whom is this war being carried on? Is it some current state of hostility or semihostility, or is it the perennial war to which our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, refers in a sermon preached in 1885 that may be found in her work "Miscellaneous Writings," beginning on page 171. In it she says (p. 172), "Mental Science, and the five personal senses, are at war; and peace can only be declared on the side of immutable right,—the health, holiness, and immortality of man." The termination of the warfare thus defined by Mrs. Eddy will be evidenced in such a way as to leave no doubt of its permanence.
Does this rule out the possibility of individual peace now, peace full and complete for you, for me, and for everyone who, drawing aside the veil of matter, directs his gaze into the sanctuary of divine Science? The answer is positively, "No." For we have in Christian Science a faultless rule whereby such individual peace may be achieved now. "To gain this scientific result," Mrs. Eddy goes on to say (ibid.), "the first and fundamental rule of Science must be understood and adhered to; namely, the oft-repeated declaration in Scripture that God is good; hence, good is omnipotent and omnipresent." Thus a joyous and steadfast recognition, based on understanding that God is good, and that as universal, unchanging good He is all-powerful and ever present, is the simple requisite for acquiring peace at any and all times.
To illustrate, a person who considered himself an earnest Christian Scientist had lost his peace of mind completely because of physical suffering which had persisted for a long period, although he had had Christian Science treatment. Consulting a medical practitioner, he learned that there was no known material remedy for his difficulty. He then realized that his thinking had not been held steadfastly to the recognition of the allness of good, its unchanging nature, and its all-power. A fresh resolve to do this more faithfully was carried out, and the result was a perfect healing. He had simply gone back to the point from which he should have started in the beginning.
"The first and fundamental rule of Science," he saw, "must be understood and adhered to." He now saw clearly that a good God, the sole creator, capable only of creating that which is good and perfect, could not be associated with such a condition as that from which he was suffering. Consequently it was no part of his true being, as the expression of God. Good again proved itself to be the fact. Peace was declared. At least one phase of the war between scientific reality and the physical senses had been finished.
Thus peace was established in one instance. Will not the same rule, applied in every instance, bring peace to the individual? Will it not bring to him the assurance that no matter how wildly the elements of mortal mind may seem to rage, the allpower of good is, after all, the only reality? This is a peace that comes hourly, constantly, and may be maintained indefinitely. It requires only the application of the rule, the rule which is basic, the rule that God alone is good and that His goodness is unassailable.
Very large numbers of people have already proved for themselves the power of good as did this man. As peace came to him, and as it has come to the many who have faithfully complied with "the first and fundamental rule of Science," it will come to the world in a larger degree when more considerable groups have been thus impelled.
War with all its fantastic excesses is a riot of mortal mind, wholly unrestrained. It expresses itself in all the grotesque forms conceivable to it, and these seem to be legion. Goodness, the manifestation of divine Mind, on the contrary, simply is. In all its strength, perfection, continuity, and blessedness it simply is. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. Then to the one who knows this, whose faith in his knowledge cannot be shaken, there must be present at all times that peace which truly passes all human concepts of it.
The lesson to be learned from the foregoing seems to the writer to add up like this: War in the consciousness of the individual is the conflict between the testimony of the physical senses and that innate recognition of the spiritual fact which is fundamentally true and right. It is the carnal mind opposing the shining forth of the ever-present Christ. It is the age-old effort to prevent the realization that the kingdom of God is indeed within us, as the Master said.
Peace comes to the individual only when these efforts of the carnal mind are seen to be without the slightest degree of power to influence, harm, or destroy. And finally, it should be said that peace, with its concomitants of health, holiness, and immortality, is a divine certainty for all and at a point measurably nearer than in 1875 when divine Science was, through the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, first given to a war-weary world.
