FOR a long period of time theories have been entertained by natural scientists regarding the atom and the possibility of smashing it, thereby releasing untold physical force. Almost fifty years before attempts to split the atom found expression in the atomic bomb, Mary Baker Eddy gave to the world the subjects of twenty-six Bible Lessons. These first came out in the Christian Science Quarterly in July, 1898. The striking title of one of these is, "Is the Universe, Including Man, Evolved by Atomic Force?"
The facts are that hints of the existence of the atom and its potentialities date back to 425 B. C. These speculations gathered momentum until laboratory work reached a point of activity in the 1890's scarcely known to laymen, neared completion in the 1930's, and culminated in 1945 in the bombs which brought to an end a major war. Nothing less than Mind's dictation could have impelled our Leader to give the antidote to the dangers resident in the split atom in the form of a Lesson-Sermon which twice every year brings out the power of the forever oneness which exists in the unity between Mind and Mind's idea. The interesting analogy is that the counterfeit of divine power rests on the belief of splitting, or dividing, whereas Mrs. Eddy says in one of her Bible Lessons in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 190): "Atomic action is Mind, not matter. It is neither the energy of matter, the result of organization, nor the outcome of life infused into matter: it is infinite Spirit, Truth, Life, defiant of error or matter." This definition rests on the forever indivisible unity which exists between God and His idea. The material counterfeit is always exactly opposite to the spiritual fact.
If dividing the atom can release powers of unbelievable destruction, students of Christian Science should awake to an ever-increasing realization of the power of spiritual unity. God is the great indivisible whole, and His ideas are inseparably linked to Him. Of all men on earth Christ Jesus most knew and proved this unity. He proved that atomic action is "infinite Spirit, Truth, Life, defiant of error or matter" when he "rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm" (Matt. 8:26). No prophecies of peacetime application of atomic power to the transportation question can equal Jesus' demonstration over distance as described by John. It reads, "And immediately the ship was at the land whither they went" (John 6:21).
