A Bow in the cloud marked the covenant which God made with Noah and his sons and with all living creatures— a covenant which implied that life belongs to Deity and is indestructible. In the Scriptural account God's voice is recorded as saying (Gen. 9:6), "In the image of God made he man." Does this not imply that the sacredness of human life rests upon the fact of man's real existence as God's image? Hence that no one can be conceived as actually destroyed by sin? Through Christian Science we learn that man, God's image, is never destroyed by sin, nor is he even touched by it.
Mary Baker Eddy says in "Unity of Good" (p. 8): "All that is beautiful and good in your individual consciousness is permanent. That which is not so is illusive and fading." Christian Science sanctifies human life by revealing the demonstrable perfection of every living being. Its purpose is to save mankind, to redeem the human self from error upon the basis that God is the only creator, that man is His spiritual son, and that evil is totally unreal. Regardless of any state of debasement to which a human being may seem to have fallen, his true identity is intact in divine Mind and may be restored by his faithful adherence to the truths of Christian Science. Man's purity and goodness, however seemingly obscured, can never be destroyed.
The bow in the cloud of this war-driven, war-threatened age is the promise of perfection seen in individual redemption of character. Collective action expresses the thoughts of individuals, and such action improves in moral purpose only as individuals are regenerated. As civilization advances through Christianization mankind's objectives in war change. Men outgrow the brutal desire merely to kill enemies and seek instead to destroy the enemies of freedom and justice, the false thoughts which would animate men. Their motives are lifted above revenge and selfish conquest and become imbued with the moral force of Christianity. But this is because they have begun to war with evil in themselves. They have heard the silent prompting of Truth's voice, have sensed their perfection in Science as God's sons, and have begun to destroy the animal elements of hate and greed which claim to be their own.
