THE question used as the title of this article can be answered only in the affirmative by the unselfed, conscientious individual, who has a deep love for his fellowmen. Our precious Leader, Mrs. Eddy, when still a child, prayed seven times daily, marking each time on the woodshed door lest she omit one single period of prayer.
One prays for the world just as one prays for himself or another in case of sickness. There is little difference between a sick body and a sick world. Each is healed in the same manner through earnest spiritual prayer—faith in and the acknowledgment of God's allness right here and now.
Recorded for us in the Bible and in Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy is the complete, final Science of Life—Christian Science. Our job is to study and understand it. Living this Science of Life in a world involved in a deep sense of inner conflicts and inequalities is highest prayer. The spiritual approach to living will be found to be the only answer to conflicts, whatever their nature, within the nations of the world today.
Our Leader states in Science and Health (p. 174): "Truth is revealed. It needs only to be practised." Just preceding these statements she says, "The thunder of Sinai and the Sermon on the Mount are pursuing and will overtake the ages, rebuking in their course all error and proclaiming the kingdom of heaven on earth."
One who amasses a great fortune, much land, and vast and varied holdings, is not necessarily satisfied. Mortal mind, with its insatiable demands, cannot be satisfied by the accumulation of lands, possessions, or power. Mortal mind always wants more; it cannot be satisfied, because what it is seeking is substanceless.
Human warfare will undoubtedly go on intermittently throughout the world and time until the real warfare, which is between matter and Spirit, is universally waged. Truth, because of its allness, will pursue error, until not one vestige remains. Through participation in this grand warfare one wins eternal victories.
Early in the experience of the writer, as a student of Christian Science, she greatly desired to help mankind. During the working out of a physical problem, she saw that every time a warlike thought—impatient, envious, hateful, and so on—was replaced with an active spiritual idea the cause of world peace was aided. Small effort? Yes. But if everyone on the face of the globe were to think in this way, at this very moment, what would become of war and conflict? They would cease. That is why to pray daily for the world is the privilege and moral responsibility of every earnest world citizen.
In her "Miscellaneous Writings," Mrs. Eddy says (p. 113): "The systematized centres of Christian Science are life-giving fountains of truth. Our churches, The Christian Science Journal, and the Christian Science Quarterly, are prolific sources of spiritual power whose intellectual, moral, and spiritual animus is felt throughout the land." One honest, willing, faith-lighted, unselfed prayer for the world has untold effect and furtherance.
Through the individual study and living of the Science of Christ, the ability to pray effectively for all the world will unfold vitally and distinctly. In Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy gives us this mighty promise (p. 209): "Neither philosophy nor skepticism can hinder the march of the Science which reveals the supremacy of Mind."
The intelligent know-how of effective prayer is revealed in all its completeness and infinite variety in our textbooks. The worldly thought may fight our words, which cause discomfort at times to the materialist, but it cannot resist the Christ, Truth, as it appears in our lives.
Every Christian Scientist is a missionary. The whole world is his mission field. Each hour of the day is his time to do his missionary work. An earnest, honest smile expressing spiritual awareness, given or withheld, can make the difference between hope and despair for someone who we might think did not even notice. This is one phase of work for the world. A kindness carried out with love and patience when possibly it might not seem important in one's busy days can send out a ripple of well-being of great magnitude and fruition. A strong moral stand can influence great numbers.
Paul must have become disturbed because of the little band of Christians at Corinth, and their selfish personal sense of living, to have uttered (I Cor. 6:19), "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" Our lives are not our own to live selfishly. Our lives belong to divine Principle, which is their source.
Our work for the world is individual and universal. The whole wide world needs our love. It needs our tender care, wisdom, and intelligent thought-taking. It needs our sureness—that the government of divine Principle extends to the farthest reaches of humankind. Our knowing spiritually the fact of the government of divine Principle can work wonders among all humankind.
It is in many cases a personal sense of ownership, either small or large, that is back of vicious hatreds and conflicts, whether among persons or nations; whereas a spiritual sense of things would bring about harmonious relationships and freedom. What would one think of someone who claimed to own all number 3's, for instance, or a portion thereof? One has at his disposal 3's without limit as a mathematical idea, all that he needs or could possibly desire. When all substance is seen as mental, as notes and numbers now are known, the warring elements of the carnal mind will diminish greatly.
Work for the world consists for the most part in the spiritualizing of one's own concept of all things. Generations may come and go in great number, but the answer to the inharmonies and inequities in the world can be found only in spirituality, which is completely available through the study of the Christ Science as first presented to the world through the great Nazarene, Christ Jesus, and in our times through Mrs. Eddy.
Just as the Ten Commandments brought the moral law to bear upon the vicious sensuality and paganism of the times; just as the Christ came through the Master and revealed the powerlessness and emptiness of ritualistic worship and living of his times, so Christian Science has come in our time to reveal the substancelessness of materiality. To all peoples, it will reveal righteous judgment, equality, understanding, wholeness, and universal love through spiritual awakening. Permanent peace can come in no other way.
The Master at the close of his great career left this benediction (John 14:27): "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you." Yes, we should and must pray daily for the world and for all peoples.
