DANGERS TO FACE PROPHECIES TO FULFILL

At 9 a.m. on Saturday, December 8, 1984, an audience of Christian Scientists and friends in Honolulu watched the opening moments of a live telecast direct from the Original Edifice of The Mother Church in Boston, where it was 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Simultaneously, Christian Scientists and friends in Nairobi, Kenya, were watching the same conference, but at 10 p.m. their time. The videoconference was relayed via six satellites to 148 audiences in 144 cities in 25 countries. As the host of the meeting, John Lewis Selover, C.S.B., of Palo Alto, California, reminded his audience in the Original Edifice, "This may be the greatest use of space for a peaceful purpose since the star stood over Bethlehem."

"The Church in Action" section that follows includes a slightly abridged account of the meeting. A free copy of this issue of the Journal is being mailed to every English-speaking member of The Mother Church. Members whose language preference is one in which a Herald of Christian Science is published will receive the appropriate Herald containing a shorter report of the conference. Subscribers can share their extra copy with those who might be interested in this unusual meeting and its theme of universal interest.

Harvey W. Wood, a member of The Christian Science Board of Directors, introduced and conducted the opening portion of the program. He explained that the meeting reflected "a sense of urgency" to address the needs of our fellowman at the deepest possible level. A panel in Greenwich, England, also participated in the conference through a direct satellite link to Boston. The audio portion of the conference was translated from English into Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish. C. Brooks Whitfield of San Francisco directed the televising of the meeting. "To live for all mankind" had the distinction of being the world's largest videoconference ever held.

Letters of gratitude, fruitage, and additional photographs will be published in next month's Journal.

December 8 videoconference: "To live for all mankind"

[The meeting opened with a brief film clip, showing an aerial view of Boston, focusing finally on The Mother Church. The background music was from the Christian Science Hymnal, a setting of "The Mother's Evening Prayer," a poem by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. The new bells in the Original Mother Church were ringing.]

Mr. Selover

In Mrs. Eddy's own New England, there's a centuries-old tradition called the town meeting. It's a way to involve everyone in the community in decision making and action. Today, we've borrowed and magnified this concept to a worldwide town meeting. Under the awakening theme "To live for all mankind" we're asking you to bridge the distances and the time that would separate us and join together as we consider the dangers to face and the prophecies to fulfill.

So today, we in Boston, London, Europe, Africa, Australia, and throughout the world are together as a global town meeting, considering the responsibility of our Church and its spiritual resources to touch and heal all that comes within the sound of these chimes, as they ring and reach around the world.

And now from Boston, a member of The Christian Science Board of Directors, Harvey Wood.

Mr. Wood

Thank you, John. It's an absolutely spectacular film. And I might say to our friends in other parts of the world, we who live here never see The Mother Church from that angle. We appreciate the words you gave us, John. You've given us a nice context for the meeting we're going to have together for two hours.

You know, as I saw that film [showing our Church] from that angle, I saw something about the Church of Christ, Scientist, and its relationship to its city. The Church of Christ, Scientist, wherever it exists, is right at the heart of its city, and it has a relationship to its surroundings. It loves its surroundings. And it influences its surroundings. I also saw in that opening segment something about Mary Baker Eddy as a great spiritual prophet. She must have had tremendous spiritual vision to have placed her Church where she did, and when she did. No doubt most of you heard what I did in that music, just welling up within us a fresh sense of God's gentle presence, His peace, His joy, His power.

Do you know, in addition to that, I heard something else. Right along with it was another note sounding in my ears, a sense of urgency, a rousing call. Again, in the words of a hymn: ". . . The call to rise from earth; / Put armor on . . . / And for the fight go forth" (Hymnal, No. 5). I don't think there's any way that those two notes are not going to keep resounding in my thought as we listen to the rest of this program.

John spoke of this as a kind of town meeting of the world. Let's illustrate what that means. A town meeting involves audience participation. I'd like to know what some of you maybe saw or heard in that opening segment. What did you think when you first learned about the meeting? Rob Nelson.

Mr. Nelson

Harvey, I've been touched by a demand for a greater affection and modesty in my understanding of church. You see, the sounds and the symbols of church signify that right in the midst of community, right in the midst of all life, all life everywhere— right there is the presence of spiritual authority, the presence of God with us, the presence of the fatherhood and the motherhood of God with all His children.

Mr. Wood

Thank you, Rob. Over here is my friend Elizabeth Woolley. Elizabeth, what are you hearing or seeing? ...

Miss Woolley

Well, there's one lovely idea I want to share because of my long association with young Christian Scientists and their growth pattern.

Mr. Wood

I know about that. I was one of them.

Miss Woolley

Some of them are way deep in computer science, but that doesn't mean that they don't know something about the Science of Christ. . . . That doesn't mean that they have forgotten that they have a grasp, a hand, on the greatest thing that there is, and that is the art and Science of God and man.

Mr. Wood

Thank you, Elizabeth. You mention young people. As I look around this audience, I'm sure it's typical of audiences around the world—a mix of all ages—and we have Sunday School pupils here. We would love to know what they're thinking. Aaron, where are you? Stand up. Here's Aaron Snipe.

Aaron Snipe

When my mother and I received the letter announcing the meeting [sent to each member of The Mother Church], she called me in and read it to me. I didn't know about the prophecies of Mrs. Eddy yet, but after I thought about it a while, I knew that there was hope for all mankind by loving others and each other.

Mr. Wood

Thank you, Aaron. Alex Glover, you received the letter in the mail, you opened it, what happened?

Alex Glover

Well, Mr. Wood, I thought that the neatest thing was that instead of doing what I do every day—saying to myself, "I've so many problems that I'm only going to deal with my own and let the big ones take care of themselves"—instead of doing that, we were all going to get together and think about the big ones. And I guess what I liked best about it was that we were all going to, and had this time set aside to do it together.

Mr. Wood

Good. Thank you. Let me tell you something about when the call to this meeting went out in the form of the letter which you all received. A marvelous dialogue started between the Field and the Clerk of The Mother Church. It's a dialogue that has been going on, and I understand is still going on—that may be the understatement of this program. Bea, as Clerk of The Mother Church, tell us what's happening.

Mrs. Roegge

Well, it's been a thrilling time, a thrilling dialogue. There's one letter I would just love to read to you. "We noticed in a recent issue of the Monitor a message from The Christian Science Board of Directors calling members to a world day of prayer on December 8th, to pray to live for all mankind. We are subscribers and faithful readers of The Christian Science Monitor. We are not members of the Church. We are members of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. We commend the Board of Directors for this worldwide call to prayer. We will join you in prayer on that day in Christian fellowship."

Mr. Wood

In Christian fellowship. I think in a way we've begun to see fruitage before the meeting ever started, because it's that kind of unified action that the world needs. It's wonderful.

Throughout her published writings, Mrs. Eddy has been calling upon her followers to acknowledge, to face up to, their responsibility to the world, to mankind. Let me give you an example. One comes to mind where Mrs. Eddy spoke of the call as both "solemn and imperious." That's the one where you may remember she asks her followers a question—will you "doff" something? "Will you doff your lavender-kid zeal, and become real and consecrated warriors?" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 177). Another call is the one from which the title of this program is taken. Here Mrs. Eddy defines what it means to be a Christian Scientist: "He lives for all mankind . . ." (Mis., p. 294). Admittedly, to do that involves facing some foes in ambush—dangers, if you will. But the point is, they can be faced. And when they are, the promises for mankind are just beyond imagination.

That's really the tenor of this program. The structure is lean. There are no frills. It's a "no frills" meeting. We're going to focus on some specific issues mankind is facing today. We're going to hear from some key people here at headquarters who are in positions to offer some helpful insights about how to face up to those dangers.

And then we're going to go to London. We're going to hear from a panel of Monitor correspondents who are gathered there listening to this program. Hello, London. They're eager to get into this and share with you how they see the world today and what the needs are. You will hear from individual members of the Board of Directors, and then the last segment will be the full Board on the platform, sharing with you highlights of what they've heard and some insights about what they see that lies ahead for us.

In a way I've sketched in for you a rough road map of where we're going. Before we start on it, I'd like to just bring us back once again to our Leader's call to this meeting. This time I'm thinking about the occasion—it was in March of 1889, just a few blocks from here over on Columbus Avenue—a group of some 65 men and women gathered, after Primary class instruction from our Leader, Mrs. Eddy. It was to that group that she said, in effect, that if we in this room were of one Mind, we would waken to see something of an impact on the entire world.^{Mrs.Eddy's statement reads (Mis., p. 279 ): "We, to-day, in this class-room, are enough to convert the world if we are of one Mind; for then the whole world will feel the influence of this Mind . . . ."} So she started them right off with the recognition they had a world responsibility. Think of the impact, if we were of one Mind, for this assembly, all over the world.

That group of 65 gave a gift to Mrs. Eddy to which they signed their names. Mrs. Eddy, in acknowledging the gift, used the occasion to make another point. She highlighted what it meant to subscribe to Christian Science, that is, to sign one's name. Several people have asked, "What do the Board of Directors really expect to happen as a result of this meeting?" I think that in many ways what we would like most to happen is that each individual would think through the cost of becoming a Christian Scientist or the cost of continuing to be a Christian Scientist, and then alongside of it, weigh the cost to mankind if we're not. I think our greatest hope would be that each of us would be able to say, "I would like to sign my name to that gift to Mrs. Eddy."

". . . what the world needs today is not more theory, but practice."

To those who did sign, Mrs. Eddy offered another significant prophecy. She said, "You will need, in future, practice more than theory" (Mis., p. 281). I'm sure you agree what the world needs today is not more theory, but practice. Theorizing, merely quoting our Leader, platitudes—we hope none of that appears in this meeting. Admittedly, familiarity with the Bible and with our Leader's writings leads us to having quotations right on the tip of our tongue, but I'm sure that we can find more and more ways to translate what we are reading and studying and get it into our lives. This meeting is about lives. It's about humanity. It's about the Christ speaking to human consciousness through individuals who are living Truth. It's about hearts speaking to hearts. It's about big hearts learning how to be bigger.

You know, indifference to our fellowman and his needs is a sure symptom of little hearts and little minds. The Old Testament prophet Amos had a colorful way of challenging indifference as he saw it in the people in his time. One translator [James Moffatt] puts it this way: "Woe to the careless citizens, . . . lolling on their ivory diwans, . . . with never a single thought for the bleeding wounds of the nation" (Amos 6:1-6). There's a powerful correlative paragraph in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures where Mrs. Eddy warns her readers against becoming "mere smatterers in Science" (see 460:18-20). Now, a smatterer in anything is inadequate. But a surface knowledge of Truth itself would really be a disaster. Why? It would lead us into conduct that is the very opposite of what our heart is desiring.

Now, Mrs. Eddy gives an example in that paragraph of what not to do. She cites an individual who could walk into a sickroom where someone is suffering—a cripple—and simply say, "Nothing ails you." For me that's a metaphor in my relationship to the world. I cannot find it within me to listen to what's going on in the world and shut off the television or throw away the newspaper and just say to the world, "Nothing ails you." Mary Baker Eddy did not have to be told there was a world in need. She was impelled by a spiritual urgency to share God's revelation to her, and she was healed spiritually. She discovered she had found an element of Christianity that had been lost, and so she shared it.

Through hard work she began to live her life for the world. And you'll find that throughout her writings. She's a prophet. She's always foreseeing the great promise to mankind. For example, one place she says: "For victory over a single sin, we give thanks and magnify the Lord of Hosts. What shall we say of the mighty conquest over all sin?" (Science and Health, p. 568). That's a prophecy. And if Christian Scientists live their lives for mankind, we will see the fulfillment of that prophecy. Yes, Mrs. Eddy was a prophet, in the highest sense of that word. I was impressed with an editorial that appeared in one of our periodicals. I don't remember now whether it was a Sentinel or a Journal. Bill Moody, an Associate Editor, wrote the editorial. I asked him if he would share, just summarize for us, the substance of that editorial. Bill.

Mr. Moody

Harvey, one of the things the editorial points to is what we should be looking for in the years ahead. We know in Pulpit and Press Mrs. Eddy predicted that the twentieth century would see Christian churches everywhere practicing spiritual healing. But she made it clear there's an important condition necessary to fulfill that prophecy: fidelity to Truth, witnessed in the lives of Christian Scientists.^{Mrs.Eddy writes (Pul., p. 22), "If the lives of Christian Scientists attest their fidelity to Truth, I predict that in the twentieth century every Christian church in our land, and a few in far-off lands, will approximate the understanding of Christian Science sufficiently to heal the sick in his name."}

So the call is to each of us as individuals to see that in our own lives, our motives, our desires, we are faithful to the Christ. Then with our witnessing, our unadulterated fidelity to Truth, we'll continue to see the evidence growing in the world of a deeper understanding of the Science of Christ, understanding sufficient to heal spiritually.

But you know, there's something else Mrs. Eddy refers to concerning our era. In her writings there are actually two places where she commented specifically on dangers that would confront humanity in the twentieth century. Recall she was writing at the turn of the last century, as many thinkers were. And those closing years of a century are typically, well, years of great intensity.

Mr. Wood

You mean there's a pattern usually at the end of any century?

Mr. Moody

Every century, really.^{See newspaper reference inPul. 23:18-24} Years of intensity, intensity of ideas and ideals—of careful thought about where humanity has been and where we're going. Mrs. Eddy was thinking deeply. In one place in Prose Works she pointed to the dangers of "imperialism, monopoly, and a lax system of religion" (see The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany 129:3-5). In another place she speaks of the danger of "ritual, creed, and trusts in place of the Golden Rule" (see Miscellany 266:3-9)—the rule Jesus gave us: "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them" (Matt. 7:12).

Harvey, I think there's tremendous scientific impact for us and for our world in that simple rule. Doesn't the doing unto others include the deepest kind of praying and seeing mankind, all mankind, as man truly is—the pure image of Mind, of Spirit? What we're talking about is looking deep into realism and finding there the profound love which springs up from that vision. This is the way we behold man in Science. It's the way Jesus healed. It literally changes the world—heart by heart.

Mr. Wood

I hope we'll all want to go back and read the whole editorial,^{See "Looking to the future: Signs of the timers, spiritual progress, and the Golden Rule," Christian Science Sentinel, August 16, 1982, pp. 1400-1404} Bill. Because, really, you've sounded the note here that we need to pay attention to—what our Leader foresaw in her caring about mankind. In all honesty we'll have to admit we see the evidence of those dangers. What can we do to better face up to them?

Part of Mrs. Eddy's caring about humanity is illustrated in her forming a Board of Lectureship that would speak to mankind. And, in a letter to a member of her Board of Lectureship, Mrs. Eddy gave him a helpful guide on how to get a topic and know what to speak about. She said, "Take the questions uppermost in the public mind and answer them systematically in Science." ^{Quoted in robert peel, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977), p. 123} We have some members of the Board of Lectureship present here in our audience today, and I'm sure they're sprinkled throughout many audiences around the world. Clem Collins, you've just come back from Europe, or ...

Mr. Collins

From the Middle East actually, Harvey. In fact, just three days ago my wife and I arrived back from Cairo. And there we found impressive evidence of our Leader's assurance that there are "millions of unprejudiced minds . . . waiting and watching" ^{Science and Health (p. 570): "Millions of unprejudiced minds—simple seekers for Truth, weary wanderers, athirst in the desert—are waiting and watching for rest and drink. Give them a cup of cold water in Christ's name, and never fear the consequences."} for the Christ light. Over 75 percent of the individuals coming to the lectures were not Christian Scientists. We assured them that we were not there to convert them, but to spread an awareness of the Science of peace.

And for two days after those lectures, they came—one by one—wanting to know how they could study and put into practice this Science. A number of medical doctors came, and a minister from one prospering Christian church out there, who has congregations in Alexandria as well as Cairo, came to find out how he could introduce Christian healing to his people. He is now waiting for a shipment of copies of Science and Health to arrive in Cairo. We found through this experience that the mission of Christian Scientists to live for all mankind will be received with open arms by people everywhere. This could be the most significant part of the world's search for peace today.

Mr. Wood

What's the subject of the lecture you were giving there?

Mr. Collins

One of them was "Human Survival and the Peace of God." This developed out of an irresistible response to the great fears gripping the world at this time. We found many individuals, especially young people, who have a mood of no future, of fearing destruction.

Mr. Wood

Thank you, Clem. Let me call on one other lecturer. I see Deborah Hedin here. I'd just like to ask Deborah, in addition to what you read and hear about the obvious things going on in the world, how else can you get a topic to deal with in a lecture?

Mrs. Hedin

Well, through my public practice as a Christian Science practitioner. I've found that those I was in touch with were preoccupied with the fear, almost a dread, of contracting diseases which they could not protect themselves against and for which there is no known medical cure. My lecture will show how we can begin to find our freedom from this feeling of hopelessness and dread.

Mr. Wood

Thank you. You know, the point in asking these lecturers to explain ... I just want to illustrate the deep caring that Mary Baker Eddy's Church has for the world. In addition to its Board of Lectureship, there is the office of Committee on Publication that has a very caring responsibility. . . a relationship to the public. Nathan Talbot's here. Nathan, what is all of this saying to you?

Mr. Talbot

Well, Harvey, certainly there are dangers to be faced. And I think we need to muster the courage to face those dangers realistically. Mrs. Eddy spoke, for instance, of "a lax system of religion." Without our spirituality, a richness, a strength of spirituality, mankind's not going to recognize the Comforter easily. It's going to be misrepresented. It's going to be misunderstood. And I think we need to have enough love for our fellowman, care for him enough, that we nourish—that we encourage—his spirituality of thought so that he can recognize it.

Mrs. Eddy speaks of "monopoly." There are lots of kinds of monopolies today. One kind is how we care for ourselves, a material way of caring for ourselves. Perhaps one of the most aggressive facets of that monopoly today is material medicine. You know, spiritual healing goes right against the grain of material medicine. It stirs human thought, and I think the reason that it stirs human thought is because spiritual healing cuts right to the heart of this dominating insistence that we have to look to matter instead of Spirit to be saved and healed.

Mr. Wood

Do you see any hopeful signs in that?

Mr. Talbot

Lots of hopeful signs, Harvey. This stirring, I think, is a wonderful, marvelous sign.

You know, Mrs. Eddy spoke of "imperialism" too. There's a governmental reach into individual lives, spiritual lives. Anyone who read Gary Thatcher's recent article in the Monitor, I think it was Thursday [December 6, 1984], got a feel of how a government can try to snuff out spiritual healing, and believe me, there are more governments than the one he wrote about that are making this effort.

But I think, Harvey, the important point to remember is that we can, all of us here today around the world, face these dangers, and we can do it with a spiritual poise and a deep spiritual assurance. We can do it the way David did with Goliath. The Bible says he hastened to meet Goliath, and he prevailed, didn't he? (See I Sam. 17:47-50.)

Mr. Wood

Thank you, Nathan. In a way what Nathan has done is to introduce a kind of concreteness now to our program, because the issues raised by Bill Moody, in what our Leader foresaw, Nathan is having to deal with some evidences of that. I think it now might be helpful if we could see in other ways how the Church is going to help us as individuals face up to these dangers, meet them, and move on into the area of blessing the world.

I think if Hal Friesen, now, and Jack Hoagland, who is Manager of The Christian Science Publishing Society, if they would take the platform.

Mr. Hoagland

We've been thinking a lot in the last few weeks how this isn't the first time that Christian Scientists have gotten that urgent call to love God more deeply and more effectively by showing a more effective love for their fellowman, who is actually God's beloved child. I know you and I, Hal, have thought a lot about that remarkable hundred days back in 1908, which was quite similar, when Mrs. Eddy sent the call to her workers to start a daily newspaper, to do it immediately. And it was to be a newspaper that would bless all mankind. And they did it. It wasn't just a matter of assembling a marvelous staff or getting the presses installed on time; there was a completeness of the idea.

This was shown to me vividly in an editorial that Archibald McLellan wrote in the Christian Science Sentinel, you remember, five weeks before that first issue appeared (see Sentinel, October 17, 1908, p. 130). He talked about the mission of the paper, its purpose, and then he had a wonderful inclusive statement about the audience, about the readership. He said that the Monitor would "appeal to good men and women everywhere who are interested in the betterment of all human conditions . . . ." That's a wonderful description of our readers. And they are everywhere; they're in over a hundred and fifty countries—these people who are interested in the betterment of all human conditions, that warmth and that love for our fellowman. I know you've thought a lot, you've said some wonderful things to me over the last couple of years, about how the individual with those motives can use the Monitor effectively and systematically.

Mr. Friesen

Well, Jack, we're all aware of two things, watching and praying. In fact Mrs. Eddy uses those two words together quite often, "watch" and "pray." In the sixth tenet, she puts a comma after "watch": "And we solemnly promise to watch," then a comma, and then she goes on to tell us what we should pray for.^{The sixth tenet of Christian Science reads(Science and Health, p. 497): "And we solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and to be merciful, just, and pure."} You know, that indicates something to me. It says that we need to learn to watch so that we can know what to pray about. And the Monitor gives us an effective, a regular way in which we can watch the world. We can look at the mental attitudes and make sure that they're not overwhelming us, that we can deal with them prayerfully―and ideally, do it before they get entrenched.

But even if they get entrenched, it's really our metaphysical purpose to see there's only one entrenchment, the entrenchment of God's law, and that these false beliefs can't get entrenched. If we don't embrace the world in our thinking, then, you know, the world is going to embrace us in its thinking. Our inspired thought has a blessing to it, but mortal beliefs certainly don't have any good to offer anyone. If we were really to see that events are only thoughts, and if we want to improve those events, we've got to improve thoughts.

We could say that the Monitor gives us a way to exhale metaphysically. Now I'm sure I'd better give that a little bit of explanation. When we study the Lesson-Sermon and read the periodicals, when we are deep in our Leader's books, we're inhaling. And if we just keep inhaling and inhaling, we'll burst.

Mr. Hoagland

Right . . .

Mr. Friesen

Sometime we've got to exhale, and the Monitor is a guide to how we can apply what we've been reading, how we can apply it to the world, how we can embrace the world in our thinking and in our love. And in that way, we bring new thoughts which will change events, and that means healing.

Mr. Hoagland

Right. And you know, Hal, we have a lot of readers— Christian Scientists, and those who are not Christian Scientists—who really do use the paper in that way. You remember a couple of years ago, we [some Publishing Society staff] had a series of conversations with Monitor readers, particularly those who have shown their commitment to the betterment of all human conditions, as Mr. McLellan said. And there was a thread that ran through the responses we got back—it was the way in which the Monitor helps its readers penetrate those illusory barriers of helplessness or hopelessness. That theme just came through so strongly. There were a couple of responses that really impressed me. One was from a famous literary magazine editor who has devoted a good bit of his career to world peace. And he said this about the Monitor: "The Christian Science Monitor gives substance to the belief that people need not be condemned to feelings of helplessness." He saw that so clearly.

And then there's a South African writer who has dedicated himself to equality and to human freedom. And I've found his spontaneous comments really very moving: "The Monitor gives no shrift to any belief in the irredeemable wickedness of man, nor in the futility of human endeavor. It is a newspaper of sober and responsible hope." Well, for a newspaper to be able to do that, obviously it isn't always going to be soothing. Sometimes it's going to be pretty stirring. And I think we find that in the Monitor. Sometimes it might even provoke disagreement. Do we have to always agree with everything we read in the Monitor?

". . . anytime . . . we're tempted to think that error is something we can ignore, that isn't Christian Science. That's monkey business."

Mr. Friesen

Well, Jack, you know, I've spent a lot of hours in the public healing practice of Christian Science. I've listened to lots of problems, ooches and ouches, and I don't believe I've felt I had to agree with what I heard from those patients. I didn't stop listening, didn't stop talking to them, certainly didn't get irritated. I just quietly held to the facts of their true identity and rejected all of the false evidence that was presented to me.

Now, I don't see any difference when the Monitor brings to us the world with all of its problems. That newspaper is bringing the world, our patient, to us, the practitioners, and we have that same attitude. We don't get irritated or aggravated or quit talking to the world, but we do something specifically to heal it. We certainly cannot ignore problems, and I think of Mrs. Eddy, who was once given those three brass monkeys—see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. And she said, in essence, that is not Christian Science, that's heathen philosophy. Then, according to John Lathrop's reminiscence in the book We Knew Mary Baker Eddy (see p. 117), the best that I can remember it, she went on to say something to the effect that Christian Scientists don't close their eyes to evil, but open them. They open their eyes— spiritual discernment—and awake to the true nature of evil or sin. And then she goes on to say that we see evil's nature, its attempt to try to fool us, and then we see its utter nothingness, its utter powerlessness to control or to harm.

So she saw the importance of not being fooled by the evidence, and anytime that we're tempted to think that error is something we can ignore, that isn't Christian Science. That's monkey business.

I suppose we've all been tempted at some time to go up on a hill and just kind of think about God—no newspapers, no people, just communication with the spiritual facts—and just stay there, and we'd work out our salvation so much faster. But that isn't the way the master Christian did it. He came right down to the marketplace, to the highways and byways, and he really touched the hearts of people. He healed their ills. He showed the power of God over everything that involves the human family. And that's the way that we have to see things when the Monitor brings to us a sense of the marketplace, that we're going to embrace it in our hearts. And when the writers and the readers have their eyes opened to the real needs of mankind, when they have their ears attuned to the Christ message, and when they're willing to speak the truth with a firmness and fearlessness, then I'm sure that we're going to find events changed, and we're going to find the world healed. And they can't then say that we're on our ivory divan, can they?

Mr. Hoagland

That's right. Hal, you mentioned writers. We have a real treat in store. We're going to cross the Atlantic now to Greenwich, England, where a panel of Monitor editors and writers have gotten together at the Old Royal Observatory in Greenwich, a wonderful location. So we'll go now to our host in England, John Parrott.

Mr. Parrott

And a very warm welcome to you all from our audience here in London, and from our panel here in the Octagon Room. We've really had a marvelous time listening to you. . . . And as we came across the Atlantic I couldn't help but feel that once again we had proof of one of Mrs. Eddy's prophecies about no longer looking up at the stars but out from them,^{See Science and Health (p. 125): "The astronomer will no longer look up to the stars,—he will look out from them upon the universe. . ."} with the satellite transmission. We're going to bring some global perspectives to the meeting now. And it's interesting just to remember that eight simultaneous language translations are going on. So this really is a truly global meeting. And we've asked our panel to consider those issues that affect each of us wherever we are, right now, and to identify them for us very clearly. And I'd very much like to introduce our speakers to you.

As you look at the panel, on the left is David Winder. David reports from London on the United Kingdom and Ireland. Prior to that he reported on the third world and also has reported from the United States as well as the United Nations. Next to David is Charlotte Saikowski. Charlotte is our bureau chief in Washington, D.C. She keeps track of the White House and President Reagan, amongst other things. Before that, Charlotte reported from Japan, from Moscow, and was Chief Editorial Writer. Over here just on your right is David Willis. David is currently our third-world or developing nations correspondent. Before that he served in many capacities. He has reported from Moscow, he has reported from Japan, he was American News Editor, and he also started early in his days at the State Department, reporting on events from there. Beside David is Elizabeth Pond, better known to us as Beb. And Beb reports from Europe, from Bonn, West Germany. Previous to this she reported from Japan and from Moscow, and also from Vietnam. Sitting in the middle is our moderator for the evening, Dick Nenneman. Dick joined us as Business Editor a number of years ago, and then went and worked for a bank in Philadelphia, with great distinction. And he's now back as Managing Editor of The Christian Science Monitor. And Dick— panel—it's all yours.

Mr. Nenneman

Thank you, John. I'm sure that besides the professional qualifications you just heard about our panel, you're going to notice that the way they have of talking about the world shows how their study of Christian Science each day undergirds their daily practice of journalism.

It's quite exciting for all of us to be here in Greenwich. A few yards outside this historic building is a metal rod in the ground, and one can stand, as I did, with one foot on one side of it and one foot on the other and literally be in the Eastern Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere. Being in this historic setting from which time and place are measured made me think that no matter how comfortable each of us may be at home, or that spot on earth that's home to him, the study of Christian Science and a growing sense of man's oneness with divine Love impel us all to enlarge our tents to that sense of family that knows no division of time or place.

A little earlier in the meeting, Bill Moody referred to a couple of comments Mrs. Eddy had made at the turn of the last century regarding the future century, the twentieth. I'd like to quote from Prose Works just a few lines, part of which Bill used, in which Mrs. Eddy talked about some of the dangers she saw facing the world. She included in them "the claims of politics and of human power, industrial slavery, and insufficient freedom of honest competition; and ritual, creed, and trusts in place of the Golden Rule, 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them'" (Miscellany, p. 266).

Mrs. Eddy seemed particularly concerned over any political, economic, or even religious control over the individual that might keep him from demonstrating his spiritual freedom as God's child. Tonight—or is it the afternoon where you are perhaps—we're going to discuss some of these systems and states of thought in the world today that might deter the individual's freedom, or in cases where there is freedom, perhaps cause misuse of that freedom. We're going to take up five topics: first, the nuclear arms race; second, the state of the developing or third world and its relation with the developed world; third, the danger of fragmentation or divisiveness in the world's institutions; fourth, the challenge to the whole world of communist ideology; and last, what one might call the saturation point of materialism in some of the Western World.

Beb, you've covered several rounds of arms negotiations for the Monitor, and it looks as if we're about to get into a new round in 1985. What can you say about the state of thought that is underlying the arms race these last decades?

Miss Pond

Well, I think Mrs. Eddy's reference to the claims of politics and of human power certainly describes the state of thought underlying the arms race, the nuclear threat. Talk about matter becoming destructive and reaching "its mortal zenith in illusion," this is it! (See Science and Health 97:11-13.) It's a blasphemous parody, a ghastly farce, this notion that man is vulnerable, that his life can be snuffed out in an instant, that power is the power of destruction rather than the power of love. And that mankind is fragmented and helpless in the face of this, individually and collectively.

You know, in a way, mortal mind is doing us a favor to pose the lie so starkly. It makes it crystal-clear what the lie is. It prods us to know the truth about the lie, urgently, importunately. It reminds us that our personal lives aren't here somewhere and world problems out there somewhere else, but that our thinking is a seamless whole. If we're healing, if we're demonstrating spiritual reality in our own lives, in the laboratory of our own lives, then we inevitably hunger and thirst after righteousness for all mankind.

Miss Saikowski

Well, Beb, one of the roles of the Monitor is to define human problems as precisely as possible so that we can then pray about them with a sense of intelligence and insight. What would you say are the specific human claims in terms of the nuclear threat?

Miss Pond

A few years ago, in fact, when I was covering arms control talks, for my own interest I jotted down some of these claims, and then jotted down as well seven or eight specific challenges to them from the Bible and Science and Health—refutations of these claims. And I started out with the claim that, well, this is such a complex subject and such a terrifying subject, that we can't begin to understand it, let alone know what to do about it—if you will, that it's impossible to disentangle "the interlaced ambiguities" (see Science and Health 114:25-27). Second, the claim that man is mortal, subject not only to individual destruction but to total annihilation, that our world is fragile. Third, the claim that there is an evil power, or willpower, driving the arms race, that man is condemned by some kind of Cain complex to exploit and kill his fellowman, or to threaten to do so. And fourth, the claim that there is a mindless power—not an evil power in this case, just a mindless one—that we're far too clever technologically for our own good, and that technology has run amuck, or that we're locked into some kind of self-perpetuating mutual fear that we can't break out of.

Miss Saikowski

Well, speaking of dangers, Beb, aren't we really dealing with qualities of thought? In other words, the real problem is not in the material bomb per se, no matter how destructive it is. The root problems really lie in the negative qualities of thought, in the raw emotions that lead to conflict. So that these really have to be met in individual consciousness. No one need feel awed by the prospect of nuclear annihilation, because we can always address our own thinking. It is individual, the challenge is in individual consciousness. And to the extent, for instance, that we can overcome in ourselves any degree of selfishness or hostility or envy or impatient states, we're destroying these, not only for ourselves as individuals but helping to destroy these errors for the whole world.

Mr. Nenneman

You're talking, I suppose, mainly within the context of the standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States, but many of these qualities of thought you have just mentioned exist elsewhere in the world too. And, David Willis, I wonder, with your coverage of the third world currently, what you see about the dangers, for instance, of proliferation of the nuclear arms race in other parts of the world.

Mr. Willis

I think it's one of the fears that mankind has that somehow there's an irreversible slide into anarchy and that the bomb will find its way round the world and it won't be safe to live in the world at all. It seems to me that it's those countries that think they have the most to fear from their neighbors, that think they have the most difficult security problem, who are tempted to look to nuclear weapons or material power to somehow ensure their security—of course I have in mind such nations as Israel and Pakistan and South Africa. It seems to me we don't have to accept that. Just as Charlotte said, we don't have to accept that there's some kind of inevitability about this. We know where true security lies, and we can affirm it. And therefore I think we can make it easier, progressively, for a true sense of security to appear.

Mr. Nenneman

David, both you and David Winder have been covering the third world for us in recent years, and we're privileged to have you both with us today. Besides the fears and other qualities that might underlie an arms race, and besides your own coverage of the third-world problems such as hunger and overpopulation, which you have done a series on this year, what states of thought of the people or the governments do you find that have had to be dealt with there that we might not be familiar with?

Mr. Willis

I'd like to start with Ethiopia because I've just come back from there and it's in people's thought. It seemed to me that the famine that we read so much about is fundamentally a famine of ideas. It seemed to me that in the same sense the desert that I walked on was the "desert of human hopes" that Mrs. Eddy talks about (see Science and Health 566:1-9). That's the desert that needs to be watered with the inspiration each one of us can bring.

Mr. Nenneman

You're not saying we don't need to feed the people.

Mr. Willis

Not at all. I'm saying that we begin in thought to lay the basis from which we can then take the kind of inspired human action that each one of us can take. I mean, each one of us has an individual role to play, both in thought and then in the human action that proceeds from it. There is a hunger in Africa today and in parts of the rest of the world—there's a hunger for ideas that lead to new research, new crops able to withstand drought. There's a hunger for new farming methods, not just keeping on with the old ways.

There's a need for new incentives for farmers so they can grow the food that's in such urgent human need. There's a need for enlightened government policies and a definite need to come to grips with those twin bugbears of greed and corruption. Three of the points that kept hitting me as I traveled throughout Africa were that government knows best and that individuals have no role to play. And one that's very striking in the third world is that only men can make decisions and that women have to be relegated to menial tasks. Their old feudal ways of farming and living, which are still prevalent in parts of Africa, need changing. For example, I found that, until recently, Ethiopian farmers had to pay ten kinds of taxes with their own produce, with their food, which left remarkably little for them and their families to eat. I think all this kind of thinking has to be challenged.

". . . each one of us has an individual role to play, both in thought and then in the human action that proceeds from it."

Mr. Winder

What is so obvious, David, is that Africa is sending out distress signals—seven million refugees across the borders, national borders, and that must impose a terrible strain on neighboring states. Population in Africa is increasing faster than anywhere else in the world, and at the same time food production is lagging far behind.

We live in a computer age, and yet when you go to some of these countries 80 percent of the people cannot read and write. Now, because of the economic situation, we have dozens of countries in Africa that are drowning in debts, and what this means is that there are countries worse off today than they were twenty years ago. Some are merely surviving, others are hardly surviving. Now the message coming out from Africa is that it's hopeless, that things are out of control, that they defy—because they are so enormous—human solutions. And the message that we put in its place is to say we challenge these conclusions, that we don't accept this fatalism. Now, we don't dread the problems but we love the people. We love their warmth, their vitality, their humanity, their culture; and when we embrace mankind in this way, we nourish all humanity and we can encourage their self-respect and their dignity. And this encourages the kind of breakthroughs that are taking place in Africa today. I mean, a Tanzanian man when he became literate could say, "Now I can read; now I am a man."

Mr. Nenneman

David, I'd like to pick up on something you just said about some of these countries drowning in their debts, because it epitomizes what we're trying to get across in the third section here about fragmentation. The Monitor sees the world in a kind of transition, not necessarily to one world but to a world in which there are many, many more links because of communications, such as this meeting, and in transportation, trade, and investment. And yet many of the institutional or organizational frameworks for these things are imperfect. The Monitor over the years has given a lot of coverage to things like the development of the Common Market here in Europe, and, in the financial area, to the various banking and public financial links between the rich nations and the poor nations. Certainly one of the challenges to the world is to keep developing a framework of communication, a network of linkages that's appropriate to each stage of development. And one of the things I think of is the word "nationalism," because I think there are examples in the third world of nationalisms that have been very productive and those that have been divisive. Could you give us an example of one or the other?

Mr. Winder

Well, I think we must stress the fact that nationalism is one of the greatest dangers facing the world today, and you put your finger on it when you said it's divisive. And it is divisive because it is so narrow, so exclusive in its search for particular identity that this is necessarily at the expense of other countries. Now, when these aims are frustrated, as we see in hijacking and we see in the cases of Ireland and the Middle East with their terrorism, then of course you have these kinds of problems. But while we can't minimize this challenge, I think we've also got to say that nationalism can have a positive effect.

Mr. Willis

At the same time, David, I pick up your earlier point. Anyone who's been to Ethiopia recently realizes there are three kinds of nationalism all fighting together there. There's the central government, the Eritrean, and the Tigrean. And of course if you read the headlines about Sri Lanka, you find there are two nationalisms there. If a man is tempted to believe that he can only express his individuality through allegiance to a piece of territory, then he'll go so far but no further. Of course nationalism can be a vehicle for personal and national dignity and aspirations.

Mr. Nenneman

Yes. We need to move on to the fourth point here we'd like to get into, and that is the challenge of communist ideology. In the West most governments have a commitment to the freedom of the individual to the greatest extent possible with social order, but there are parts of the world where the government officially thinks it knows what's best for the people. Charlotte, I guess that's not any more true than it is in the Soviet Union.

Miss Saikowski

Well, Dick, certainly one of the big challenges we face is the relationship between the two superpowers today, and also the nature of the Soviet system, which is inimical to that of the West and to many other parts of the world. Here is a communist country in which the individual is subordinated to the state, in which there is very limited political and economic freedom, in which religious worship is very, very restricted. Moreover, it's a state that has imperialist ambitions. We heard a little bit tonight about imperialism, and the Soviet Union certainly seeks to implant its system in its neighboring countries and in many other parts of the world. And so the question arises, How do you deal with the Soviet Union? David and Beb, you've both lived in the Soviet Union, and I hope you would agree that, on a human level, we certainly want to have an effective and a strong military defense against the Soviet threat. We also want intelligent management of our relations with the Soviet Union day to day.

Mr. Willis

Quite right.

Miss Saikowski

But beyond that, it does seem to me that as Christian Scientists we can go further. We have to encompass the Soviet Union, the Soviet people, in our thoughts and prayers as we do other peoples in the world. Every people has a capacity for change.

Mr. Willis

That's right.

"Every people, it seems to me, has a yearning for self-worth"

Miss Saikowski

Every people, it seems to me, has a yearning for self-worth, for security, for peace, a desire to better their lives, and so it seems to me that the more we can really love peoples everywhere, including the Soviet people, the Russian people, we're going to contribute to their development in a more constructive direction.

Mr. Nenneman

Charlotte, I think a lot of us can understand that people as individuals have a great capacity to change. But we wonder whether the Soviet system, or any system that's more or less totalitarian, can change itself.

Miss Pond

Oh, sure, just look at the changes in fact that have already taken place in the Soviet Union between Stalinist times and today, or the changes that have come about in the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe. Look at the changes in China in just the decade between the Cultural Revolution and the kind of economic incentive that's going on today. Sure it's hard, it's hard in any system. It's hard to change any system of ingrained thought, whether it's East or West. But there are encouraging examples where this has happened.

Mr. Nenneman

Well, we've called this last section the saturation point of materialism. It seems in much of the West people have gotten so rich and life is so easy that they've lost a sense of what their freedom was all about in the first place. And we talked a little bit about this. I think all the panel would like to join in, but David Winder, would you like to start?

Mr. Winder

First of all, Dick, we've got to be careful when we talk about saturation, the sense that everybody's never had it so good, because what we're finding here in Europe is that there are millions of people who are unemployed. And obviously they have great fears. We've talked a great deal about fears, fears that new industries may not come as old industries are being phased out. But there's no question there's an excess of materialism. The "we want what we want when we want it" is a sort of very compulsive feeling that is running through Western society, and it encourages the greed, the selfishness, and the self-gratification.

I think that it's one of the ironies that for all the collective freedoms we have in the West—we have unlimited access to information, technology, and consumer goods—and yet, ironically, individual freedoms constantly come under assault. I mean, look at television. Our peace of mind is sabotaged by the bombardment of the airwaves, and our manhood and womanhood are debased by sexual exploitation and pornography, as though there is material satisfaction to be found in people and from people.

Mr. Willis

Last year, David, I ran into some of these claims when I wrote a series about the global fight against drugs.

Mr. Winder

Well, that's a much more destructive aspect . . .

Mr. Willis

Well, it's something that I had to come face to face with, because although few of us are tempted actually to use these hard drugs, we should be aware there is a claim that these substances would try to rob an entire generation of young people of their ability to be themselves and to express their God-given freedom. It seemed to me that the addict is the victim of a belief of selfishness, that he's looking inward all the time, that he's trying to use matter to fight the ills of matter.

Mrs. Fanning

Dick, this is Kay Fanning in Boston, can you hear me? [Kay Fanning and Skip Phinney have moved onto the platform in Boston.]

Mr. Nenneman

Hello, Kay.

Mrs. Fanning

Hello, I'm going to have to interrupt you. I know you wanted to summarize your panel. Why don't you do that for a minute, and then I have a question I'd like to ask.

Mr. Nenneman

I just wanted to say that we're aware there has been progress in the world as well, but tonight we thought that we should talk about these problems because they are problems that are particularly urgent—the arms race, . . . the dangers of fragmentation and divisiveness in the world, the challenge from totalitarian ideologies, and what we were just talking about, the challenge to the West itself from its own [material] progress, if you will. These are urgent matters, and although the world has made much progress, we feel that these are situations that can be healed, can be handled best by people who know how to apply spiritual truths to them, as you in this audience do. Thanks, Kay.

Mrs. Fanning

Thank you very much, all of the panel in London, and I would just like to ask one question that I've been thinking a good deal about since reading the most recent series of articles that David Willis has done on hunger in Africa. David, how have you managed to keep your spiritual equilibrium while walking among people who were suffering so desperately?

Mr. Willis

Kay, to stand in northern Ethiopia today I think is, first of all, to have a great sense of compassion. The human picture is that these people have so little and they need so much. But need does bring forth response. After all, on the human level there has been an immense response. People have sent money, they've sent food, they've chartered planes, and I knew that I was there so that The Christian Science Monitor could also play its part in making the need more widely known. Of course, on a deeper level I had to ask, How could I love these dear people more? I had to say that I couldn't be passive. I was there, I was involved. It became my challenge as well, and I had to know that matter doesn't have the last word, that God's man is not vulnerable to deprivation and despair. I had to know that Love provides, feeds, sustains. I suppose that approach made it easier to think through the specific human steps that could be taken.

Mrs. Fanning

In a sense you were doing what Beb was talking about earlier—you were really seeing the underlying spiritual reality and realizing that the material senses present lies. Really, we have to look at it that way, while at the same time expressing a lot of compassion. I want to thank our London panel so much. You've been wonderful. We're going to have to leave you now, but I hope we'll see you again on satellite hookup. Thank you.

You know, Skip, the Monitor correspondents that are out in the field actually reporting on many desperate situations have a tremendous challenge, don't they, to really bring their vision of the underlying spiritual reality to bear on the stories that they report?

Mr. Phinney

They do, Kay, and I think they succeed. I don't know how many times I've felt not only informed but inspired by a Monitor report, by the breadth of vision, or by a feature.

Mrs. Fanning

Well, they certainly do work at it, very hard indeed. You know, the Monitor's mandate "to injure no man, but to bless all mankind" (Miscellany, p. 353) doesn't necessarily mean that we print only what people want to read, as I'm sure you realize. Monitor writers and editors make a tremendous effort to stress both the triumphs and the tragedies of people's lives and people's circumstances. But Mrs. Eddy paid a lot of attention to the names that she gave her publications. The name "Monitor" was very important to her, and a "monitor," according to the dictionary, is one who warns or instructs. So in a sense you could say that the Monitor helps set the agenda for our prayers. Skip, do you at the Journal, Sentinel, Herald Editorial [department] have a similar agenda, like those five major points, for instance, that they were just making in London?

Mr. Phinney

Kay, it's been a busy week for you, I know, but let me introduce you to the Christian Science Sentinel of December 10! We have a whole issue on the subject of "peace." One of the articles is called "Healing international tension." So yes, we do have the same agenda. It's inevitable that we would. We do feel that prayer sets the agenda.

Mrs. Fanning

You know, Mrs. Eddy says that "acquaintance with the Science of being enables us ... to foresee and foretell events," ^{Science and Health (p. 84): "Acquaintance with the Science of being enables us to commune more largely with the divine Mind, to foresee and foretell events which concern the universal welfare, to be divinely inspired,—yea, to reach the range of fetterless Mind."} and Monitor writers and editors do endeavor, through prayer, to look through present events to see what might be coming in the future. There's David Anable, our International Editor.

Mr. Anable

I think I have an example of that, which might be helpful. I had a call the other day from a writer on one of the leading newspapers in this country, and he was writing on that famine in Africa which the London panel has discussed. And he had searched through the data banks and the clip files and the other sources of information, and he rang me to say that—slightly surprised—he found The Christian Science Monitor had been the most consistent and longstanding newspaper or publication to look in depth at that issue and really to try to bring a healing light to it. He didn't put it quite like that, but that was basically the point, and he wanted to know why we had done that.

Mrs. Fanning

He apparently was quite puzzled as to why the Monitor did this when other newspapers really hadn't?

Mr. Anable

Yes, he was, and it was rather nice to be able to tell him about how we try to put into practice Mrs. Eddy's injunction "to bless all mankind." But I think the important thing, also, is to see it from the other end, how the readers can respond to what they're given, and I would like to readjust a couple of sentences from a letter I received from a practitioner the other day: "We can and do contribute money when we hear hungry cries. But we can do much more. We can be specific with our vigilant prayer when we are well informed. The ax must be laid at the root of error."

Mrs. Fanning

That really is the point—right "at the root"—isn't it?

Mr. Anable

And on the question of reader response, we were talking before this program about terrorism, Kay, and I think that's an area where reader response is particularly important. It's one of the areas of mental manipulation which we can deal with as readers and as listeners and hearers. The terrorist is trying in fact to manipulate our thinking. He is a man or a woman of weakness, that is why he's a terrorist. He has no armies, but he is using fear and hate and those outrageous qualities to try to produce a reaction in us, to give an impression of power. We don't have to accept that, we can in fact lay our mental ax at the root of error.

Mrs. Fanning

Well, that's a very timely point, David, with the airplane hijacking problem in Tehran right now, and I think we need to see that the Christ is present right there on that airplane, right there at the scene of the disaster in India. We need to see right through what appears to be going on, to see the presence of the Christ.

Mr. Anable

We do indeed.

Mrs. Fanning

Thank you, David. You know, it is important to hear from our readers, and we appreciate the letters that we get, whether they're full of praise or some constructive criticism, and we get both kinds. We appreciate both kinds. But I think that people should realize that the Monitor editors and writers strive very hard to be fair and objective and balanced.

Mr. Phinney

They not only strive but I think they succeed, Kay. The essence of the Monitor's reputation is fairness, still.

Mrs. Fanning

Well, I think it does have an international reputation for that kind of accuracy, fairness, and balance. We do strive for it. I had some travels this past year visiting Monitor bureaus in the Middle East, in the Soviet Union, in India and China and Japan, and I just found it remarkable how very much the Monitor is held in esteem and revered in some very far-off places, particularly China, if you can believe it.

Mr. Phinney

How do they get the Monitor in China, let alone read it?

Mrs. Fanning

Well, as you know, China is opening up. It is a case of some leavening going on there, and the Monitor can be bought there. But articles from it are translated into a publication that goes out to literally millions of Chinese, so we're really well known and recognized there. But many readers in this country and elsewhere sometimes question the objectivity of the Monitor, and that's all right. You know no human is absolutely objective.

Diversity of viewpoint actually makes the Monitor more interesting, more vital, more relevant to the human scene. I think it's a question of whether we react or respond to what we read. If we have angry reactions, it tends to add more to the disturbance of world thought than to the healing of it. Angry reactions, you could almost say, are more like the forces that erupt in such acts of intolerance as the terrorism we were just talking about. But if we respond with a prayer of love and scientific treatment, it can start a chain reaction, or maybe we should say a chain response, that reaches around the world.

Mr. Phinney

I was thinking as you were talking, Kay, of Mrs. Eddy's statement about a "chain of scientific being." ^{Science and Health (p. 271): "Christ's Christianity is the chain of scientific being reappearing in all ages, maintaining its obvious correspondence with the Scriptures and uniting all periods in the design of God."}

Mrs. Fanning

Yes, can you just imagine, Skip, if we were to see Christian Scientists replacing (and not only Christian Scientists, but the world) in their prayers the fear of nuclear chain reaction with a love, a reaction of love and a chain of love that were to reach around the world. What a difference it would make! And you know—talking again about readers—the unity of readers and writers for the Monitor, and for your publications as well, is essential to the carrying out of Mrs. Eddy's purpose for her publications, which was "to bless all mankind." It takes readers as well as writers.

Mr. Phinney

It does. And I think it's more than a journalistic cliche, really. In our case and our respective publications the reader plays an enormous part; that thought quality of support and involvement gives a tremendous vitality to the Monitor as well as to the Sentinel, and Journal, and Herald.

Mrs. Fanning

We have a lot of readers listening to us today, so let's ask them all for their support and their help—we need them. And you know another thought that I wanted just to share quickly is that the Monitor writers and editors, I think, take their marching orders very much from certain portions of the definition of "Church" in the Glossary of Science and Health—the part about "elevating the race" and "rousing the dormant understanding." ^{Science and Health (p. 583): "Church. The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle. "The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick."} And they really try through the articles that they write to bring a sense of elevating the thought, even though the questions they're writing about are sometimes difficult and disturbing. Mrs. Eddy was always concerned about public affairs and what was going on in public consciousness. She wrote for the newspapers even before the Monitor was established, and there was one article that she wrote on the question of peace and war that I've always liked very much. I'd like to quote from it. She says, "The characters and lives of men determine the peace, prosperity, and life of nations" (Miscellany, p. 277). Individuals, Skip, isn't it, not governments, not institutions, not anybody else—us. ...

Mr. Phinney

That's right.

Mrs. Fanning

Haven't all of her publications through the years reflected this great concern of hers?

Mr. Phinney

Well, they have, Kay. The interesting thing is that from the very beginning the religious periodicals have had this interest in the world. I was tempted to remind my Monitor colleagues of another publication, founded before the Monitor, which carried world news, and the publication I'm referring to, of course, is the Christian Science Sentinel. It's interesting, as far back as 1899 it carried news briefs, little short items, called "Items of interest: condensed for busy people."

Mrs. Fanning

Busyness isn't an invention of this age, I guess. It was true even back in Mrs. Eddy's time.

Mr. Phinney

And a good idea stays in style. That feature looked a lot like the inside front page of the Monitor today. But you know, I think we can draw a conclusion from Mrs. Eddy's interest at that early stage in world news and, of course, in the founding of the Monitor. I think we can see that she wasn't afraid that the world would somehow adversely influence Christian Scientists. She was so sure that the new spiritual perspective that Christian Science was affording, that this would influence the world. It was a very strong conviction on her part from the very beginning. You know, it makes me think, Kay, of Jesus' prayer, his statement when he was talking with God, just as he was thinking ahead beyond the crucifixion, beyond the resurrection and the ascension, and thinking about the future of his disciples. And he prayed. He said, "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil" (John 17:15).

We've been talking a lot in the meeting about the world, and maybe it's time to stop for a minute and take stock and see what we mean. I wonder if what we're saying really isn't human consciousness. As Christian Scientists, we expect the Christ, Truth, to be an ever-present influence in human consciousness. And if we do, then we expect to see the evidence of it, the leavening, the progress in thought. If we don't, we may want to check our spiritual standards and see why not. You know, there's an interesting reminder on the cover of every issue of the Christian Science Sentinel—Jesus' words, which are the motto of the Sentinel, "What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch." When we're spiritually wakeful and watchful, nothing on earth can convince us that good isn't going on, or that the coming of the Comforter hasn't made an enormous difference. It has made a tremendous difference. It has made a difference in our own lives and thought, so why wouldn't this be happening in human consciousness as a whole? It is.

"When we're spiritually wakeful . . . nothing on earth can convince us that good isn't going on ...."

Mrs. Fanning

I think there are evidences of it. You know, one of the pictures that we recently had in the Monitor—one David Willis himself took, actually—showed the children in Africa being fed by the world's outpouring of love. To me, that is an evidence of the Christ in human consciousness and in world thought.

Mr. Phinney

It's a powerful picture, Kay. It's a beautiful picture, but a powerful one. I think one of the reasons that it's powerful is that it reminds us of good, and that's the most powerful thing in human thought. You know, when we hold our ground spiritually—and Christian Scientists would say when we hold our ground metaphysically—then the mist begins to clear and the smoke of battle begins to clear away and we begin to see what has really been going on. We begin to see some of that influence of the Christ in human thought. And we get back our spiritual vision, which is what we so much need, and which is so natural and carries us forward.

The London panel spoke of materialism, and I think, Kay, in the reading that you do, and the reading that I do, we both have begun to see that something very interesting is happening in the world in regard to materialism. There's beginning to be a little bit of an awakening about it. People are beginning to say, "Wait a minute. Where does this road go? Do we really want to be on it? Is this what man is?" I've been reading a book by two authors, one a Nobel Prize winner, and they make a very interesting statement: "We think science"—and by that they mean natural science—"has gone too far in breaking down man's belief in his spiritual greatness . . . ." ^{Sir John Eccles and Daniel N. Robinson, The Wonder of being Humans: Our Brain and Our Mind (New York: The Free Press, 1984),p. 178}

Mrs. Fanning

That's wonderful, Skip. We're running a little short of time, and I know there are some things we want to talk about. And particularly, I was going to ask you about the testimonies and the articles for the publications. You have more than enough, don't you, you really have an awful lot?

Mr. Phinney

I don't know where the rumor started, Kay, but this is the place to stop it! We would always love to have more and I think, hopefully, we've been conveying the fact here today that now is the hour. But I'd like Carolyn Swan, who is the Associate Editor handling the testimonies, to say a word about that.

Mrs. Swan

We'd like to receive still more—in the interests of diversity for our selection, but also because an abundance of gratitude is good for us all. You know, right along, we've been publishing testimonies of healings of the dangers that have been spoken of here today. We have had testimonies that tell of healings from the effect of exposure to atomic radiation. We've also had testimonies about acts of terrorism, about drug addiction, a problem that was spoken of in connection with materialism. And healings, not just relief, but healings of deprivation involving malnutrition and emaciation. Wonderful evidence that the Christ is appearing everywhere. We're grateful.

Mr. Phinney

Thank you, Carolyn. And this is what gives such vitality to the periodicals. I think it's inspiring, too, to remember that when you share testimonies like that, you're not just sharing them with a small circle of Christian Scientists, you're sharing them with the world. And you're helping all to turn the corner into the realization of the spiritual nature of man.

Mr. Friesen

Well, we certainly have a lot to think about. No one listening or watching what's going on today can say that Christian Scientists aren't doing something for all mankind, living for all mankind. We're doing much. But we must do more. There's a spiritual urgency. We heard it from London. We read about it in the newspaper. We're informed in the periodicals of the necessity to keep alert. Mrs. Eddy says that "we are all capable of more than we do" (Science and Health, p. 89).

So, maybe in just thinking about where we might go from here, before we go to the last segment of our program, we could look a minute at the Day of Pentecost where "they were all with one accord in one place" (Acts 2:1). You know, there's an interesting fact here. And that is there is nothing recorded of what they said when the Holy Ghost came, only the spirit that prevailed. They were filled with the Holy Ghost. And in thinking about that—the Holy Ghost and what it did—we see that it gave them the spirit of courage, the spirit of life, and it met everybody's need that was there, according to the way that they expected. There was an expectancy present. So, as we think about our meeting, this videoconferencing program, where we can all be in one place, we see the whole world is brought together in one place. And we have here, as we all know, the spirit of the Christ, we have the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, filling us. We have the spirit of expectancy, we have the spirit of joy.

But, Harvey, when you were asking earlier what each one of us wants to get out of this meeting, if I were to answer, I might say that what I most would like to see is the spirit of fidelity to Truth wrought in the hearts of all of us. Because that's the condition that Mrs. Eddy gave, that we should attest our fidelity to Truth, and then her prophecy about the twentieth century— what is promised to Christendom, and Christian healing— would take place.

Now, it seems appropriate to pause and that we take a moment of silent prayer. Afterward, the First and Second Readers of The Mother Church will lead us in praying audibly the Lord's Prayer, with its spiritual interpretation from the Christian Science textbook (Science and Health, pp. 16-17). [James Spencer and Essie A. Diggs led the meeting in prayer.]

Mr. Selover

Among the clear and specific directions Mrs. Eddy has provided for The Christian Science Board of Directors in the Manual of The Mother Church is this sentence: "The business of The Mother Church shall be transacted by its Christian Science Board of Directors" (Art. I, Sect. 6). So, in addition to their individual and close contact with the departments of the Church and Publishing Society, they meet here in Boston almost every day to carry out their collective office as a Board.

At this point, a brief film clip of the Directors at work in the Board Room was shown:

Mr. Wood

Last night, in preparing for this December 8 meeting, I looked up the word "momentum" and Mrs. Eddy's use of that word, and I think it's the only place in Science and Health—here in the chapter "Christian Science Practice." There's a paragraph where she first sketches in how she made her spiritual discovery, many years ago, and that was followed by an accumulation of scientific evidence. Then she says, in a prophetic mode, "Gradually this evidence will gather momentum . . . ." ^{Science and Health (p. 380): "Many years ago the author made a spiritual discovery, the scientific evidence of which has accumulated to prove that the divine Mind produces in man health, harmony, and immortality. Gradually this evidence will gather momentum and clearness, until it reaches its culmination of scientific statement and proof."}

Mrs. Jenks

That's beautiful.

Mr. Thorneloe

And gathering the evidence isn't accretion. Mrs. Eddy says, "Christian Science presents unfoldment, not accretion . . ." (Science and Health, p. 68). So the unfoldment is the momentum, with Principle as its source.

Mr. Friesen

And it has been going on. The Bible has the history, that thread of momentum, that always is coming to the higher and higher sense of manifestation. This is a historical time, because we see that momentum here, present and active and in what we're doing in this meeting . . .

Mr. Rathbun

It's very important, I think for us, while we're looking at momentum, to see what it is that's generating that momentum. What is it that's really causing today's momentum, what began in 1866, and has been working right on through? It's the healing, it's the actual demonstration of Christian Science healing in the Field that has brought this momentum to where it is now. And I think it would be so helpful if we would realize that the healing work is not being done exclusively by an elite group within the church called practitioners.

Mrs. Jenks

Even though we're so grateful to them.

Mr. Rathbun

Absolutely. But I want to bring into this meeting something as a reminder of what Mrs. Eddy tells us in the Manual about healing. She says, "I recommend that each member of this Church shall strive to demonstrate by his or her practice, that Christian Science heals the sick quickly and wholly, thus proving this Science to be all that we claim for it" (Art. XXX, Sect. 7).

Those of us here, like you out there, all share a deep, deep love for this Cause. And there's one thing more. We look to this Manual, this Mother Church Manual, for guidance, day by day, just the same way that you do. It's wonderful to remember that the author of this Manual had such a great trust in God's power, in the power of primitive Christianity, that she had this modest little book provide an organization that in itself is modest and simple. And it's in its modesty that the Church has its great strength because it turns us all, me, you, everyone, to God for power. For the power of His Christ.

Now, if there's anyone, anywhere, who thinks this meeting was called to preside over, or to look at, the declining years of the twentieth century, he's laboring under a misconception. The purpose of this meeting was stated from the beginning. We've talked about it, we heard it earlier, we're talking about it here, we're going to talk about it for the rest of the time available to us—the purpose is bringing together an awareness of this wonderful momentum that began in 1866. And it has been carried forward by strong, stalwart, spiritually-minded Christian Scientists up to today and from now on. So that instead of looking at the declining years of the twentieth century, what we're actually seeing is the beginning years of a whole new era for mankind, one in which mankind becomes aware of its God-given dominion over its environment. And when mankind universally begins to recognize and demonstrate the presence and power of true Christian healing.

The film clip ended here.

"It gives me a warm feeling when I think of the healing chain of love encircling the world today."

Mrs. Jenks

We hope you enjoyed seeing the Board Room and how we function, as much as we enjoyed sharing it. We didn't think we could get you all in one room at once, but we did! This truly has been a family gathering. And I think one that has pointed out to us that although home (and that certainly includes our church home) "is the dearest spot on earth," it cannot be the boundary of our affections.^{See Science and Health (p. 58): "Home is the dearest spot on earth, and it should be the centre, though not the boundary, of the affections."} It gives me a warm feeling when I think of the healing chain of love encircling the world today. I think of you there in Lagos, Nigeria, your faces radiant with love, and those in Dublin and Stockholm and Mexico City and Sao Paulo and Honolulu. Each individual in each place a vital link in that chain of love. It reminds me of the hymn, "From hand to hand the greeting flows, / From eye to eye the signals run, / From heart to heart the bright hope glows" (Hymnal, No. 218). Heart is speaking to heart today, and none is excluded. The healing presence of the Christ is within the hearts of mankind. Our Leader's prophecy is being fulfilled. And you know, as we enlarge the concept of our affections, we're going to find our own family ties strengthened, and with that strengthening will come a recognition of the desire to live for mankind by being willing to face, as individuals in our own lives, those vital issues we heard about today.

For instance, monopoly. Do we as Christian Scientists feel that we have a monopoly on good? Do we feel that imperialism, manifesting itself as personal domination, is necessary? That God can't direct and control each idea in His own precious creation? And what about that lax system of religion—has compromise weakened our moral fiber? Has the encroachment of materialism on our time relegated study and prayer merely to convenience—instead of top priority? You know, putting first things first doesn't mean getting off that ivory divan and running into an ivory tower. No way. In fact, as we're willing to grapple with these issues daily in our individual lives, we're going to find more involvement with mankind. We're going to recognize the dignity, the worth, of each individual. We're going to begin to see that inseparability of each idea from his Father-Mother God, and in so doing we're going to strengthen our families. We're going to nourish our children to prepare them for the great purpose that each has.

Charity begins at home, and isn't this the best way we can meet the demand of the second great commandment—to love our neighbor as ourselves? You know, last year [1983], just at this time, The Mother Church through its Publishing Society issued a book called All Mankind. It was a collection of photographs by four of The Christian Science Monitor photographers. In the inside of the jacket on that book, it tells how they went about getting those pictures. They said they took the purpose of the Monitor and with that as their guide would enter a country with compassion, with love, and with a desire for a better understanding. And the result is pictures which illumine the brotherhood of man. They show us the dignity of man and help us to recognize the Christ within each one's consciousness, enabling each one to face the dangers with courage and the expectancy of healing.

Little did we realize as this book was being compiled that within a year human thought would have lost so much of its limitations of time and space that we would be able to meet here together and explore ways to live for mankind—explore ways to share that spirit of humanity, to practice the ethics of divine Science, and to share spiritual healing as the early Christians did with all mankind. A sharing which is impelled by that deep love within that has to be expressed openly.

Yes, we're living in an era of intensity of thought, of deeper research; it's the close of a century. But there's something unique about the close of this century. It's the close of a millennium. The second millennium since the coming of the Messiah to mankind. We can be sure there is going to be deep, spiritual research—a searching of the hearts of man. As our Leader puts it, "The time for thinkers has come" (Science and Health, p. vii).

Mr. Wood

I'm so interested to have that point come back to this meeting about the mental energy that's going on at the end of the century. My thought went back to a very close friend of mine who told me he was a young man at the turn of the last century. He was a Christian Scientist, and he said there was a great deal in the newspapers about the growth, the rapid growth, of the Cause of Christian Science. But coupled with it was a lot of speculation as to how quickly the entire movement would fade away once it no longer had its dynamic Leader. And he said when the news hit him that our Leader had passed away, he couldn't get to sleep that night until he asked himself a question: Well, what are you going to do about it? And then he said the answer was clear. He quit his profession, he went to Chicago, he opened his office in the public practice of Christian Science. And I think it's that kind of energetic response that maybe we can think about today.

Mr. Thorneloe

You know that story rings so close to home with me, Harvey—particularly linking it with the meeting that we're just concluding now. Oh years ago it is now, I just longed to be active in the healing ministry. I longed to help other individuals. But nobody asked me to help. And so I set up a little tiny room. It happened to be an upper chamber in the house where we lived, and I set it up as a study and I went in there every day and gave treatment.

Now, how could I do that without patients? I had patients. And the patients? A phrase has been used several times today— the agenda for prayer—I used the Monitor. The Monitor gave me situations that needed, that yearned, for my prayerful attention. That's how the practice began. And I found within a week two individuals had called and asked for help, and the flow has never stopped.

But I think the thing that has come to me, most of all, from this meeting is that I mustn't just see the Monitor as having been a springboard for me into the practice, but that today it gives me these issues, the circumstances that have to be faced through that spiritual vision, and then I'm helping world situations as well as individuals who come and ask for help.

Mr. Rathbun

You know, Michael, I'd like to tag on to something Betty was talking about. About families. Let's go back for just a moment to the opening of this meeting where we were flying over the city of Boston toward The Mother Church, where the meeting was convening, and listening to the sound of the bells over the whole city. Now, if the sound of those bells just blanketing this city is symbolic of God's great love for this beautiful headquarters city of our Church, then certainly this meeting, which has taken the sound of those bells all around the world, is symbolic of God's great love for the whole human family. But you know, we here in this meeting at this precise moment in this unprecedented way are not just symbolic of something. We are an integral, essential element of the family of all mankind.

Mrs. Jenks

As was brought out earlier, can we count the cost to mankind if we don't recognize that?

Mr. Thorneloe

That's the evidence of spiritual vision exercised.

Mr. Friesen

When we think about the statement of Mrs. Eddy's that "the necessity for uplifting the race is father to the fact that Mind can do it . . ." (Science and Health, p. 371), that doesn't mean we just sit back and say, "Well, Mind, when are you going to do it?" Mind demands its idea to be forever expressing the nature of its source. And so as we see that new ideas will be developing, new inspiration will come to us that will enable us to do what we need to do to usher in these prophecies—to bring peace to the world. I just want to say one thing while I've got the floor, because I may not get it again, that when we talk about how much the periodicals have been involved in this meeting, it is not a periodicals meeting. It's an issues meeting. And the issues are brought to us, and the way in which we can handle them, with what we receive in our Quarterly, by our Sentinel, by our Journal, by the Heralds, by the Monitor, by the various things that our Leader has provided.

Mr. Rathbun

I'm going to interrupt you just a moment. I'm going to interrupt myself and bring up a new point. I just feel that the members of this Church, the participants in this meeting today, should realize that this conference isn't a beginning. It is only bringing into focus something that, as was said earlier, is an ongoing message.

Mrs. Jenks

Prophecy is ongoing, isn't it? And true prophecy, with its vision, is not prolonged. Ezekiel got that message from God centuries ago when that prophet was told, in effect, that the days are not prolonged, and don't say that they are, and don't say that the effect of every vision is in vain. But say that "the days are at hand, and the effect of every vision" (Ezek. 12:23). And that's true prophecy. It does not provide for procrastination.

Mr. Wood

I was struck by a thought as I listened to the discussion about the importance of our periodicals; now we've asked each listener to weigh carefully the cost of being a Christian Scientist, and what it involves to live his life for the world. The Church cannot do it for him, but we're not asking him to do it without his Church. And it seems to me that we as Directors could make the commitment that we're going to live up to the demand in the Manual to see that our periodicals "are ably edited and kept abreast of the times" (see Art. VIII, Sect. 14), which will free the members to fulfill their part in this same Manual By-Law to subscribe, or sign their names—and to read the periodicals (see, for example, Miscellany 352:29-2).

". . . now we've asked each listener to weigh carefully . . . what it involves to live his life for the world."

Mr. Thorneloe

You know, our time is nearly up. And maybe we could just address one question very briefly. It is a question that was raised in a letter to the Clerk of The Mother Church. Is it realistic to expect world peace as a practical fact? Very briefly, who'd like to answer that one?

Mr. Wood

I think it has been touched on really a couple of times where people have spoken of Science as the Comforter. I think underneath his question is basically a theological one that he had not resolved in his thought—whether the promised Comforter is here. Once that's resolved, I think the question disappears.

Mrs. Jenks

Yes, it does.

Mr. Friesen

And the fact is that "Science will declare God aright, and Christianity will demonstrate this declaration . . . ." ^{Science and Health (p. 466): "Science will declare God aright, and Christianity will demonstrate this declaration and its divine Principle, making mankind better physically, morally, and spiritually."} What Science declares, Christianity must demonstrate.

Mr. Thorneloe

All the handling of these issues that we've been talking about, this all is dealing with peace. It's demonstrating healing. Mrs. Eddy spoke about healing, the healing art of Science as being that which brings peace on earth, good will to man (see Miscellany, pp. 277-286). Earl Foell, our Editor in Chief of the Monitor, is in the audience. Earl, you wrote in your column just a little while back on the subject of peace, and you referred to the peace essay competition that the Monitor is currently running. How's that going?

"Mrs. Eddy spoke about healing, the healing art of Science as being that which brings peace on earth, good will to man . . . ."

Mr. Foell

Michael, it's going very well. As you well know, this is not one of those contests where you simply fill in the last twenty-five words of a jingle and mail in your entry with a box top. It requires a lot of research, thought, and hard work. Nevertheless we've already had several hundred entries. They've come in from five continents and in three different languages. They've come from doctors as well as lawyers, professors, and all of us civilians. One question arises about the Monitor peace contest fairly frequently. That is, isn't it presumptuous for mere civilians, amateurs, to advise world leaders on how to carry on their business?

Mrs. Eddy must have faced a similar question in her day, and her answer was unequivocal. Her vigorous support for efforts to end the wars of her day, the Spanish-American War, the Russo-Japanese War, was clear evidence of her reply.^{See for example,Man., Art. VIII, Sect. 16} Today we need to be just as emphatic, whether writing essays for a peace contest or praying daily for peace. It's our duty to support any world leaders who are moving to enlarge the brotherhood of mankind. One claim facing us about peace efforts is that they can only be temporary in nature, that peoples make war, frighten themselves into peace, and then are complacent and make war all over again.

This is just another version of the claim that some diseases are chronic and have to be dealt with over and over again. We all know better than that. All discord and disease are equally unreal, and healing is permanent precisely because of that fact. Discord, whether it affects families or is between nations, is not the natural state of mankind. Peace is the natural state of the family of man, just as health is the natural state of men and women everywhere. Peace is the health of families, the health of economies, the health of nations. It is the health of mankind. And it's for that reason that peace is central, Michael, to the Monitor's goal of blessing all mankind.

Mr. Thorneloe

Well, thank you very much indeed, Earl, and your comments about Mrs. Eddy's interest in, concern for, and love for the whole of mankind bring to thought her words "From the interior of Africa to the utmost parts of the earth, the sick and the heavenly homesick or hungry hearts are calling on me for help, and I am helping them" (Miscellany, p. 147). "I am helping them." Our Leader has already done her part. It's now up to us to do ours. But how? During the last two hours together we've shared many examples. We've discussed together how we can answer that question, how we can live for all mankind.

Mrs. Eddy deals with it in so many ways in her writings. To me one of the clearest answers that our Leader gives, she gave right here in this beautiful edifice during the first address she gave here. It was one Sunday in May 1895. The service was already in progress, and Mrs. Eddy came to the back door of the auditorium. Now, the Readers knew that this was going to happen. The congregation was taken completely by surprise.

Can you imagine how they felt? As our Leader walked down the aisle, the congregation just spontaneously stood to its feet. She came up onto this very platform, and in the extemporaneous remarks that she made to the congregation that day she included these few words that to me give a clear, succinct answer to the question, How can I live for all mankind? She said, "So live, that your lives attest your sincerity and resound His praise."^{Mis. (p. 106): "It has long been a question of earnest import, How shall mankind worship the most adorable, but most unadored,—and where shall begin that praise that shall never end? Beneath, above, beyond, methinks I hear the soft, sweet sigh of angels answering, 'So live, that your lives attest your sincerity and resound His praise.'"} There's a joyous urgency to that call. Each one of us can respond. Each one of us can play his or her part in fulfilling our Leader's prophecies. Each one of us can and must live for all mankind.

Now, why is this imperative call from our Leader a distinct possibility right now? It's because of the work of our Master, Christ Jesus. In a very real sense, he was the Prince of Peace. He showed all mankind that peace is a presently attainable reality. Peace isn't dull, static emptiness with nothing happening. Peace is joyous. It's buoyant. It's vital. It's gentle. It's gracious. It's alive. Like love, peace calls for active witnesses.

Whenever I think of peace it reminds me of Christmas. The pure joy of Christmas is the perpetual reminder, the present declaration, of peace here and now—with us all the time. At the same time the message of Christmas is the message of the resurrection and the ascension. The peace of Christmas is with us every day. It brings healing. It brings salvation. It brings redemption to all mankind. And as you and I respond to the Christ, then peace—in its generally accepted sense of brotherhood amongst nations—must be the inevitable outcome.

We're grateful to you all for being with us during this last couple of hours in this town meeting, in this family meeting. It has been a gift of love to you from The Mother Church, from your Mother Church. We're grateful for everything that you do. We're grateful for your love for God, your devotion to our Leader and her Cause. In fact we can all share the fruitage from that beautiful Christmas benediction from the Bible, "Peace be both to thee, and peace be to thine house, and peace be unto all that thou hast" (I Sam. 25:6).

Mr. Selover

With the heart-lifting strain "Joy to the world," our town meeting stands adjourned. A satellite network has reached you all simultaneously in nine languages, across Europe, Africa, across the continents of North and South America out to Alaska and the mid-Pacific. A fourteen-hour time delay will see our message replayed by tape in Australia and New Zealand. Videotapes and films will be made available to those branches and members who just could not be reached today. And so good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and even good night from your fellow members and workers from London and from here in Boston.

List of participants

Because of time limitations, Barbara-Jean Stinson, Associate Editor, Journal, Sentinel, and Herald Editorial Department, and Rushworth M. Kidder, Monitor Feature Editor, were not able to offer their comments.

The Christian Science Board of Directors

Harvey W. Wood
Hal M. Friesen
Michael B. Thorneloe
H. Dickinson Rathbun, Chairman
Ruth Elizabeth Jenks

Clerk of The Mother Church
Beulah M. Roegge

Readers of The Mother Church
James Spencer, First Reader
Essie A. Diggs, Second Reader

Host
John Lewis Selover

Audience
Elizabeth Woolley, practitioner
Aaron Snipe, Alex Glover,
Sunday School pupils

Board of Lectureship
 Clem W. Collins
Deborah Hedin

Committees on Publication
Nathan A. Talbot, Manager

The Christian Science
Publishing Society
John H. Hoagland, Jr., Manager

Journal, Sentinel, and Herald
Editorial Department
Allison W. Phinney, Jr., Editor
William E. Moody, Associate Editor
Carolyn B. Swan, Associate Editor

Radio and Television Broadcasting
John Parrott, Editor

The Christian Science Monitor
staff members
Earl W. Foell, Editor in Chief
Katherine W. Fanning, Editor
Richard A. Nenneman,
Managing Editor
David Anable,
International News Editor
Robert C. Nelson,
American News Editor
Charlotte Saikowski,
Washington Bureau Chief
Elizabeth Pond,
West Europe Correspondent
David K. Willis,
Third World Correspondent
David Winder,
British Isles Correspondent

Photos (p. 174) top left, clockwise: Christchurch, New Zealand; Washington, D.C.; Anchorage, Alaska; Sao Paulo, Brazil; (p. 175) top left, clockwise: Vancouver, British Columbia; Nairobi, Kenya; Paris; Frankfurt, West Germany; Sydney, Australia.

Photo credits

Anchorage, Alaska
Rob Stapleton

Boston
Linda Payne
(general coverage)
Paul W. Bailey, Jr.
(London panel, from
TV monitor)

Christchurch,
New Zealand
Norman Matheny

Frankfurt,
West Germany
Werner Weitzel

London
Joe McKeown

Nairobi, Kenya
Henry S. Hamlin

New York
Ed Grazda

Paris
Olivier Bucourt

Sao Paulo, Brazil
Carlos Cineviva

Sydney, Australia
Dieter Engler

Vancouver,
British Columbia
Lyle Smuin

Washington, D.C.
Paul Conklin

The list of cities to the right indicates where the videoconference was received.

UNITED STATES

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REPUBLIC OF IRELAND
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WESTERN EUROPE
AUSTRIA
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DENMARK
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FRANCE
Paris

GERMANY
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THE NETHERLANDS
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SWEDEN
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SWITZERLAND
Geneva
Zurich

AFRICA
KENYA
Nairobi

NIGERIA
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SOUTH AFRICA
Cape Town
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Johannesburg

ZIMBABWE
Harare

LATIN AMERICA
MEXICO
Mexico City

ARGENTINA
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BRAZIL
Sao Paulo

CHILE
Santiago

URUGUAY
Montevideo

AUSTRALIA
Adelaide
Brisbane
Hobart
Melbourne
Perth
Sydney

NEW ZEALAND
Auckland
Christchurch
Wellington