Rebuilding is a topic of perhaps more general interest today than ever before in human history. For, as a result of war conditions, homes, towns, even countries, must be built up anew materially and spiritually. Let us then consider how we may rebuild on a surer foundation, a foundation that cannot be shaken, whatever storms may arise.
According to the Scriptures there is but one real foundation. "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ," we read (I Cor. 3:11). If we want our building of homes, cities, and countries to stand, we must build upon the rock, Christ—that is, upon a spiritual foundation. Whatever is built on the material theories of mortal mind is "built ... upon the sand." Of the house thus built the Bible says (Matt. 7:27), "And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it."
During the war years just past people found how fleeting is all that originates in mortal mind—wealth, fame, material power. Earthly belongings were destroyed, popularity was displaced by scorn, might was turned into helplessness. Those who lost all that they had striven perhaps a lifetime to acquire can take comfort, however, in these words by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science (Poems, p. 4): "Loss is gain." Christian Science offers those forced to build up a new life, home, or position fresh and greater opportunities for starting on a higher, more spiritual level with purer motives and aims. In this spiritual rebuilding they will find that they can wrest a blessing from the loss of those things which might have prevented their turning wholeheartedly to God.
We learn in Christian Science that the accumulation of material possessions does not mean real abundance, but that the attainment and exercise of such qualities as humility, meekness, charity, righteousness, and so on confer a joyous sense of richness which nothing can take away. Moreover, consecrating one's time and energy to the gaining of more spirituality will result in much happier and better-provisioned human conditions than does the seeking after material supply. Hear Jesus' reassuring advice (Luke 12:27–31): "Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you." In the proportion that we gain spirituality, our human conditions improve.
There are those who, having been loyal and obedient to humanly constituted authority for years, have awakened to the realization that their trust was misplaced. Faithfulness and obedience are certainly qualities of worth, much to be appreciated, but we need to make sure that the purpose of our loyalty is fulfillment of God's will. Mrs. Eddy, the Leader of our movement, has left her followers the loving and wise counsel to follow her only so far as she followed Christ (Message to The Mother Church for 1901, p. 34). Christ Jesus is our Way-shower, and only by understandingly following the straight and narrow way he pointed out can we be led to harmony, peace, and success.
Blind submission to the domination of others is not in accordance with true Christianity, which teaches individual salvation. Everyone is responsible for his own thoughts and deeds, no exception being made for any political, military, theological, or medical demands. Just as no one can work out our salvation for us, so we cannot make anyone but ourselves responsible for our acts. "Choose you this day whom ye will serve," Joshua commanded the people of yore (Josh. 24:15), and this command is just as imperative today. We must all give up or put off our material concept of man, with its shortcomings, in order to find our true selfhood as the expression of God, and demonstrate this in our everyday experience.
"That is all very well," may say someone who has been injured in the war, "but how can I start a new life, now that I am hampered physically?" What a joyous message Christian Science has for anyone thus discouraged, for it makes clear that our real selfhood is spiritual, never confined in a corporeal or material body! "What is man? Brain, heart, blood, bones, etc., the material structure?" asks Mrs. Eddy on page 172 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." And then she gives the following reply: "If the real man is in the material body, you take away a portion of the man when you amputate a limb; the surgeon destroys manhood, and worms annihilate it. But the loss of a limb or injury to a tissue is sometimes the quickener of manliness; and the unfortunate cripple may present more nobility than the statuesque athlete,—teaching us by his very deprivations, that 'a man's a man, for a' that.'" Man, God's image and likeness, expresses the divine nature, which is wholly spiritual. Such qualities as patience, meekness, loving-kindness, honesty, and so on, are always in demand and they are not dependent on bodily structure.
The events of today are forcing both individuals and nations to change their standpoints from a material to a spiritual basis. Finally, however, it will be universally understood that in reality there is but one kingdom, the kingdom of God. It is the realizing of this kingdom of God within us which is the goal of our spiritual rebuilding. Sooner or later mankind will acknowledge that it is the coming of the Christ, the manifestation of Truth and Love, to the hearts and minds of men that makes a nation really great.
The understanding that all have one Father, one Mind, banishes strife as to who shall be accounted greatest. Individual spiritual rebuilding hastens the day when we shall prove that, as Mrs. Eddy states in Science and Health (p. 571), "The cement of a higher humanity will unite all interests in the one divinity." It is the joyous task and privilege of every man, woman, and child individually and collectively to help build up a new world—a world of peace and harmony, where all interests will be united in "the one divinity."
