one is quick to recognize and respond to love. An active membership results in a progressive church.

The rewards of membership are evident in Mrs. Eddy's words to a church in Canada: "God will abundantly bless this willing and obedient church with the rich reward of those that seek and serve Him.

No greater hope have we than in right thinking and right acting, and faith in the blessing of fidelity, courage, patience, and grace."9

1 Christian Science Hymnal, No. 37; 2 The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 249; 3 p. 186; 4 Matt. 16:16; 5 vv. 17, 18; 6 Rev. 2:7; 73:15; 8 I Chron. 28:20; 9 My., p. 209.

Healing the Environment

GORDON THOMAS SPARE

Mankind are presently being jolted into an awareness of the manifold ways in which they are endangering their environment. The planet Earth, which once seemed so vast and even unconquerable, can no longer be considered immune to human carelessness and mismanagement. Squandered natural resources, litter, the decimation of flora and fauna, urban sprawl, and blighted inner cities-all threaten the quality of human life. Other factors, such as nuclear fallout, polluted streams, lakes, oceans, and atmosphere, and poisons in the food supply, raise questions as to the actual possibility of there being continued human life in time to

come.

The awakening to these threats is having salutary effects. More exacting controls are beginning to be applied to manufacturing processes and waste-disposal methods. Traditional laissez-faire attitudes are being questioned. The alert Christian Scientist will do all that he can to further these efforts. He knows that the overturning power of Christ, Truth, is working in human consciousness and in the world; and he will take an active part in supporting educational and legislative steps toward preserving and safeguarding the environment. While encouraging these right human footsteps, however, he will see that there is

something far more important and effective that he can do. He can turn to scientific prayer. He can recognize that the fearsome specter of a ravaged, poisoned, and potentially uninhabitable environment is, in fact, totally fraudulent. It is only the latest in a long procession of false pictures conjured up by mortal mind, the devilish mind bluntly described by Christ Jesus as "a liar, and the father of [lies]."1

Believing in these false pictures, in the evidence presented by the physical senses, has kept mankind in bondage to every kind of evil, to fear, lack, limitation, sin, disease, and death. The Master taught that the only way to freedom from this bondage is to thoroughly reject it as lie-based and know the truth of man's spiritual status and dominion as God's beloved child.

The power of this Christianly scientific knowing must be brought to bear on the problems of a failing environment. Spiritual man, the real and only man, lives in a spiritual, incorruptible, and undiminishable realm. He lives in God, in the Mind that forms him and loves him. Mrs. Eddy writes: "Immortal Mind is God, immortal good; in whom the Scripture saith 'we live, and move, and have our being.' This Mind, then, is not subject to growth, change, or diminution, but is the divine intelligence, or Principle, of all real being;

A better view of the world around us and of the true nature of God and man will bring about the needed adjustments. Erroneous qualities of thought lie behind the widespread despoliation of the environment. Hatred, greed, irresponsibility, and the like lead to strife between nations and careless exploitation of natural and human resources. There is a widespread belief that good is limited and must be competed for. There is an unwillingness to share the fruits of useful enterprises and so reduce disparity and poverty. There is a reluctance to include restorative functions in costs of industrial operations. Air, water, and land, which are the heritage of all, are used without regard to their renewal.

These destructive attitudes, which have held sway for so long, must be destroyed by the truth. They are not representative of God, divine Love, and therefore cannot be expressed by the real man, His spiritual image and likeness. Avaricious and destructive qualities of thought are a distinct characteristic of animal magnetism, or mortal mind, which believes in the reality and power of matter. But mortal mind is a counterfeit, because God, divine Principle, is the only Mind.

The scientific prayers of those who know that man and his universe are completely spiritual will blot out destructive thoughtqualities and thus eventually heal and normalize the temporal environment. In the meantime, it is right to give attention to protecting ourselves from present-day beliefs in the dangers of all-pervasive poisoning.

In simpler times many people fancied that the night air emanating from swampy areas was polluted and dangerous to health. Mrs. Eddy comments, "Human

fear of miasma would load with disease the air of Eden, and weigh down mankind with superimposed and conjectural evils." 3

In the present climate of fear of the environment, there is a widespread fatalism

that regards the dangers as inescapable. Fumes from leaded gasolines fall alike on every crop, poisonous pesticides enter the entire food chain, and the city dweller breathes the smoke-laden air. This discouraging aspect of the problem should lead mankind into a readiness for the answers given by Christian Science. It is impossible in a shrinking world to remain physically untouched by what are believed to be inimical and, often, cumulatively poisonous materials. But it is completely feasible to lift ourselves above the dangers by seeing their basically fictitious character and by understanding the untouched and untouchable nature of spiritual man.

The fundamental protection lies in an understanding that this real man is engaged in reflection, not absorption or accumulation. His real activity, his only activity, lies in constantly expressing the good that is always flowing to him from his Father-Mother God.

If the individual is striving to exemplify these truths in his everyday affairs, he will be learning to love his neighbor better each day. He will be purifying his consciousness of all belief in a matter world. He can then have confidence that such conscious reflection of God will ward off the dangerous suggestions attending this latest big lie of mortal mind. There will be nothing in his Truth-filled thoughts for evil to fasten upon or cling to.

He will rejoice in his knowledge that he can turn to God for protection from a poisoned environment and contribute to the eventual regeneration and healing of the environment by his scientific prayers. He will know that this promise of the Psalmist is completely meaningful and effectual in the new situation: "Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

83;

1 John 8:44; 2 Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 82, 3 Science and Health, p. 176; 4 Ps. 91:9-11.

["Christian Science, the restatement and detailed explanation of Christ's Christianity, presents mankind with the actual, practical possibility of disarming mortal mind and gaining the universal love and peace of the kingdom of heaven on earth."]

Humanity is struggling to find the answer to this awesome question in a period that may someday be referred to as the era of the great fear. It will also be known as a period of fabulous mechanical inventions, which have brought to the individual greater physical freedom but, paradoxically, also a mesmeric fear of the extinction of the human race.

Superficial observers, who accept whatever human thought temporarily holds as truth and build their conclusions on it, are apt to believe in this destruction. They may disagree among themselves as to the time of the final explosion of human will and hatred that may bring the destruction of all forms of life on earth, but they generally do agree that since the only restraint on initiating an all-destroying atomic war is fear that the ultimate outburst is sure to come. In this anticipation of doom they are influenced by the current picture of general restlessness, rebellions, and wars, coupled with the defiance of Christly morality, which keep human thought in turmoil.

Yet mankind long to live. The symptoms of excitement and anxiety but indicate that the urgency of the situation is being widely recognized. People everywhere are reaching out for security, for freedom from divisive impulses, for the assurance of peace. Will their desire be Will their desire be fulfilled? Or does the present picture of worldwide upheavals actually indicate the

beginning of universal self-destruction? In which direction does the long history of mankind point?

In any age, the quality of human action, individual and collective, is the outcome of the prevailing concepts of God, of man, and consequently of man's relationship to man. These factors determine the nature of human character, the degree of its spirituality, its faith in something higher than animal cunning and material force. Basically speaking, then, mankind's hope is in its progress toward a higher understanding of the divine nature of man and its demonstration.

Progress in this direction was barely observable during the earliest periods of the human race, and even today it is far from general. Over large areas of the earth men still live a most primitive existence, scarcely touched by the unfoldment elsewhere of human intellect and understanding expressed by progressive social and political developments among the more advanced sections of humanity.

Some examples of this gradual spiritual awakening during the millennia of mankind's history are such basic laws-taken in their historical sequence-as the Ten Commandments enunciated by Moses, the benevolent laws of Darius for the government of conquered provinces, the Sermon on the Mount, some of the writings of the Koran, and continuing, centuries later, with some of the laws passed by the Parliament in London, the Congress in Washington, the Charter of the United Nations. All these were efforts, moral and political, to help men live together in peace and justice. The spiritual progress of humanity has

made itself felt, little by little, by the bringing out of humane qualities through placing ever greater value on the individual. How simply the old peasant woman sums it all up in Frederic Prokosch's novel Age of Thunder, where she says, "My mother said to me and my grandmother before her, and it is still true, we must learn to love one another or die, and that is the only lesson, and there is no other, and that is all there is." However, brotherly love and compassion are not learned like the multiplication table; mankind must grow into them through spiritual unfoldment.

Out of the blind superstitions of the primitive period, when fear of nature and the stark necessity to secure the very basic needs of life controlled human existence, there developed the belief in many local gods, both good and evil, with the imagery which claimed to represent them. Under the impulsion of this double standard of reality, of intelligence and power, the period was one of conquest through raw physical power, of plunder and slaughter of whole populations of cities.

It was during this period of cruel and merciless polytheism that the first faint inklings of monotheism appeared in Egypt. Later, the children of Israel developed the worship of one God, and carried it to the Near East under the spiritual leadership of Moses.

In the Israelites' early expression of monotheism, God, whom they learned to know as I AM THAT I AM, still appeared as a corporeal being, a combination of the highest virtues and the capability of meting out dreadful punishment to those who transgressed His law. And yet, even this faulty concept of the Supreme Being represented a long step forward in humanity's march toward glimpsing the light of the ultimate truth of God as self-existent divine Principle, or primal cause. The appearance of this light led to the next step, the longest yet taken, in the spiritual development of the human race. This was the light of the Christ, Truth. Glimpsed by patriarchs and prophets, it appeared in its fullness within

the span of a single human life. The bring t ing of it in that fullness was the work of one man, Christ Jesus.

Because of the Master's inborn understanding of God as Spirit, Truth, or allcreative, all-intelligent, all-inspiring and protecting Love, and of man as His perfect spiritual likeness, he understood the uplifting effect the Christ, Truth, would have on those who understood and practiced it. He assured them, "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."1 He knew that the human expression of this light, of God's love for all His children, would be forbearance, justice, love, and respect for one's fellowmen. These are the qualities of thought and attitude that are certain to save mankind from the destructive drive of the carnal mind and establish peace, happiness, and progress for all. When mankind become fully aware that divine Love is the one primal cause governing all, warfare will cease.

Christianity came with proof. Because the Master not only taught the Christ but demonstrated it with his acts of healing, with the regeneration of human character, and with his reappearance after his execution, Christ's Christianity has remained as a spiritual presence to guide and bless humanity.

During the succeeding centuries, however, the spiritual simplicity and directness of Jesus' teachings became confused through personal interpretations and because of compromises with the Sermon on the Mount. Thus the Science of Christ's teachings, manifested in the healing of disease and sin, largely disappeared from the human scene.

The significance of Mrs. Eddy's appearance eighteen centuries later is in her epoch-making discovery of the fact that the teachings of Christ Jesus are scientific, subject to the same proofs today as they were in the Master's time, and therefore holding the same possibility of freedom from the destructive elements of the carnal mind. Therefore her work, Christian Science, the

4

restatement and detailed explanation of Christ's Christianity, presents mankind with the actual, practical possibility of disarming mortal mind and gaining the universal love and peace of the kingdom of heaven on earth.

Mankind is even now on its way toward the achievement of this state through the scientific understanding of God, the infinite Mind which is Love, and of man as His perfect, harmonious expression. Great numbers throughout the world are learning through Christian Science that, in reality, man is not a faulty mortal, subject to evil motivations, but a divine idea, always fully developed and fully aware of his own true nature as the loving, lovable, and beloved child of God. This understanding ! makes them resistant to evil, not attracted to it, and not afraid of it. They are becoming more aware of the sole intelligence and power of good. Christian Science has instilled in them a growing confidence in good, an increasing disbelief in the intelligence of evil, and a corresponding unwill ingness to turn to the ways and means of the carnal mind for the solution of their problems.

The worldwide spread of the understanding of Christian Science is unavoidable, not merely because of our human efforts to bring it about but because Christian Science is the truth. And Truth is a universal presence that communicates itself spiritually. It reaches where armies cannot penetrate. The intelligence and power of its goodness are instinctively recognized through spiritual sense. Many will reach out for it when in need, for drowning men seldom fail to strike out for what they recognize to be a life preserver.

The effect of Christian Science on general human consciousness is to gradually free it of its baseless dependence upon matter to accomplish any desirable end. Through Christian Science men are learning that mortal instincts are the ignorant, deceiving suggestions of the human mortal mind. Our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, teaches in

Science and Health: "To suppose that sin, lust, hatred, envy, hypocrisy, revenge, have life abiding in them, is a terrible mistake. Life and Life's idea, Truth and Truth's idea, never make men sick, sinful, or mortal." 2

Thus Christian Science neutralizes the aggressive instincts of the carnal mind and inspires with sympathy, compassion, and active human helpfulness. These are expressions of brotherly love. They form the basis of all-around wholesome development, of peace among individuals as among nations and races. They are the effects of the Christ on general human consciousness.

Christian Science is gradually permeating world thought. In grateful recognition and acceptance of their opportunity and responsibility to fulfill the worldwide mission of Christian Science, members of The Mother Church everywhere are gladly sharing in the erection of the Christian Science Church Center, which will provide expanded and improved facilities for the carrying on of this Christly effort for humanity.

The nearly universal hunger for peace and the growing awareness of the inestimable value and dignity of the individual clearly point to the conclusion that, in spite of all present suggestions of material sense to the contrary, mankind is not hastening toward self-destruction but, through the growing understanding of one universal God, who is Love, is advancing toward liberation from the carnal instincts that would prompt them to destroy each other. Many are learning the timeless truth of Paul's counsel to the Romans that those

who wish peace must seek after the things that make for peace.

This advancement toward a more spiritual sense of existence, blessing the nations through the individuals who constitute them, does not depend alone upon the numbers of those who have this higher sense but upon the power of Truth. Progress comes not through unenlightened human effort, but through the response of