I presume that everyone would rather have peace than anything else on earth. If everyone really is desiring peace, and if desire were an effective prayer for peace, then we would have had peace a long time ago. There are not many people in the world who are opposed to having peace, there couldn’t be, particularly in an age in which anything other than universal peace would lead to universal destruction.

We are at that place in scientific discovery where it is possible for the world to destroy itself. I am not worried about that because if it does, it does and if it doesn’t, it won’t. We will all be somewhere. However, I do think it would be rather an inglorious final exit from this mundane universe and undoubtedly an unnecessary thing.

We shouldn’t view the state of the world with fear because we shouldn’t have any fear. We shouldn’t view it with timidity, because we shouldn’t be timid. But we should view it with intelligence because the only sin is the lack of intelligence. “There is no sin but a mistake and no punishment but a consequence.” The money that is now being spent in preparing for war would completely abolish poverty from the earth. It is a terrific thing that, right now, the world is in a position to do away with impoverishment!

I am not a pacifist but when only six percent of the National Budget is for the alleviation of impoverishment and seventy-two or seventy-three percent is for destruction, one knows there is something wrong in the worldly state of affairs and in the state of the human mind. When we stop to think of these things, we know that there is something lacking, there is something missing, there is something that we have over-looked.

When we view the universe scientifically we find that it is one system. Modern science has never discovered any law in nature that could destroy itself. This is what Jesus meant when asked if he cast out devils by the prince of devils and he said, “How can Satan cast out Satan? . . . if an house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.” God is all there is, he said in effect and if I use another kind of a power, if I use another kind of an intelligence, if I use a higher power and a higher intelligence then that is the kingdom of God, and it is come among you. You believe that there are two kinds of power in the universe. One is good and the other is bad. You believe there is a God and a devil. I don’t believe that!

Jesus did not believe in good and bad, God and the devil, heaven and hell. He believed there was one power which appeared and manifested itself to each one of us the way we believe. This one power must be to us either good or evil by the way we use it.

Jesus and Moses gave to the world the two greatest single concepts it has ever had and one is not complete without the other. The philosophy of Christianity, as every student knows, is a combination of the Greek philosophy and Jewish philosophy. Moses taught a great universal law of cause and effect, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. He taught that there is a power which responds to us the way we use it, that it is very cold, very impersonal. Moses said, “Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse: A blessing if ye obey . . . And a curse, if ye will not obey.”

Jesus added something to the teaching of Moses. He revealed a loving Presence, a personal response, an infinite Beauty, a God with whom we may commune. This adds to the impersonal, the personal, showing us that we are centered in, immersed in and saturated with two great fundamental realities, Law and Order and Presence and Person.

The structure of our whole philosophy is based on two things: the universe as Law and Order and the universe as a Divine Presence. The one with which or whom we may commune, the other that we may use. I believe God is the only Presence there is, infinite, intimate and personal to each one of us, present with each one of us and in each one of us as what we are. Our word goes out as law. This is a glorious concept, for it teaches us that at any moment we may transcend the past no matter what happened.

Jesus said it doesn’t matter what happened yesterday, you can come in at the eleventh hour and you will get the same pay as though you came in at the earlier hour. He is teaching us what God is like, what Nature is like, what Life is like. No matter how long we were unhappy, if we light the lamp of happiness we shall find that the wick of our joy goes deep into the self-contentment of the Universal Mind and the light will be from Its oil and not ours. As Emerson said, we can never sing unto ourselves but unto it, unto God. Jesus taught that in that split second in which we turn from fear to faith we shall have faith, when we turn from uncertainty to certainty we shall be certain, for there is something that does it unto us as we believe.

All we have said applies to war and peace for we are discussing the possibility of a spiritual power which, consciously used and directed, can change the destiny of the world. I believe in it as I believe in life and if I didn’t believe in it I should have no confidence in life. If you and I could not believe in something beyond us, greater than we are and yet which we can use, we would be lost whether it be in the field of science or in any other human activity. If science has found no power that can destroy itself, then there isn’t any. All the teaching of hell and damnation and devils is so much nonsense, that is all it could be. It is born out of ignorance, darkness, fear and a morbid introspection.

The world is waiting on the brink of fear for faith that can be proved. We must come to know that since there is nothing in the universe that can destroy itself, there is no God that wishes us to be destroyed, otherwise everything has to be shoved to one side as a dream, a phantom, a legend or a myth.

Let us find what it is that we do know. You and I know that no matter how confused we are, if we will get by ourselves long enough and think peace, we will become peaceful. Peace is the Divine Reality at the heart of God. We know by demonstration that no matter how confused someone else is, if he will permit us, we can pray for peace for him in such a way that it will neutralize his confusion and bring peace, it will neutralize his lack of success and bring success. We know that the application of our philosophy is built on that assumption and it works! I wouldn’t give a nickel for it if it didn’t. Jesus said, “these signs shall follow them that believe.”

Many of us have proved to some degree, not as much as we ought to but enough to know that where there is a community of interest and a number of persons are involved and there is general confusion, if there is only one person to know peace for that group it will neutralize the confusion of the others. It is not putting one power against the other but transcending the negation with an affirmation. We know it. It will work in the individual, it will work in the life of the family, and in our office and all around us. But it doesn’t always seem to work.

The Bible says, “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” As one of the poets said, “None of the singers has wholly lived his minstrelsy.” We say God is all there is and then act as though it weren’t so. We say peace and then we get confused.

We must practice the presence of peace consciously, definitely and deliberately. If we can do it individually and in the family and to a certain degree in our offices and businesses, which we can, why can’t we do it for the whole world? We can. Now, could the world resist? Well, there is some argument here. We have to face the issue. Don’t be afraid of it. There is no God higher than truth and no religion higher than truth. There can’t be but we have to understand spiritual truths that will transcend the confusion.

Groups of mental cases or alcoholics can be treated in a body, often with a very high percentage of favorable results. Such people need not know they are being treated, you don’t treat people to influence them, you treat them only for the realization of their spiritual nature, here and now. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” Consequently, there is no resistance on their part because on that level where spiritual treatment is given there is nothing to resist it. It is an announcement of the Presence of God and God is Peace. “Peace I leave with you, my peace give I unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” This is what Jesus knew and this is the only thing that will bring peace on earth.

Peace will come through the affirmation of people who believe in affirmation and the petition of those who petition but believe in the answer to the petition. It doesn’t matter whether he is a Catholic, Protestant or Metaphysician, a Jew or Gentile. There is no God who knows any difference between them. We are each the individualization of the One, the All and the Only, here and now. Each meets God right here and nowhere else and in such degree as he has first met Him here he is able to meet the other person at that level. It is impossible that he can meet him otherwise.

Those people on earth today who believe in the answer to the prayer of petition or who believe as we do, a little beyond that, we think in the answer to affirmation by necessity and law, uniting their efforts, would disarm the thought of those who didn’t believe in peace merely because their thought is based on destruction and there is no power in the universe that can destroy itself.

The truth will take precedence over error. Always we may depend upon it. The question is, are we using enough of it? If then, enough people knew universal peace, it would neutralize the fear of all the people who don’t believe and are afraid it can’t be. It is a collective fear, a group fear acting through each one with a power greater than any individual fear that person could have, therefore, it is hypnotic. I believe that definitely. The fanaticism of certain movements show it. Hitler hypnotized Germany for a while, as Mussolini did Italy and because it was destructive it couldn’t last. It had to fall by its own weight.

So the principle, I believe, is as definite as one, two, three, it is as definite as mixing paints and knowing what color you will get. It is law and it is as definite as any other law in nature. The use of it is by prayer, as petition believed in, no matter who does it or as affirmation affirmed and accepted consciously and definitely. I believe that affirmation has more power but I wouldn’t argue about that because I think the prayer of faith absolutely accepted is an affirmation believed in and the affirmation believed in does the same thing as the prayer of faith and they will both work because there is something which corresponds.

We want peace? Then it has got to begin right where I am, for me. I, myself, must believe in my own prayer “when ye pray, believe that ye receive.” You and I as a group must believe in our prayer. However, we just don’t quite completely accept it, even though we want to. I don’t blame us, I say isn’t it too bad that we don’t. What possibilities if people in America only knew that it is possible to teach one hundred and fifty million people how to do this! But we are like the man who came to Jesus and said, “Lord, I believe help thou mine unbelief.” Split personality! Something in us wants it, knows it, believes it, something in us denies it, even as we affirm it, we deny it. Well, that is the way we are. The only thing we can do is to take our-selves for better or for worse and face the truth and say, “Where do we go from here?” There is a mind greater than any individual’s mind and those who believe together will have more power than anybody who believes alone. “For where two or three are gathered together,” Jesus said, “in my name (that means in the name of the son begotten of the only Father) there am I.”

So we want peace on earth ? Then let us pray for peace in our own hearts, let us affirm peace in our own minds. Let us live as though peace were the mandate of God because it is. Together let us affirm it and let us encourage others to, no matter what the opposition appears to be, for it is a fundamental reality of God. “Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.” Let us face the future without fear but let us all also face it intelligently as men and women who are not afraid of anything. There is nothing in the universe to be afraid of. Some things could be avoided. Let us realize if the world is healed of war and brought into peace it won’t have been because guns were bigger and better or more of them. We need them until it does heal itself, but that will come to pass only because somewhere along the line the balance of the scales of eternal truth shall fall on the side of peace.

Let us, you and me, pray for peace and let us make our hearts fit to accept it when it comes. Let us make our intellect and our soul and our will and are feeling ready to receive it and embrace it even before it comes. Let us in the stillness of our own soul go back to that ineffable Presence which is Peace and proclaim It even in the midst of confusion, that Peace which is the Power at the heart of God.