How different the Nations would speedily become if Christ returned and was welcomed by them in His Message! And bear in mind that it is the Message and not simply the man. Of what value is it to follow any one man or woman merely in a personal way? The value is in feeling the power of the Truth and the noble vision given by the Messenger, making it concrete in the embodiment of it, making it practical through applying it in living the Life which it calls to, and speaks of, and reveals.

If Christ – by which is to be understood always the Christ-Revelation – came back in a Message through a Messenger, how many would be prepared to receive Him? The religious crowd love to follow a person whom they acclaim to be a Messenger. Indeed, they are more concerned with the personal and individual, than with the Message he may be supposed to bring. Certainly the personality looms larger than the Truth revealed to be embodied and interpreted, and then made manifest. If Christ came back, there would be no more war, there would be no more oppression, there would be no more conflict upon any question, there would be a cessation of all self-aggrandizement. There would be real Peace, not a mere proclamation that there is to be peace when there is no peace truly sought, nor the way of Love, Compassion and Pity followed. Even merely to limit armaments, whatever may be thought of the endeavour as a good thing in some directions, would not accomplish that for which Christ came and would come again. For, whilst Nations love power, and those who guide Nations desire to make manifest that power in their world supremacy, there will be war. And where the spirit of war obtains, additional armaments will be quickly fashioned.

But Christ commands that armaments shall be done away with. Let all the Nations who profess to have some faith in the Christ Message that came nearly 2,000 years ago, join hands and heart and purpose to lay down all national and racial pride and love of power, and seek that true Peace which is the child of Righteousness and Equity in a Nation as in an individual Soul. Peace within and without cannot be, except through Righteousness and Equity; it is the crown of these Divine qualities.

From the booklet If Christ Came Back by John Todd Ferrier.
© The Order of the Cross

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