Claim. Heroic loyalty and filial piety are produced by national crisis and historical difficulty; comfort produces no such names.
Elaboration. SMM frames it almost as a law: “Loyalty is not fulfilled when a country is in a comfortable position. Loyalty is not realized when the country is enjoying prosperity and its people are well off. A person can only be called a patriot of the nation when, at the time of his nation’s greatest crisis, its gravest peril, he asks, ‘Will you die or will I die? Will the whole country perish or survive?‘” (CSG 14.3 §1, 151-219, 1962.12.15). “The historical records show that it is in the times of difficulty that the great names appear.” The Unification Church reading: God’s filial children must therefore expect persecution as part of their qualifying environment — “you must endure persecution, and many trying moments… become confident people who can overcome all difficulties” (1988.2.23). Adversity is the natural soil; ease is the wrong medium.
See also. csg-filial-piety-is-tested-in-difficulty · csg-true-filial-piety-takes-responsibility-for-the-bad