Talk about a scary premise: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH is a story about rats who, thanks to drug testing by the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH), become as intelligent as human beings. How would you like to find them crawling around in your basement?

Goosebumps and teeth-chattering seem appropriate: super-intelligent rats naturally make you think about waking up with something nibbling on your toe, or finding the family cat basting in Cheez Whiz.

And yet, as we read this book, we find ourselves cheering for the rats of NIMH. They earn our affection for two basic reasons: (1) They condescend to help a widowed mouse of average intelligence, Mrs. Frisby, save her family from certain death by moving her home; and (2) They act genuinely concerned about changing their reputation and creating a respectable rat civilization.

Let's take these one at a time. The central plot of this story hinges on the plight of Mrs. Frisby, who usually moves her family to their summer home before the farmer plows the field in which their winter home is located. Because Timothy, her youngest son, is recovering from a prolonged illness, she knows that moving him will probably kill him. But staying in the farmer's field also will lead to death.

In desperation, Mrs. Frisby consults the normally standoffish rats that live under the farmer's tractor shed. What she finds astounds her—the rats have a library, carpeting, and electric lights!  As it turns out, the rats had been captured and drugged and tested by NIMH, and had eventually become smart enough to escape. After wandering for a time, the rats settled down under the shed. They chose to keep themselves separate from the rest of the animals because they knew that they were different, and most of the other animals were afraid of them.

Mrs. Frisby is afraid, too, but she has nowhere else to turn. Fortunately for her, the rats knew her husband—he had been part of the same experiment at NIMH—and out of respect for him they agree to help her family. This part of the story provides a compelling argument for the importance of living a life of integrity, especially because it reminds us that a man's good name is remembered long after he is gone.  "A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold" (Proverbs 22:1).

The most significant part of the story, however, is the central theme. The rats have very little time to help Mrs. Frisby, because they are concerned with a problem of their own: creating a new civilization. Many of them, including their leader Nicodemus, have concluded that civilization is about much more than creature comforts, especially when those comforts are the result of theft.

Nicodemus tells Mrs. Frisby that even in the midst of all the rat luxury, "all was not well. After the first burst of energy, the moving in of the machines, the digging of tunnels and rooms—after that was done, a feeling of discontent settled upon us like some creeping disease. We were reluctant to admit it at first. We tried to ignore the feeling or to fight it off by building more things—bigger rooms, fancier furniture, carpeted hallways, things we did not really need." But the feeling of discontent remained, because the super-intelligent rats were still living like all other rats, by stealing: "We did not have enough work to do because a thief's life is always based on somebody else's work."

The rats of NIMH decided to change their ways—to stop living off man's civilization and create a civilization of their own. But this decision immediately presented a question: what would a rat civilization look like?  More importantly, what is civilization?

When someone talks about civilization, we all nod our heads and act like we know what they mean. The word conjures up vague pictures of neckties and golf courses and roads and museums and houses with intact windowpanes. We know that civilization matters, because without civilization everyone would live like barbarians. But we are hard pressed to define civilization in so many words.

Perhaps, then, it would be easier to discuss the negative (what's a barbarian?) to discover the positive (what's civilization?).  Barbarians, of course, are dirty people who eat with their elbows on the table and wipe their mouths on the drapes. But is that all? Does being civilized just mean being clean?

It seems that there is more. Barbarians aren't just dirty—they also plunder and destroy. They aren't concerned with building things; they would rather tear down. They certainly aren't concerned about future generations— they're just worried about taking care of themselves, obeying their animal instincts one day at a time.

Do barbarians exist today? From the above description, it sounds that way—in fact, it sounds like they've made themselves at home in America. The evening news is snowed under with stories of men and women living for themselves, destroying rather than creating. Prisons are chock full of these selfish destroyers. And unfortunately, many college professors encourage such an attitude in their students. The United States is not just faced with "barbarians at the gate," but also with barbarians inside the gate.

All of this seems fairly straightforward, and wouldn't make too many people nervous. It's the logical conclusion that follows, however, that makes non-Christians jumpy. If barbarism is about selfish destruction, then civilization must in some way refer to selflessness, and to an ordered creative impulse. In short, civilization must have moral connotations.

Nicodemus and the rats reach this conclusion. They recognize that a civilization based on theft is no civilization at all, and when they envision their new world they embrace characteristics like industry, integrity, and courage. It seems, from the rats' point of view, that civilization involves a community based on certain moral standards—even biblical standards.

The rats are in good company—C.S. Lewis believes the same thing. In The Abolition of Man, Lewis discusses the existence of moral law, and contends that everybody can discern things about this moral law because they have a conscience. Societies that seek to honor these unchanging standards can be civilized; those that don't, cannot.  "It is by no means certain," says Lewis, "that there has ever (in the sense required) been more than one civilization in all history. It is at least arguable that every civilization we find has been derived from another civilization and, in the last resort, from a single centre—'carried' like an infectious disease or like the Apostolical succession."  Civilization, in other words, only arises where men respect God's law, and thus all civilizations are the same in the sense that they all play by the same rules. The "infectious" germ that results in civilization is the moral law written on every person's heart.

Non-Christian worldview proponents, of course, must despise this position. How can Christians be so haughty as to claim that their God makes up the rules for all civilizations? Why couldn't a civilization be based on Buddhism or atheism or the New Age movement?

The short answer, of course, is because these other worldviews are out of touch with reality.   By failing to understand that one God created everything, including the moral order, they strive to impose their own brand of order on reality. But such an effort is a desperate grasping; Lewis believed it was like trying to imagine a new color.

Though non-Christians may not like such a response, they can scarcely avoid it. To ask, what is civilization? is to ask a question that haunts men who reject the God of the Bible. If they define it, they must acknowledge an unchanging morality. If they acknowledge such a morality, they acknowledge the existence of an unchanging Creator.

The rats of NIMH begin to ask the hard question about civilization, but we don't really get to hear their answer. Their new civilization begins in a valley far away in the Thorn Mountains, and the story ends just as they start marching toward the valley. As it ends, however, we find a flash of hope in, paradoxically, a death we grieve.

One of the best of the rats, Justin, chooses to sacrifice his own life to save the lives of other rats escaping toward the valley. As we read this, we feel quite certain that the book has a sad ending. But we don't walk away with quite the same emotion. If Justin was willing to sacrifice his life—to be selfless, then Justin understood the epitome of civilization: living according to God's rules rather than our own. And his actions suggest there is hope that the rest of the rats—and maybe even some of us humans—can live the same way.

Serious students should read, read, read like crazy—but you don't have to worry about reading any particular book before the next issue of New Attitude arrives. Since the next issue will be the last, we'll wrap it up by recommending ten more works of literature that every Christian student should read.