Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed; and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost. 1 Cor. xii. 3.
Trials are but the harvest of error that has been sown; yet men have been taught, or in some way have come to think, that trials are sent by the Father, and that by the number and severity of them is to be measured our nearness to the kingdom of God. Some, even, who are students of Christian Science too often recount their great conflicts, their sacrifices (?) for Christ, just as formerly they rehearsed diseases, and were proud of being the "worst case the doctor ever saw in all his practice." Are we conscious of how we magnify evil whenever we tell of trials or conflicts? It sometimes seems to be thought that only as evil and its claims of power are emphasized is the power of God magnified. We forget that Christian Science teaches us how to prove the nothingness, the powerlessness of evil, by its revelation of the omnipotence of Good.
In the old way, evil allured man with promises of satisfaction, and the conflict was between his desire to yield to its temptations and his fear of the penalties which he had been taught must follow. If the balance of belief was on the side of the fear, then he naturally prided himself on his strength of character, morality, honesty, or virtue. In Science, we learn that evil's promises of pleasure and threats of penalty are alike impotent; because Principle, Law, Good, is the only power. Principle neither promises nor threatens. It is. Principle, Mind, can know nothing besides itself; for there is evidence only of itself, and only itself to receive that evidence. Its evidence of itself is the universe, including man. It is the All-in-all, the I am.
