WHEN people first apprehend through Christian Science that in truth there is no sickness, sin, or death; no evil person, place, or thing, to fear or love; that the whole seeming discord is nothing but a mistaken belief of life and mind in matter, they are uplifted into such a sense of joy and gratitude that for a while they feel as if effort and strife were done with forever. Later comes the knowledge of the necessity of working out what they have learned in daily life, and sometimes a sense of disappointment comes in, as they see that, though reason and revelation alike show the utter impossibility of any substance, life, or mind existing outside of the infinitude of God's being, something seems continually to argue against this and to suggest the contrary. They learn that these suggestions of evil being, evil thinking, evil knowing, acting, and attracting, called in Science animal magnetism, have constantly and vigilantly to be watched against and destroyed, and that to do this they must first face the error and see that its claim to influence or injure humanity is baseless.
During this process of scientifically uncovering error's hidden ways of accomplishing iniquity, beginners are sometimes seized with an abject and needless fear of it, as though some mystical and occult new power had suddenly risen up to attack them; but this is because we never thought of it before; we simply drifted with any current of false opinions, prejudices, hates, and fears, that came in our way, and were mentally infected with every passing sense of sin and sickness. Now we know our duty, — that it is right to resist such drifting and such mental contagion and to keep the currents of thought turned heavenward.
In one of our Lesson-Sermons, these words from Job occurred in the responsive reading: "Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art." The statement brought with it a train of thought which so helped the writer that she hopes it may help others also. "Wickedness" can only "hurt a man as thou art;" therefore every man that is pure of the wickedness is untouched by it; malice can only hurt the malicious, fear the fearful; hate the hateful, and so on. Turning to John's Gospel, we find this truth corroborated by the Master. He said : "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." Jesus was on the eve of a great and final struggle; he was soon to experience the mental agony to be endured when the "mind of the flesh," the "prince of this world," animal magnetism, would suggest another way, another will, apart from God. He knew this, foresaw all that this malicious sense would bring forward to hurt his peace of mind,—his supreme confidence in the love and wisdom of the Father, and in his own ability to prove the truth of being.
