There are those who argue that evil has a place in God's universe, that He has set two principles at work, and that evil would not appear as evil if we understood it aright. A lady whose thought worked in this line once said to the writer that evil must be examined and tested by man in order to learn its true value. The argument' sounded familiar at first, and it took me several minutes to recall where I had met it before, namely, in the speech of the serpent in the allegory of the garden of Eden. These modern defenders of evil are unconsciously echoing the insidious argument which in itself is the only source of discord—the belief that the knowledge of evil partakes of the nature of God, or Truth. The eternal disproof of this lies in the fact that in proportion as one approaches the realization of the allness of good in Christian Science, in that proportion does the shadow of evil disappear from one's path. Therefore, with the attainment of absolute spiritual consciousness there must come the experience of that unalloyed good which God has always meant for His children. God Himself is Principle and is good. "Be not conformed to this world," Paul counseled, "but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."
