IT is probably safe to say that the great majority of people are quite well acquainted with the word contagion, and that many of these are inclined to regard it wholly from the view-point of materia medica; that is, wholly in the sense conveyed by Webster when, in beginning his definition of the term, he says that contagion is "the transmission of a disease from one person to another by direct or indirect contact."
The Bible teaches that God is Spirit, is good, and is All-in-all. The prophet says of Him, "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." With this mighty fact before us, what is the conclusion to be drawn? Simply that spiritual facts constitute the only reality, the only power and presence, because they are of God, who is the only cause and creator; and that so-called evil—sin, sickness, sorrow, and death—is unreal, without either power or presence, because it is not of God.
What is humanly asserted to be evil and its manifestations is the expression of what Christ Jesus most emphatically called "a liar, and the father of it." In other words, the works of evil are but the objective expressions, the false pictures, of erroneous, illusive material belief, that belief which, in flagrant disobedience to the first command of the Decalogue, would set up "other gods," and then bow down before them; that belief which would seek out "many inventions" of sinful sense, of disease, distress, and destruction, and then, in order to excuse and consequently to establish itself, would denominate these very inventions the ways, means, and plans of a good and loving God, at the same time boldly declaring,—
