IN the essential nature of things, one mistake is just as void of truth as another, although, because of their seeming larger proportions, some may occupy more of one's thought and attention. The juvenile scholar grappling with his first mathematical problem, and the more advanced student in high school or university, are working to demonstrate the same fundamentals, and are encountering practically the same difficulties, the difference being chiefly one of magnitude. An error involving but one person, and an error involving a hundred persons, are equally untrue and are disposed of with equal effectiveness when the truth in each case is demonstrated. Or, again, a lie may spread throughout a whole community, or throughout the whole world for that matter, and be proportionably far-reaching in its evil results; but it does not on that account become more formidable in itself, nor is it less open to correction. In Christian Science we learn that the discords of human existence arise from a mistaken sense of things, and must therefore be eliminated in the same manner that one gets rid of his errors in mathematics, that is, by correcting this wrong sense with the truth. As with the science of numbers, so with the Science of being, — whatever appears in the human ignorance thereof is absolutely untrue, regardless of its relative size or importance. "One disease," writes Mrs. Eddy, "is no more real than another" (Science and Health, p. 176). It is true that some forms of error seem to be more easily disposed of than others, and are less feared in consequence, but this is due, not so much to the nature of the trouble itself, as to the sense entertained of it. We fear so-called evil in proportion to our belief that it has power. This may be seen in the ease with which our Master cast out all manner of evils, and the comparative difficulty which we experience in following his example. Evidently this difference is not in the character of evils destroyed, but in the individual's understanding of the omnipotence of good.
The element of time in this relation needs also to be rightly judged; that is, not as affecting or strengthening the claim of evil, but as being in itself but a phase of the mortal concept. There is a tendency to regard certain troubles as gaining in magnitude or power the longer they remain in thought, and as being therefore more difficult to overcome; these conditions, however, do not actually grow in strength, but their habitual acceptance serves to magnify the mental image and to increase fear accordingly. The assumption that, because of their long standing, a correspondingly long time is required to eradicate such wrong states, is but a part of the evil temptation and should be treated as such.
Though one may have hoarded a counterfeit dollar for years, in the delusion that it was genuine, how long would he continue to hoard it after its falsity had been exposed? Would he feel that because he had been cherishing it so long he would have to hold on to it a little longer? Would he not at once lose his belief in its reality or power and cast it away in disgust? Then, when we reach the conviction that infinite good, the one God, is the creator of all, how long shall we continue to acknowledge an opposite evil power, cause, or intelligence? How much time do we need in which to give up our belief in anything besides good? If we had learned for the first time that two and two are four, how long would it take to adjust our thoughts to that fact? Would we say: I must correct this error by fractions, until I gradually reach the right figure?
