IN no respect, perhaps, is the teaching of Christian Science more significant to the advance of religious thought, than in its statement of the nature of evil. Considered from the human point of view, the problem of evil seems to have compassed all times, places, and events, and to have secured the service of all that selfishness and fleshly appetite, the love of power and the pride of life, stand for. More than this, the most destructive and disastrous manifestations of evil have begotten in many the false impression that they are the phenomena of a cosmic order, an expression of the infinite. They have acquired the habit of thinking of it as supported by law, and they therefore regard it as practically irresistible.
Again, the responsibility for earthquake and flood, for the fangs and ferocities of the jungle, and especially for that so-called law of heredity which in human belief explains so many ills, seems to be separated from the determination of men, and they have therefore been attributed to God, a fact which begets a yet greater confusion of sense, for who would presume to strive against a divine provision or call that evil which the Lord hath ordained? It is not surprising, therefore, that even professed Christians should be tempted betimes to paraphrase Hamlet's soliloquy, and wonderingly say, "To struggle or not to struggle, that is the question."
There is yet another fact which adds to the uncertainty and discouragement of those for whom the Scripture has not yet been illumined by the study of Christian Science, namely, what seems to them the contradictory nature of the teaching of the Bible respecting the true way of opposing evil. In many instances the Old Testament leaders asserted that they were divinely authorized in counseling its resistance by material means. In other instances the profitlessness and wrong of this course was declared, and Israel was urged to rely wholly upon the presence and power of God, if they would triumph over their enemies. In the case of David's resistance to Goliath the two methods seem to have been combined, and the divine approval, as Israel believed, was registered in the astonishing issue of the struggle. Nevertheless, Christ Jesus specifically taught his disciples to put up the sword. They were not to resist evil by the world method, but to commit their protection and safety to Him who cared for the sparrows, and who was able to keep them "unto everlasting life."
