One of the first things which the investigator of Christian Science learns is the startling proposition that God is all, that God is good, and that everything God has made is like Himself, good, and without taint of evil. Immediately the investigator asks: If God created all and made it good, where did evil come from? At some time in his experience every Christian Scientist has had to answer this question to the satisfaction of himself and others; and in order to do so he has been obliged to reach that point of spiritual understanding where he has been able to perceive to some degree the scientific fact that as evil is a lie or a false claim, from the standpoint of truth and reality evil never came from anywhere.
While the statement that evil never came is absolutely true, and because true is scientifically demonstrable, it is, nevertheless, a statement which finite sense never accepts. Consequently, the active, progressive Christian Scientist is constantly being called upon, by issues that arise in his daily living, to show practically and satisfactorily in definite, specific instances that the evil which is claiming to be a present actuality, is really not an actuality—cannot be one—because God, good, never made it and He is the creator of all and the "great First Cause."
The Christian Scientist is like a bookkeeper—the usual human bookkeeper of our everyday experience. Such a bookkeeper has a fair working knowledge of a system of bookkeeping, which is mathematically perfect. Yet it is not unusual for the bookkeeper occasionally to make a mistake. But no one believes that the bookkeeper's mistakes are part of the system of bookkeeping, are in any sense inevitable or necessary, are an essential element in the equipment of a bookkeeper, have a reasonable or intelligent cause, must exist forever, or would greatly upset the business world or demand a complete readjustment of the business affairs of mankind if they should suddenly cease to appear.
