Students of Christian Science have cause for great rejoicing in their deliverance from any belief in the legitimacy of evil. Luck, fate, chance, or other such superstitions, as well as the theological dogma of a God who causes or permits harm to befall His children, have no place in Christian Science. Those who realize the nothingness of evil have no need to speculate concerning its mythical origin. It is, however, necessary to combat every evidence of inharmony by repudiating not merely the sense testimony that affirms discord, but the erroneous thought that causes it. Here is the only search for evil that is necessary in Christian Science, and it is a search merely for the purpose of sure destruction.
The point to be remembered is that whatever the trouble, we never need go far to find the starting point of difficulties. There is but one field for investigation, the field of what suggest themselves as our own mortal thoughts. Invariably the clue to whatever belief of evil we may entertain is found in this erroneous conception of ourselves. This is not to say that we are entirely responsible for all discordant conditions. It is saying, however, that the fault is ours whereby we permit the discord to appear real to us. We have made some mistake, or we would not be experiencing discord even in belief. That is, we must somewhere have left unguarded a loophole through which error could suggest itself, or its effects could never have seemed to touch us at all. A tiny, unconquered fear, a moment's anger, a bit of habitual selfishness, or a brief indulgence in ignorance, any one of these may be to blame. It is with such personal delinquencies, and not with the errors, however glaring, of others that we need concern ourselves. This is not only the right course, it is for that reason the only safe course to take. It is the only sure path of peace. In Mrs. Eddy's Message to The Mother Church for 1900 (p. 8) occurs this statement: "When a man begins to quarrel with himself he stops quarrelling with others." It may be safely taken for granted that at no time are we ourselves so sinless that we need look outside what mortal mind supposes to be ourselves for the source of inharmony. "When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him."
Elementary knowledge of cause and effect in Christian Science should convince us of the utter fatuity of imagining that we suffer for aught but our own sins. Questioned in this regard, Mrs. Eddy answered on page 83 of "Miscellaneous Writings," "No person can accept another's belief, except it be with the consent of his own belief. If the error which knocks at the door of your own thought originated in another's mind, you are a free moral agent to reject or to accept this error; hence, you are the arbiter of your own fate, and sin is the author of sin."
