THE Christian metaphysician recognizes that mortals are constantly faced with the necessity of discriminating between good thoughts and bad, between those which have their source in Truth, infinite good, and those which appear to emanate from a false mentality, either being subjective with one's self or coming from a seeming source external to one's mentality. While the Christian Scientist is assured of evil's unreality, the claim of evil to existence as an entity or fact must nevertheless be vigorously handled and destroyed. Jesus' arraignment of the Jews who tried to confuse and entrap him was not too severe when it is understood that he was denouncing a malicious phase of error. "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.... When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it," with equal truth and pertinency may be declared of every phase of erroneous belief which seeks acceptance as fact in human consciousness; for all claims emanating from the common lie are equally false.
The effective remedy, never failing and always at hand for instant application, Mrs. Eddy gives her students in a familiar message on page 210 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany." It is the perfect remedy for evil suggestion of every sort. "Beloved Christian Scientists, keep your minds so filled with Truth and Love, that sin, disease, and death cannot enter them. It is plain that nothing can be added to the mind already full." Evil suggestion can by no means pass the portals of the mentality filled to repletion with good thoughts.
The Christian Scientist, as a discerner both of the "face of the sky" and of the "signs of the times," well knows how active mortal mind claims to be in pursuit of the means to gratify its own desires. Singly, and collectively, men are striving constantly to accomplish what self-will regards as conducive to individual and the common welfare. This applies to the so-called mass consciousness of groups, to the mental outlook of states and nations, no less than to the quality of the thought of each component unit of such groups. Collectively, through some common interest, some community of desire and understanding, men seek to impose upon other groups, states, and nations a policy which they are convinced would be to their own advantage. Frequently international etiquette and common usage preclude direct approach in the promotion of such enterprise, but there claims to be always at hand, for those who have some knowledge of the alleged modes and practices of the so-called mortal mind, the much subtler method of suggestion.
