ACCORDING to the Scriptural allegory, a serpent, a strange talking serpent, appeared to Eve in the Garden of Eden. Mary Baker Eddy in part defines "serpent" in the Glossary to "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 594) as "the first audible claim that God was not omnipotent and that there was another power, named evil, which was as real and eternal as God, good."
The graphic account of Moses' handling of a serpent, as told in Exodus, stirs the imagination of students of the Bible. Understood through material interpretation, this lesson brings admiration for the physical courage he displayed. Viewed metaphysically, it -is a marvelous lesson in the overcoming of error's claims to reality and power. Though he at first fled from so doing, Moses' obedience to God's command that he handle the serpent brought blessing; for through his dependence upon God, divine Mind, he saw the serpent become a rod. Not only did Moses thus prove for himself man's God-given dominion, but, later on, he demonstrated to the Israelites that all those who looked upon the brazen serpent, seeing it as utterly devoid of intelligence, power, reality, would be healed of evil and its claim of death-penalty.
Christ Jesus said, as Luke records in the tenth chapter of his Gospel, "Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you." He understood that, whatever form it assumed, evil had no power, since God, good, is omnipotent.
No matter how real error may appear, it can always be reduced to nothingness. The mortal beliefs which claim power apart from God should be seen as dreams from which one can instantly awaken. The truth of being, declared and maintained, will pierce the shadows of erroneous beliefs until the disguise of error is clearly seen and error has been entirely destroyed.
"Let us disrobe error," Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 201). God made all that was made: error is not real now, never was real, never can be real. Suppose error claims to be person, place, or thing: it cannot make its claims true. What if the illusive talking serpent of to-day argues about minds many or power apart from God? Error never can execute its claims when individual consent to them is scientifically withheld. Error must have human consent: it requires another party to its suppositions. Without this mental agreement it can do nothing.
Sometimes the pilgrim's path seems to run, for a time, through the wilderness of mortal discord. This, however, is no reason for dismay or discouragement. Other pilgrims have traveled this road and found proofs of God's care all along the way. Those who have passed this way before with trust in God have left records which instill fresh courage, keep hope aglow, and show that the eternal God is omnipotent, ever present.
The beliefs of lack, of limitation, which seem to cry so loudly for recognition, should be seen as devoid of power to limit either the receiving or the giving of the abundant good which God has bestowed on man. God's man bears witness only to God and His goodness.
Let us learn to "disrobe error," to refute, whenever error seems real, the serpentine claim of life or intelligence in matter. The replacing of sense-testimony with the truth that God is the only intelligence brings proof of the unreality of error. Those who unmask error in this light will no longer fear it, believe in it, or shrink from handling it and proving its nothingness.
Christian Science brings a message of courage to those wondering about the seeming reality of evil. To one who once cried in the wilderness of mortal belief, How could a God so good make a devil so evil? Christian Science answered, in the words of the Bible, "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."
Christian Science disrobes error. By scientific declaration and demonstration it strips off its disguises, and refutes all claims and arguments of the reality of evil. Thus the allness of God is discerned, man's perfection glimpsed, and God is seen to dwell with men.
