Christian science shows that all error is nothing, none of it great, none of it small, all of it without entity or power, and that its nothingness can be proved when the truth about it is understood. Exposing the unreality of error, Christian Science further teaches that error must be seen as nothing if we would have it disappear. Mortal mind, however, with its usual perverseness, would reverse this and make error in its varying degrees seem real. Thus, perhaps, some errors may loom large and menacing, and in their endeavors to overcome such errors Christian Scientists may be unintentionally misled into neglecting what may appear to them to be smaller and less threatening phases of wrong thinking.
Such errors may be likened to "the little foxes, that spoil the vines." Neglect of what seem to be smaller errors may delay or prevent the overcoming of what we regard as the greater. Mrs. Eddy warned her followers against this erroneous tendency when she wrote (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 123), "Seeing that we have to attain to the ministry of righteousness in all things, we must not overlook small things in goodness or in badness, for 'trifles make perfection,' and 'the little foxes... spoil the vines.'"
How are we to detect "the little foxes"? How are we to eradicate them? Christian Science completely and satisfactorily answers both these questions. It teaches that we should pray for spiritual discernment; and we should search our consciousness, and recognize for what it is, every erroneous thought that may be uncovered. We must be humble enough to accept correction, and willing to give up that which is false. We must realize that in God's spiritual universe, wherein the real man of His creating dwells, there is neither time nor place for any degree of imperfection. In whatever form error may assert itself, we must see it as without cause or creator, therefore as nonexistent. There are in Truth no relative states of error, and these can seem to exist only as false beliefs.
