Many a time in these days men seem to quail before the suggestions of evil in the world, to sink in depression, to be without comfort, to lose courage. It is not difficult to account for this, for on all hands there is dread of war, and in many quarters fear of internal revolution due to conflicting theories of government. Sometimes it almost seems as if men believed that chaos is about to reign over the whole earth, their thoughts being obsessed with the belief of the reality and power of evil.
Now everyone is assailed more or less frequently by evil suggestions, although all are not influenced by them to the same degree. There are those who spend much of their time contemplating evil and its possible effects on themselves and others, and fearing it. There are others who endeavor not to allow the claims of evil to influence them unduly, offsetting these claims by dwelling in thought on the good they know is in the hearts of many. These latter, however, like the former class, are liable to be afraid of evil, not knowing how to handle its suggestions scientifically. Another class—and it is steadily growing—is learning to regard evil entirely differently from what it formerly did; to regard it, even as Christian Science teaches, as unreal. And, so doing, they are being greatly comforted in the midst of the conflicting theories and activities of men, and rendered courageous in the face of evil, even when its suggestions seem most aggressive.
It may appear to those uninstructed in Christian Science that to say evil is unreal, thus denying that to which material sense so strongly testifies, is to ignore the facts. But how does Christian Science reason on the subject? Christian Science declares that God is infinite good, and that since good is infinite, the opposite of good —evil—has no real existence. That is how evil is regarded in Christian Science, and the reason for so regarding it. This teaching certainly contradicts spiritually unenlightened human reason, and utterly sets at naught the evidence of the material senses; but in doing so it is true to God and obedient to the First Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
