Under the marginal heading, "Christ's mission," on page 233 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy writes, "Already the shadow of His right hand rests upon the hour." Our Leader makes this pronouncement, although to mortal sense it sometimes seems as if evil were reaching a climax in intensity. Do, then, the words just quoted state a positive truth? Do they signify that even now, when evil appears to be so real and active, the power of God is actually at work making for the destruction of evil and the full salvation of mankind? That is precisely what may be inferred from them.
Christian Science is clearing away the darkness of erroneous belief from the thoughts of men. It is teaching them the truth about evil by informing them of the truth about God. What is the truth about God? It is that He is infinite good. From this great spiritual truth the deduction is drawn in Christian Science that evil is unreal—a false or erroneous state of consciousness. Further, Christian Science informs us that God is infinite Spirit. From this it follows that matter is unreal— a false or erroneous state of consciousness. Thus mankind is instructed by Christian Science as never before, positively and accurately instructed, regarding the nature of God, good, and the unreal nature of matter or evil. It is this knowledge which enables us to know that "already the shadow of His right hand rests upon the hour."
But someone may say, Matter or evil does seem very real to material sense. That, however, does not alter the fact of the unreality of matter or evil. Mrs. Eddy puts it even more strongly when she writes (ibid., p. 97), "The more destructive matter becomes, the more its nothingness will appear, until matter reaches its mortal zenith in illusion and forever disappears." Here attention is pointedly drawn to the self-destructiveness of matter. False material belief may seem to become more and more destructive, until finally it reaches what appears to be its limit in intensity. During the process it will be more and more clearly discerned as nothing, thus ultimately disappearing altogether.
