IN a world where men believe in the reality of matter and evil; where matter is regarded as real substance to be sought after and accumulated, and evil as something which, from its apparent universality, cannot be avoided, Christliness is often looked upon as a state of consciousness well nigh impossible of realization. For Christliness is a mental state in which love, goodness, truthfulness, honesty, and purity reign. One can readily see the difficulty which the attainment of Christliness presents to the believer in the reality of matter or evil; but Christian Science does not admit this difficulty, and for the reason that it makes known the fact that it arises from ignorance or false belief.
What then is the false belief? The false belief is that evil is real. This is the error which would deceive the whole human race. Believing that evil is real, men fetter themselves. They think that they are under evil law, and that they must submit to its rule; which is equivalent to saying that they believe they are forced to think and act evilly. They may at the same time believe that they are under the law of good as well as the law of evil, and that accordingly they are at liberty to think and act rightly. But the fact that they believe evil to be as real as good and that they are under the influence of evil as if by law, strikes at their efforts after good, and thus tends to nullify their efforts after Christliness.
Christian Science destroys the tragic error of belief in the reality of evil by revealing the truth about God. It teaches men that God is infinite good, and that anything the opposite of good has no real existence. But evil is the opposite of good. Hence evil has no real existence—it is unreal. Christian Science is affirming the truth of the allness of God, good, today, with an insistence that will not be stayed, for only through acknowledgment of this great truth can mortals begin to see their way out of the evil dream into the kingdom of reality, where Christliness reigns.
