THE life story of Christ Jesus, as set forth in the four Gospels, contains conclusive proof of the unreality of evil, of error masquerading in its ever-changing variety of forms. He proved its nothingness, its unstable character, in the most effective manner: he destroyed it. And even when the evidence to material sense was most convincing, he swept away the false appearances as having no reality, no presence, no power.
That Lazarus had lain in the tomb four days did not dismay this man who knew Life to be deathless; Jesus understood that it had no beginning and no end. He completely refuted the testimony of the physical senses, challenged and disproved the conviction of those about him, who believed that Lazarus had died. He knew the great truth that Lazarus never had been born into matter; in consequence, had never died out of it. He knew that God is Life, and that all true existence is without material conditions and accompaniments; that because God is, man is; hence man is permanent and perfect. This incident in the experience of the Master is an excellent illustration of the one successful method of handling one type of error, a type that is commonly accepted by mortals as real and inevitable. He destroyed the error, the falsity, through his knowledge of Truth, of God and man, of Life and its manifestation.
On page 334 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy asks the question, "Why do Christian Scientists treat disease as disease, since there is no disease?" And she answers the query thus: "This is done only as one gives the lie to a lie; because it is a lie, without one word of Truth in it. You must find error to be nothing: then, and only then, do you handle it in Science." Words could scarcely define the method of destroying error more convincingly. Error must be seen as a falsity, as a lie, as nothing. When this fundamental is clearly seen, the result is inevitable. The ghost disappears because it never was. Error is always successfully handled for its nothingness; never for its somethingness.
