Mankind may well rejoice in the revelation of Christian Science that evil of whatever name or nature is unreal, an illusion of mortal sense and not the truth of being. This fact, however, remains to be individually demonstrated.
Our great Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 210), "Christian Science never healed a patient without proving with mathematical certainty that error, when found out, is two-thirds destroyed, and the remaining third kills itself." For error to be found out means that it can no longer hide its nothingness and masquerade as truth, for through the action of Truth it is proved to be without power, volition, or entity. The moment a problem, whatever its nature, is recognized as a belief and not an entity, its destruction and elimination are assured.
Shakespeare's words to the effect that adversity can have a salutary effect, quoted by Mrs. Eddy on page 66 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," are another way of saying that a problem may be an opportunity for progress. As road signs announce the sudden approach to hills, dangerous curves, and other conditions where caution is essential, so a problem points to some ignorance or erroneous thinking, some latent fear or sinful indulgence, which must be recognized before it can be cast out as unreal. Such warning symptoms serve the useful purpose of putting us on our guard if, perchance, we have carelessly neglected our watch against error and have fallen asleep.
If indulgence in some form of sin results in no pain or problem, and the sinner continues to conceal it, he is in a worse position than he would be if an attendant adverse condition had immediately caused him to see the error of his ways and he had learned how to correct it. The real man, or God-created selfhood of each one of us, knows no pains or problems. Neither can man indulge in any untoward act or thought, since he is governed by divine Mind alone. The goal of every Christian Scientist, as indeed it should be of all mankind, is to demonstrate true manhood. Each must prove in his own experience that as the image and likeness of God man is free from all the ills which flesh is heir to.
Because health is the truth, or spiritual fact, disease is merely false belief. Because substance and abundance are the law of God, lack is the lie which claims to refute God's law. A lie must of necessity always be a negation of truth, so that the seeming presence of the lie points to the fact that the specific truth which annuls that error exists and is present.
Because Truth is infinite, the correct inference is obviously that any negation of truth must be a lie. Did not Jesus so pronounce evil when he said of the devil (John 8:44), "He is a liar, and the father of it"?
In "Unity of Good" Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 36), "The use of a lie is that it unwittingly confirms Truth, when handled by Christian Science, which reverses false testimony and gains a knowledge of God from opposite facts, or phenomena." As Christian Scientists, we may choose between learning our lessons through suffering or through Science, letting Science destroy sinful and diseased beliefs in consciousness before they can manifest themselves in our experience. Let us see specifically how evil belief may be reversed through the alert practice of Christian Science, replacing each detail of such belief with its counter-fact of divine Truth. Thus the problem is made a steppingstone to a greater understanding of Truth.
Suppose a case of severe illness—perhaps a chronic or so-called incurable disease— confronts the student of Christian Science. As always, mortal mind looks for causation in matter or body; thus it may attribute the illness to old age, overwork, contagion, heredity, or the weather. It may even consider the illness the result of some evil condition to which the individual was subjected while fulfilling a loving duty. These evil suggestions cannot be summarily dismissed merely with the statement that they are lies, while the individual continues to believe in their pretended effects. Rather, the irrefutable logic of Christian Science must in each instance be quickly and specifically applied in order to reverse these lies with the truth.
Does the lie say that old age is the procuring cause of an ailment? Then refute the suggestion with the scientific understanding that eternal Life, which man reflects, knows no time, no passing years, no "beginning of days, nor end of life," for God's man is ageless and deathless; he is neither young nor old, as we learn in Christian Science.
Is overexertion or drudgery thought to have caused some trouble? Then we may meet such false suggestion with the understanding that God is man's strength, and man, being spiritual, is therefore immune to the erroneous beliefs of fatigue, tired muscles, nervous strain, and exhaustion. The belief in contagion is annulled by the fundamental teaching of Christian Science that matter is unreal. Since man is governed by God alone, there can be no transfer of mortal thoughts from one individual to another, and we are therefore free to accept or reject the suggestions of error.
Jesus disposed of the belief in human heredity when he was asked whether it was the sin of a blind youth or of his parents which had caused the young man's blindness (John 9). The Master denied both accusations and refuted the belief of any cause to which the effect of blindness could be traced. He implied that the problem was the result of false belief and was but another opportunity to prove the ever-present manifestation of God, good.
The suggestion that climatic conditions or other environing influences are malign, and hence not subject to God's control, is destroyed with the truth that Mind embraces its ideas in the atmosphere of heaven, harmony, from which no evil effect can possibly arise.
Suppose a salesman believing his success to be dependent on the receipt of orders for merchandise or on services rendered within a given period is faced with the common arguments of overproduction or underproduction, depression, recession, excessive competition, and other obstructive conditions. He may fear that he lacks the intelligence, foresight, talent, or experience to overcome the "sales resistance" which stands between him and success.
Accepting these lies about man and the universe, such a one would indeed be in a predicament. But when he realizes that every false belief is but a misapprehension of the spiritual fact or truth concerning God's universe, and is indeed an evidence that such truth exists, he may, by proper reversal of sense testimony and the revelation of the spiritual fact, turn abject failure into assured success. Thus it is seen that the business of salesmanship consists not in selling in the accepted sense of using high-pressure tactics to persuade another to buy, but in bearing witness to the facts that the balance of divine Principle is already complete, and that God's work is done.
A salesman who is a Christian Scientist knows what to do when face to face with the erroneous suggestions of mortal mind. He replaces arguments of delay, hesitation, prejudice, fear, inconsideration, competition, and other obstructions with the truths of immediacy, action, tolerance, confidence, courtesy, brotherly love, and so on, which lead to success in Truth. There are no vacuums in God's universe. There is no misplacement, surplus, or lack, since the omnipresence and omnipotence of Spirit preclude the possibility of too much, or too little, or too late.
The remark is sometimes heard, "I have had more to meet since coming into Christian Science than before I found this truth." In the experience of some this may seem to be so. The uncovering and destruction of error that is latent in thought is a necessary preliminary to entry into the spiritual consciousness of celestial harmony. Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 254), "If you venture upon the quiet surface of error and are in sympathy with error, what is there to disturb the waters? What is there to strip off error's disguise? If you launch your bark upon the ever-agitated but healthful waters of truth, you will encounter storms. Your good will be evil spoken of. This is the cross. Take it up and bear it, for through it you win and wear the crown."
Let us then turn seeming disadvantages into advantages. Let us resolve to make every problem a steppingstone to greater understanding of Truth, a surer foothold in the study and demonstration of genuine Christian Science.
