Gold and dross, wheat and tares, are contrasting pairs of terms used by Christian Scientists to illustrate the distinction between good and evil and particularly to show the necessity of separating them, that the gold and wheat may remain and the dross and tares be destroyed. On page 535 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" its author, Mary Baker Eddy, writes, "The seed of Truth and the seed of error, of belief and of understanding,—yea, the seed of Spirit and the seed of matter,— are the wheat and tares which time will separate, the one to be burned, the other to be garnered into heavenly places."
In Christian Science we learn that all that is ever destroyed is the unreal, that which has existence only in belief; the good, or real, is permanent, incapable of destruction. Christian Scientists pray daily for the spiritual understanding that enables them to overcome all evil, and they pray for the establishment of the government of good in the affairs of all men.
The separating of good from evil is one of the functions of Christian Science and is indispensable to the progress of the student. He properly recognizes that in the measure that he daily, hourly, separates good from evil and destroys the latter, his witnessing to Truth becomes clearer. Christian Science teaches him that the scientific way of separating good from evil is to affirm the positive and rule out the negative of that which is under consideration, to utilize his knowledge of the allness of God, good, and to see the unreality of evil. The process is mental.
