In an arresting statement made in her "Miscellaneous Writings" Mary Baker Eddy tells us (p. 334), "You must find error to be nothing: then, and only then, do you handle it in Science." Human governments sometimes go through seasons of investigating the nature of evil and its efforts to rob and deceive mankind. It is good to have these evils brought out of their hiding places and condemned; but this in itself does not constitute reform. Evil labeled as true, powerful, and active has not yet been completely uncovered. It is still wearing the mask of pretense to reality. Christian Scientists are not satisfied that they have done their part in dealing with evil until they have understood its nothingness and thus helped to deflate its egotistical pretense to power and to lift its burdens from mankind.
The fact that God is infinite good and that He is All-in-all makes evil impossible. The fact that God is the only creator and that He beholds His whole creation as very good indicates that there is but one reality —spiritual perfection—and but one force operating in His universe, even that force which blesses, preserves, enlightens, and enriches His children.
Jesus gave us an example of the complete handling of evil when he healed the man with the unclean spirit, in the country of the Gadarenes. As usual the evil had been masquerading as a person, and in this case specifically as the person's diseased brain. Jesus first uncovered this lie by destroying its identification. He saw that the evil was not a condition of a material body or of a person but was mere false belief, mortal mind, or animal magnetism. He proved that there is neither a sick body nor a sick mind; that evil has no identity whatever and no presence. His complete handling of the case was evidence of the spiritual fact that God, who is good, does not create a sick mentality or resultant bodily discords.
