Every Christian Scientist is learning the wonderful lesson that the determining power of his human experience always lies in his own hands.
What does this mean? It means that a suggestion of evil never comes that cannot be annulled. Mary Baker Eddy once wrote, "Error comes to you for life, and you give it all the life it has"' (Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy by Irving C. Tomlinson, p. 85). Within our own thinking, at any moment, and at every moment, lies the puissance of victory. Our capacity for success, for healing, for freedom and dominion, can never be taken from our own hands.
The evil thinking customarily termed malpractice by Christian Scientists is not primarily harmful because of what others may or may not be thinking, whether it be the general opinion of suppositional mortal mind called "laws of health" and penalty therefrom, or whether it be the disapproval, criticism, envy, hatred, or even malice of another's opinion of us or our actions. Nor does false thinking gain validity because of the belief that it has an organization or a history. All there is to malpractice, ignorant or malicious, general or specific, as far as we are concerned, is our admission of it. Suffering from malpractice arises from what one thinks about what others think! It always requires co-operation on our part before malpractice can exert, even in belief, any influence whatever. We ourselves set the battle in array. Alertness can often prevent the battle, and can always stop the battle.
