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Origin
Mortal mind is ever trying to induce the Christian Scientist to explain or account for the origin of evil, or what seems to make a claim of evil. The error that would try to have us account for the origin of evil, will be found at some time and in some way suggesting to us a question as to the origin of good. Mortal mind being finite cannot conceive of Infinity, or of existence without beginning.
The moment we endeavor to explain the origin of evil we give it a beginning, and hence make it real to us. Believing in the reality of evil, we must believe that good is limited. If good as well as evil is limited, they must have had a beginning, and therefore there must have been a time when neither existed.
What began them? If they are indeed something, then before they began there was nothing. Therefore we are driven to the conclusion, that nothing is the producer of something, a proposition that reason rightly rejects. A little reflection will convince any one that two qualities, opposite in nature, cannot both be real, for the lower appears from the limitation of the higher, and the enlargement of the higher diminishes and ultimately extinguishes the lower. Whoever tries to account for the origin of God, gives Him a beginning, and thereby, to his own thought, limits Him. The thought that thus limits God, has no God. If evil is real, then God as Good is limited, hence no God. The slightest limitation of a mental quality, involves and includes a belief in its opposite, either as real or unreal. So then, to give any origin to evil is to make it real, and this would destroy God as Infinite Good. Mind cannot be conceived of as indivisible in quantity after the manner of matter. The only conceivable way to divide or reduce Mind or its individuality is to reduce or change its quality, and this destroys its standard and perfection. This must be apparent on every plane of human thought.
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February 13, 1902 issue
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Reply to a Review of Judge Ewing's Lecture
J.R. MOSLEY
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Reply to Professor Terry
Archibald Mclellan
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Dreaming or Waking
BY W.J.S.
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MRS. EDDY TAKES NO PATIENTS
Editor
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The Prayer of a Dyspeptic
Editor
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The Lectures
with contributions from Thomas G. Jones, George C. Kinsman, William Van Arsdale, Helen Andrews Nixon, John H. Wheeler
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Among the Churches
with contributions from Grace L. Bosworth
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Love's Jewels
BY W. SPAULDING.
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Origin
By John Carveth.
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Forgiving
BY G. C. M.
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Love, the Keynote of Harmony
BY SOPHIA CAROLYN DUNNE.
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Things to be Done
with contributions from Ellen Watson, Ruskin
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Religious Items
with contributions from Edward C. Mitchell, Leighton Williams, Henry Ward Beecher, F. W. Robertson, Henry B. Williams
