Editorial December 7, 1907 Issue

THE PERMANENCE OF TRUTH

Annie M. Knott

The question is sometimes asked by inquirers, How are we to know that even if we gain an understanding of the truth it will remain with us? May we not relapse into our former state of ignorance as to the power of God, good? This inquiry implies some measure of the popular belief that good and evil are both entities, a belief which held sway over the majority, as it seemed, until Mrs. Eddy made the startling declaration that evil possesses neither entity nor power, and that it should never be regarded as a factor in the great problem of being.

We cannot too often recall Mrs. Eddy's statement that "for right reasoning there should be but one fact before the thought, namely, spiritual existence" (Science and Health, p. 492). It should therefore be readily seen that when the scientific separation between good and evil is once made in consciousness, thought can never revert to the former belief in two opposing entities or powers; and above all, evil can never again be held as good, even though there may be a protracted struggle to realize the absolute supremacy of Truth, as manifested in health, holiness, happiness.

It should not be forgotten that mortals have through the ages clung to the error of belief in matter as the basis of being, and have gone on suffering from this mistake, except as glimpses of the truth of being have come through prophets, seers, and apostles, and especially in the teachings and demonstrations of Christ Jesus, until in "the fulness of time" this truth has been revealed even as he said it would be. We should not forget that save for a few exceptions men have been in bondage to the fundamental error of belief that the material is the real and the God-ordained, until Christian Science made known to them the eternal fact that as God is Spirit, the universe and man, together with the law which governs them, are of necessity spiritual. Until this admitted, there can of course be no sure basis for progress. History witnesses to the rise and fall of nations, hence the argument for retrogression; but we should remember that the belief in materiality, including the belief in the reality of evil and its necessity, has largely controlled those nations from the beginning of their history to its close.

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