Article July 25, 1908 Issue

The central point on which all Christian Science turns is...

C. E. Allan—Belfast, Ireland.

The Northern Whig

The central point on which all Christian Science turns is the absolute supremacy of God—not a supremacy which after a struggle with other powers leaves Him the victor, with perhaps what seem sorely depleted ranks, but a supremacy so absolute and complete that there is no place for any other opposing powers nor opportunity for the exercise of their apparent abilities for evil. This is the source of the Christian Scientist's contentment, and it is a living, loving comprehension of this supremacy, this allness, of God that gives dominion over all discord. People are accustomed to describe God in terms of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, but they do not realize what these terms really mean, nor do they follow to a logical conclusion the line of thought thus opened up. If they did so they would discover the importance of the subject, and learn why the Christian Scientist thinks no time too long and no exertion too strenuous when devoted to a realization of its truth.

From this view of God as the very essence of Truth, Life, and Love, as the source and support of all that really is, comes the Christian Scientist's view of evil, or rather the knowledge he possesses that evil has neither reality, substance, nor power—that in itself it is nothing, and that its seeming power to harm us comes, and comes only, from our belief in and acquiescence to such power. And it is by reversing these erroneous beliefs that Christian Science brings about an improvement in our state and circumstances. Instead of yielding to fear and giving credence to wrongful laws of health and submission to the power of material things to govern and harm us, Christian Science teaches us to control fear, whose only power is in our yielding; to overcome wrongful laws, whose only authority is in our credence; and to know that material things are our servants and not our masters. When we yield to these errors they are manifested in our characters, on our bodies, and in our circumstances in the multifarious forms of sin, worry, sickness, misery, poverty, and death. But the converse is true, and Christian Science comes with the joyful message that when we turn to God and substitute a knowledge and realization of His ever-presence for these false beliefs, the power of divine Truth manifests itself in the overcoming of these discords, one by one, until at last we shall be conscious of our true estate as men and women made in the image and likeness of God....

If sin, sickness, and evil exist at all, they exist in God and by His authority. But this is impossible, for darkness and light cannot dwell together; as darkness is merely an apparent absence of light, so evil is only a belief in the absence of good. If God sends sickness, calamity, and death, it is presumable that He sends them at the right time and in the right amount. What business, then, have we, if we believe this, to try to relieve or avert these evils, and so modify or prevent the accomplishment of God's purposes? Christian people endeavor to account for these contradictions by ascribing them to an inscrutable Providence. Christian Scientists do not so worship God. They believe in a God who is all good, all Truth, Life, and Love, and who cannot be the source of evil; and they know that all evil exists only as a misconception of the human mind.

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