Article May 15, 1909 Issue

In a review, under the heading "A Medieval Journey...

Frederick Dixon—London, England.

Times

In a review, under the heading "A Medieval Journey to Jerusalem," in your issue of late date, there is a statement of the Christian Science teaching with respect to evil which is so crude as to be positively misleading. In these circumstances you will, I am sure, permit me to explain briefly what this teaching really is. In a lecture on "Scientific Materialism," delivered some years ago before the Association of Natural Philosophy at Lubeck, Professor Ostwald made the statement that matter was unreal. Shorn of its context this pronouncement might be, and actually has been, distorted to imply that the lecturer had affirmed the non-existence of matter as a phenomenon. The world, however, is sufficiently acquainted with the doctrines of natural science to reject such a perversion as a travesty of the lecturer's meaning. Unfortunately, the world is not yet sufficiently acquainted with the doctrines of Christian Science to reject as travesties the numerous perversions of that teaching which annually stream through the press.

From one end to the other of her book, Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy has made the teaching of Christian Science with respect to evil so clear that there is really no excuse for misunderstanding it. She has shown that evil is simply the negation of good, and has just as little actual existence and power as any other negation of truth. She has never suggested that it did not make a claim to activity in the human consciousness; she has, on the contrary, shown that it is only in proportion to our spiritual progress that this activity is fully unveiled to us. She has given no excuse for the reproach that it is possible to indulge in evil under the assumption of its unreality; she has, on the contrary, exposed the rank dishonesty of such reasoning. But this she has done: she has refused to admit that there is any "jot" of truth in the lie called evil, or to concede any "tittle" of power to that which is the denial of omnipotent good. God made all that was made, and God is good, and Jesus said, "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." The sooner humanity begins to realize the profoundness of that great truth, the sooner will it experience the joy of that other saying of the Saviour, "The kingdom of God is within you."

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