Article July 1, 1911 Issue

PROMPTITUDE

VIOLET KER SEYMER.

Perhaps the first point to remember in connection with the text, "Agree with thine adversary quickly," is the significance of the word "quickly." Christian Science explains that the "adversary" is not a person, but a wrong thought, an evil suggestion, a fear, "one who opposes, denies, disputes, not one who constructs and sustains reality and Truth" (Science and Health, p. 580). Measuring every thought by this standard of Truth, any one may detect an adversary in a minute and dismiss it in the same minute. It takes no longer to think a right thought than it does to believe a wrong one, and if evil cannot dupe us, it can do nothing, for it is nothing. Furthermore, it matters not whether the adversary presents itself in the guise of a suggestion of fear, sin, illness, poverty, or any other calamity, or even in the subtler forms of criticism or condemnation of some fellow-creature; in any case it is destructive and not constructive in tendency, is not of God, and can therefore avail nothing. The suggestion is to be regarded as an ephemeral libel on God and on man, and immediately replaced with the substantial truth.

A Christian Scientist's agreement or compact with the adversary should be an instant disagreement with every evil argument that comes up to tempt him; and the more prompt his denial, the better in every case. In Science and Health our Leader says: "Suffer no claim of sin or of sickness to grow upon the thought. Dismiss it" (p. 390). Another important point to bear in mind is that there is no personal adversary, so that no claim should be referred to as a part of any one's being. The adversary is just the one impersonal temptation such as Jesus triumphed over in the wilderness; and how did he triumph? Through his firm insistence that so-called evil had no right nor might to tempt a child of God. It was only the human sense which felt the temptation; not the infinite Christ, in whom Jesus took refuge.

It is because procrastination is apt to result in accumulation that this text calls for a prompt and not a tardy denial. False beliefs are disposed of with comparative ease when they are dealt with singly and quickly, rather than collectively and slowly; but, after all, mountains are made up of molecules. Still another strong point in connection with the injunction is that the adversary is to be dealt with "whiles thou art in the way with him." This surely means that error is to be denied the moment it presents itself to our consciousness, the very moment it seems to get in the way of harmony. That same erroneous belief, if allowed to become latent or subconscious, as the father of lies claims it can, may be able to trip us unawares; but when quickly and persistently denied, until the temptation is overcome, it has no more power than the evil suggestions had over Jesus in the wilderness.

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