Article December 20, 1913 Issue

Overcoming Evil

REV. JAMES J. ROME

The natural inclination of mortal mind, like everything else pertaining to materiality, is toward retrogression. Without some higher and better influence there could not be progress or improvement. This is manifested in the reversion of improved species of plants and animals back to their original type. Improvement is always attained by overcoming hindrances, hence in the elevation of the human consciousness to a better and more spiritual plane, the demand of truth, that all evil claims and tendencies be overcome, must be complied with. The proneness to avert this demand is responsible for many ingenious excuses. The most dangerous arguments of error are always the most subtle and are presented in the most plausible forms. When confronted with the purity and power of the great Master, the devils cried out, "Let us alone; what have we to do with thee?"

Error makes the same demand today, but it is more artful in its approach and comes clad in vestments which are the counterfeits of good. One of its subtle seductions is that to deny error is to make something of it. Of course there are only two alternatives left; namely, either to ignore error entirely, and so leave thought unguarded, or to admit that it is real and dangerous and hence to be feared. Both are delusive. While it is not the part of a Christian Scientist to invent or imagine different forms of evil, nevertheless it is evident that if some phase of error is present in consciousness, he must have a belief in its reality, to some extent at least. Whatever may be the thought presented, it must either be accepted or rejected. If a suggestion of error is accepted, it is recognized as real; if it is rejected, it is denied. There is surely little question in the mind of any Christian Scientist as to which course should be taken.

But the question may be asked by some one, How often would you have me deny error? If I have met it and denied it once, is not that enough? Will it not make it seem real to keep on denying it? The answer is, that error needs to be denied as often as it seems to be in evidence. Mortal mind is composed of many kinds of error, and these may assume different forms. To think that we have dispensed with a given error when we have met it once and denied it, is to leave ourselves exposed to its attack in another form. We must keep on the alert to free our thought of all kinds of error at all times. In "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 343) Mrs. Eddy writes: "The weeds of mortal mind are not always destroyed by the first uprooting; they reappear, like devastating witch-grass, to choke the coming clover. O stupid gardener! watch their reappearing, and tear them away from their native soil, until no seedling is left to propagate—and rot."

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