Article November 10, 1917 Issue

Overcoming Evil

MARY G. MALIN

In journeying daily to and from work one is struck by the fact that the majority of conversations overheard are just discussions of various phases of evil,—the illness of relatives, troublesome business conditions, family dissensions, and all the other multitudinous discords which seem to make up the daily life of the average human being. Let us consider for a moment the difference it would make, not only to their fellow citizens but to the world at large, if all these people were to talk of the brighter and truer side of life instead of sickness and sorrow; of the truth of being instead of the error of mortal belief. Would not the listeners be benefited? Would they not feel better for what they had heard, instead of, as is often the case, being merely conscious of a vague sense of depression?

In Paul's epistle to the Romans we find this exhortation: "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." Here surely is a definite course marked out for us. Instead of allowing all these suggestions of evil to overcome us, we are to overcome them; overcome them by realizing what Mrs. Eddy writes on page 228 of Science and Health: "There is no power apart from God. Omnipotence has all-power, and to acknowledge any other power is to dishonor God." Since God is good and omnipotent, it follows that there is no power but good. Where, then, does this sense of evil come in? It can not and does not come in at all unless we allow it; unless, by indulging in the discussion of seemingly discordant conditions, we give reality to the unreal, and so build up a belief in a second power called evil, thereby dishonoring God.

One of the most subtle temptations put forth by this false belief is the desire for human sympathy; the sympathy that pities and condoles while encouraging its recipient to enlarge on his or her grievances, until the tiny molehill becomes such a mountain of trouble that it compeltely obliterates, to the one who holds it, all sense of good. Now this human sympathy may seem pleasant, but is it helpful? Surely the reverse, since it assumes that evil is real; that, in fact, it has power and intelligence to rob God's children of their happiness; whereas true sympathy, the sympathy that helps and heals, is a very different thing. It is that which leads us to see what we are really doing if we ever allow this false belief of evil to overcome us. It shows us that mortals are deliberately shutting out from their lives the good which God bestows on all His children, the happiness which is theirs for the taking. True sympathy never encourages us to believe in the power of a lie, and since God by reason of His infinity knows nothing of evil,—for we are distinctly told in the first chapter of Genesis that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good,"—evil can be nothing but a lie, having neither intelligence nor power.

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