Article January 24, 1920 Issue

No Compromise with Error

FREDERICK M. O'MEARA

It has, perhaps, been the experience of most students of Christian Science that on many occasions mental suggestion has silently whispered the wisdom and expediency for the solving of some problem by compromising. If they have yielded, experience has shown them in due time—if they were willing to be shown—where they did wrong. The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, has well advised students in this regard. "You only weaken your power to heal through Mind, by any compromise with matter," she states on page 53 of "Miscellaneous Writings;" and on the first page of the chapter in Science and Health entitle "Teaching Christian Science," the student is shown the wisdom of avoiding a compromise with material means. The advice of the master Christian Scientist was clear and pointed on this subject of compromise: "No man can serve two masters. ... Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

At the Annual Meeting of The Mother Church held in Boston, June, 1906, in the week following the dedication of The Mother Church extension the retiring president included in his remarks this helpful thought: "So we see that Christian Science makes no compromise with evil, sin, wrong, or imperfection, but maintains the perfect standard of truth and righteousness and joy" (Miscellany, p. 41). We can, perhaps, recall some instances which stand out as mileposts in our journey Spiritward, when we have refused to compromise with error's suggestions and held our ground for right, for divine Principle. In telling of one such experience to a brother Scientist, the writer was urged to give the experience to others.

Shortly after arriving in England with the Canadian Army to take up intensive training prior to proceeding on active service on the Western Front, I found myself one rainy Sunday morning in a small tent with about ten or eleven of my comrades. I was sure I needed to study the Lesson-Sermon for the day, but how to do it with a tent full of men whose acts and words up to and at that time indicated very little, if any, interest in the subject of religion, was a problem. As I pondered the seemingly puzzling difficulty, the aggressive suggestion of mortal mind that it would be quite right under such circumstances to let the Lesson go, and other arguments of a similar nature, caused a short, sharp conflict in consciousness. But the victory was soon won, and this course was followed. Taking a goodsized Oxford Bible out of my kit bag, I brought it down on my knee with a sharp bang which caused most of the conversation to be stopped, and attention to be focused in my direction. The same action followed with my Science and Health. Then after the short silence which ensued one of the boys asked me what "that book" was, referring to the Bible. I simply told him that it was the Bible, and on his further inquiry as to the "other book" I told him that it was the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. I noticed and remembered later that my thought was by this time free from fear or confusion. I commenced to study the Lesson-Sermon for the day, and from then until I had finished there was not a word in that tent louder than a whisper. Soon after this one of the boys asked to borrow my textbook, and other Christian Science literature which I from time to time offered him and others was accepted with pleasure.

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