Article December 3, 1921 Issue

Proving Evil to Be Nothing

JOHN L. CARTER

When Jesus declared, of the carnal-minded men of that day, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do," he showed his unerring sense of cause and effect. It was to such as were willing slaves to the carnal mind that he said, "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" And that which Jesus uttered then the Christ utters at every moment, at every turn, to each would-be Christian who is of the carnal-minded. That awful judgment, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," is still the inflexible law, still the only sword of Damocles to-day.

Men turn to Christian Science either out of love of good or fear of evil; they remain to discover that the fear of evil gets them nowhere, and that the only progress that can be made is through a sincere and hearty affection for good. Many a man has "tried" Christian Science, fondly hoping that it was a mental means of amassing wealth, achieving fame, insuring physical satisfaction, only to discover that the words of the apostle James, "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts," are terribly, inexorably as true to-day as when they were written.

Nevertheless there is hope for the double-minded, the scheming opportunist, and even for the frank sensualist through Christian Science. That hope lies in this: that all the fancied joys and fears, and precautions of the material sense of life are truly nothing, unreal. And even the greedy carnal mind, coming though it does to Christian Science frankly hoping to press the power of God into its service, almost invariably discovers that Spirit alone is real and the faith in materiality an illusion. Having come as a thief, a man often remains as guest and willing servant, satisfied with the infinite possessions of his Father. Having come to consume spiritual substance upon his lusts, he discovers that the only real and imperative lust is the lusting after the Spirit, that divine impetus and poise that knows no matter, no sense of matter, nothing but spiritual consciousness. Thus, the halfhearted, the lagging, the fearful, the greedy, the anxious, in the degree of their recognition of the worthlessness and nothingness of their old treasures, their frantic, bewildered efforts to attain peace and security, joy and heaven, in materiality, turn gladly and easily from what is nothing to the infinite somethingness and security of Mind, God. Even to such, even to you and me, come those sweet, simple moments of self-surrender and sublime resolution such as Mary Baker Eddy pictures in her "Allegory" on page 327 of "Miscellaneous Writings":

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