Editorial November 8, 1924 Issue

"Be not overcome of evil"

Albert F. Gilmore

Paul's letters to the several groups of Christians which formed in the years immediately following the marvelous career of Christ Jesus contained many sound admonitions, much excellent advice. In fact, he elucidated and expounded the teachings of the Master so successfully that it has been contended that Christianity could scarcely have exerted the tremendous influence it has but for the impetus given it by this militant Apostle to the Gentiles. An example of these wise counsels closes the twelfth chapter of Romans: "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."

As to the desirability of overcoming evil, all agree. How to overcome it has been a question never satisfactorily answered until the discovery of Christian Science. Paul's admonition did not show how good does its work. Of the necessity for overcoming it, Mrs. Eddy states in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 569), "Every mortal at some period, here or hereafter, must grapple with and overcome the mortal belief in a power opposed to God." The "power opposed to God" must be the belief in evil, for, manifestly, that which is opposed to God is not good; and the unlikeness of good is evil. The necessity for overcoming evil established, there follows the great need to learn the method by which this most desirable of results may be successfully accomplished.

The belief in the reality of evil seems to be almost universal. But Christian Science, following the teachings of the Master, declares and proves evil to be unreal. Mrs. Eddy makes clear that salvation is won only by proving unreal the manifold claims of evil which comprise so large a part of human experience. To destroy the belief in evil, then, is the necessity which faces every mortal. Great were the rewards in terms of spiritual blessedness which the Revelator visioned for him that overcomes evil. His is to be the crown of glory. As a cardinal fact in the destruction of evil, our beloved Leader says on page 446 of Science and Health, "Resisting evil, you overcome it and prove its nothingness." But she has made perfectly plain that the only successful resistance to evil is in the knowing of its unreality; that is, in the absolute assurance that since God did not create evil, it has no entity, no status as a fact of reality. Is not this understanding of the unreality of evil the only possible way in which it is to be successfully overcome? Moreover, this demonstration is in strict accord with Paul's injunction, for evil is destroyed by knowing the infinity of good.

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