Article May 9, 1925 Issue

Our critic spends some time in explaining his views of...

Miss Evelyn L. Webb, Committee on Publication for County Antrim, Ireland,—Belfast

Witness,

Our critic spends some time in explaining his views of how Mrs. Eddy accounts for a God who is Love, and the seeming contradiction of this fact by the sad and cruel experiences of human existence; but he throws no light on the problem himself. He also cavils at her statements concerning the unreal nature of matter. In his position with regard to matter, he will find himself in opposition to some of the greatest thinkers of our day. Earl Balfour, in his address before the British Association meeting in Glasgow some years ago, made the following statement, "Matter has explained itself by explaining itself away;" and Professor Ostwald tells us that matter is a thing of thought which we have rather imperfectly constructed for ourselves, to designate that which is real, in the realm of the unseen. Jesus gave us many proofs of the unsubstantial nature of matter; and in I John we read: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. ... For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." If evil is a reality, it must be of God; for He is the only creator. Our critic speaks of overcoming evil, but if evil is true it can never be overcome, for all truth is immortal; and if his assertion that evil is real, is sound, we may as well give up the fight at once. But if evil is simply the reverse of Truth, or a mistake which a knowledge of the truth overcomes, we can go forward armed with the truth to overcome evil's claims to power and presence, knowing that to God belongs "the kingdom, and the power, and the glory." In his defense of evil our critic seems to overlook Jesus' definition of the devil, or evil, as given in the eighth chapter of John. "He was a murderer from the beginning," said Jesus, "and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." The Scriptures aver that Christ Jesus came into the world to destroy the works of the devil. He overcame, with his knowledge of Truth, "that old serpent, called the Devil, ... which deceiveth the whole world;" and that devil is what Paul designates as the "carnal mind," which is "enmity against God," and which Mrs. Eddy calls mortal mind in distinction from the divine or immortal Mind. The so-called carnal or mortal mind,—in other words, an evil mind,—one is quite willing to concede to our critic, is "the villain of the piece;" but this claim of evil to reality is not overcome by ignoring it, as the writer of the article apparently thinks Christian Scientists do, but through a right apprehension of the false, unreal nature of evil. There is not a Christian in the world to-day more actively or successfully engaged in the overcoming of evil than the genuine Christian Scientist.

Sin is often spoken of in the Bible as the work of darkness, and darkness is perhaps one of the best definitions of evil. Darkness, as every one knows, is a negative quality, the absence of light. It has no origin, no presence, no reality. At the same time, no sane man would sit in a dark room and ignore the seeming absence of light. Because he knows that darkness is not real, he opens the shutters and lets in the light. The Christ said, "I am the light of the world."

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