Editorial February 12, 1927 Issue

Agreeing with Our Adversary

Ella W. Hoag

Most men realize that they are frequently confronted by an adversary. To many the human sense of existence seems little more than a series of such encounters. With a large proportion of the human race it is therefore a question as to how they are to cope with the resistant force which seems to assail them so perpetually in their endeavors to establish righteousness in their affairs. Even Christians, as a class, have recognized that what they have called the Christian warfare has consisted of an almost continuous effort to meet and master that which has presented itself ever and anon as an evil power claiming to resist and prevent their endeavors to express, or be true to, good.

While there can be no doubt that Jesus understood perfectly what the term "adversary" implied, the names he employed to describe it have been subjected to much controversy, and men have disputed for long years over their own attempted explanations of Satan and devil. With the advent of Christian Science there came into the world a clearer, more definite understanding of what these terms stand for; and one has only to study the teaching of Jesus in the light of this later revelation to have all ambiguity in regard to them vanish.

When through this Science the truth of the omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience of God as divine Mind first dawned upon human consciousness, it showed with perfect clarity that the only adversary there can ever be is but the supposititious belief that there is an opposite to this infinitude of good. Any effort to claim anything outside of or contrary to infinite Mind must therefore comprise all that can possibly appear as an adversary. The Christian Scientist who accepts this truth has entered the path in which he will be able to meet and master every claim of such an opponent.

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