Editorial January 26, 1929 Issue

On the Forsaking of Evil

Albert F. Gilmore

How to be rid of evil in its manifold phases is a problem to which mankind has given age-long attention; for belief in evil as a reality is the foundation of all the woes which seem so greatly to harass mortals. It is the primary cause of all the distress which so largely comprises human experience. To be rid of this belief is by far mankind's greatest need. How to accomplish this release has to a great extent baffled the great and good throughout all time. That the doer of evil must change his course, forsake his ways, and in the spirit of meekness and repentance seek God's forgiveness was the oft-repeated assertion of the holy men and prophets who stand out so prominently in the Old Testament. But just how to accomplish this most needful result was not made plain. Christ Jesus by word and example set mortals free from the bondage of sin and disease. Yet he left the discovery of the means and method of his divine practice to be revealed at some future time. That Mrs. Eddy has unfolded in Christian Science the precise method whereby the claims of evil may be overcome and destroyed, and mortals thereby released from bondage, is increasingly recognized.

Paul, in his incomparable epistle to the Christian in the church at Rome admonished them to overcome evil and hinted at the method of accomplishing it, which, except in general terms however, he did not define. "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good," are his words. There is no doubt that the great apostle well knew the process of destroying the baneful claims of evil; for there is much evidence in the New Testament of his understanding of God's omnipotence; and, moreover, there is abundant proof that he applied this understanding successfully in destroying the manifestations of evil of many types. Yet he gave no specific instructions as to the process. While he often admitted the necessity which confronted mortals to deny and destroy evil beliefs, yet the fact remains that he did not make his instructions explicit and definite.

Mrs. Eddy, however, handles this problem with definiteness as to the least detail, making the method of destroying evil, by reducing it to its native nothingness, so plain that none who give it serious consideration may fail to understand it. On page 216 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" she writes, "The understanding that the Ego is Mind, and that there is but one Mind or intelligence, begins at once to destroy the errors of mortal sense and to supply the truth of immortal sense." No statement could be more direct or explicit. The understanding that God, Mind, is the only intelligence, and that this divine intelligence is conscious only of the spiritual and perfect, the eternal ideas of Mind, uncovers the unreality of evil and proves that it has no place in the realm of infinite Truth; and this uncovering of the nature of evil destroys it.

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