Article July 20, 1929 Issue

Resisting Evil

JANE M. GARAGHTY

We have the Scriptural command, "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you," and the blessed promise, "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you." And Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, also emphasizes this treatment of error on page 406 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where she says, "Resist evil—error of every sort—and it will flee from you."

In the endeavor to be obedient to this command one knows that the work of resisting evil beliefs and suggestions must take place in his own thinking, since that is where evil would tempt one to yield to the arguments of fear, discouragement, depression, and so on. Our dear Leader writes on page 555 of Science and Health, "Error would have itself received as mind, as if it were as real and God-created as truth."

A student of Christian Science was once faced with what seemed to be a more difficult problem than she thought she could master. This was particularly discouraging because she felt that she had gained considerable understanding of the truth and could not see why such an experience should have come into her life. Then she awakened to the fact that the tendency to complain needed to be resisted and overcome, before a single forward step could be taken. As always, God was at hand to direct her to the contemplation of Jesus' beautiful example of resistance to evil, which is set forth in the fourth chapter of Matthew. We are told that immediately after his baptism, in which he was proclaimed by God to be His beloved Son, he was led "into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." On page 597 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy defines "wilderness" thus: "Loneliness; doubt; darkness. Spontaneity of thought and idea; the vestibule in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence."

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