Dispossessing Error

RUTH INGRAHAM

Familiar to many is the story of the Spartan boy who had stolen a fox and concealed it beneath his tunic. It was related as greatly to the lad's credit, judged by the standard of the Spartans, that rather than betray himself he endured without a murmur the pain of being bitten by the fox.

The Stoic philosophy held that men should be impassive, unsubdued by pleasure, grief, or pain. It enabled its adherents to bear physical hardships with great fortitude. They cultivated a stolid indifference to sense-testimony, but were far from rising above it through spiritual understanding, as did the early Christians. Of the Christian martyrs Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 388): "Through the uplifting and consecrating power of divine Truth, they obtained a victory over the corporeal senses, a victory which Science alone can explain. Stolidity, which is a resisting state of mortal mind, suffers less, only because it knows less of material law." Christian Science explains the true overcoming by showing the unreality of evil conditions.

There is an instructive analogy between the situation of the Spartan boy and that of anyone who is entertaining an aggressive mental suggestion, some gnawing, persistent, false belief that preys upon him. Each has something which does not belong to him, and which should not be retained. The garment of false pride—of which the seamy side is shame—sometimes covers a condition which needs to be uncovered for its correction. The robe of self-righteousness is sometimes proudly worn by one who likes to think of himself as a secretly suffering martyr.

It may be that another, wrapped in the cloak of self-will, thinks to hide, while indulging, a temptation to sin, and believes himself to be not afraid of the price. Ah, but "the wages of sin is death"! The covering of sin, through hypocrisy or self-justification, is in itself sin, which invites its own punishment. Again, the sackcloth of self-condemnation shrouds an ache God never put into human heart, while the wearer thinks he must suffer because of his lack of spiritual understanding. Such a one will find a blessed message of comfort in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 161), where our Leader writes: "Lest human reason becloud spiritual understanding, say not in thy heart: Sickness is possible because one's thought and conduct do not afford a sufficient defence against it. Trust in God, and 'He shall direct thy paths.'" And on the following page she says, "God's mercy for mortal ignorance and need is assured"

It is usually well to keep a problem under the cover of protective silence until it is solved; but we should not entertain the sense of having something in the nature of a stubborn reality to conceal while we are endeavoring to overcome it. The use of the possessive pronoun, even in thought, with regard to error, often tends to fasten it as closely to one as the boy held to himself the gnawing little fox, when he might so much more sensibly and honestly have let it go. Giving up all claim to error does much to loosen its hold.

During a prolonged struggle with successive problems, a student of Christian Science was tempted to think her own position analogous to that of a wireless operator on a sinking ship. She was unremitting in her endeavor to prove the Science she never doubted; but she did doubt her ability to demonstrate it, not at that period realizing that such ability is itself a God-given concomitant of the prayer of righteous desire. The stout and persistent arguments of truth which she employed often covered a very hollow feeling, as though God were a long way off and His help might not arrive in time to save the situation. Nevertheless, the truth which she was voicing even though feebly was mightier than any claim of human weakness; and slowly but surely the victory was won. This student presently realized that her declarations were being made from a serene sense of establishment in Principle, from which basis she was able to voice the truth more and more effectively. Her words of good cheer no longer stoically covered her own fears, but proceeded from the profound assurance that God does reign.

The mere concealment of any phase of inharmony which is being held in belief as a fixed fact does not lead to the scientific destruction of that error, and in some instances may mean its indulgence. All honor to those brave ones who go about with calm and cheerful mien while wrestling with problems of which the world knows naught! But Science says to them with sweet persuasion in the words of the apostle, "Yet shew I unto you a more excellent way." "It saith to the human sense of sin, sickness, and death, 'God never made you, and you are a false sense which hath no knowledge of God'" (Science and Health, p. 540). Science thus destroys the harassing belief that evil conditions are real, and brings to the struggling heart a sweet and blessed sense of release and safety.

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