Editorial October 12, 1935 Issue

"An impervious armor"

George Shaw Cook

On page 210 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" Mary Baker Eddy, after first admonishing Christian Scientists to keep their "minds so filled with Truth and Love, that sin, disease, and death cannot enter them," goes on to say, "Good thoughts are an impervious armor; clad therewith you are completely shielded from the attacks of error of every sort." Here is a positive, unqualified declaration that good thinking—right thinking, true thinking—affords complete protection against evil thinking "of every sort." No matter what the nature of so-called mental malpractice, or what its supposed source, right thinking or right knowing, understanding of the power and presence of infinite good, constitutes adequate protection against evil.

However, on page 234 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy writes, "You must control evil thoughts in the first instance, or they will control you in the second." And in many other places in the Christian Science textbook and in her other writings she points out the need for protecting oneself from erroneous thoughts imposed on one from the outside through what is known as mental suggestion, thought transference, and other phases of mesmerism. She shows the need for standing guard at the door of thought in order to prevent the entrance of erroneous suggestions which, if admitted to one's consciousness, would be capable of causing discord and disease. (See Science and Health 392:24—27.)

Christian Scientists are learning that it is better to keep evil thoughts out of their mental homes than it is to have to put them out after they have been admitted. And they are also learning that it is not difficult to keep erroneous thoughts out of their conscious experience if they are sufficiently alert and intelligently discriminating enough to detect the nature of those suggestions which present themselves for admission, and which seek to gain entrance by pretending to be good, harmless, interesting, or advantageous. There are many subtle arguments used by evil to persuade the student to admit and entertain erroneous thoughts, but they can all be detected and excluded if the student is faithful in performing the office of porter. .

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"An impervious armor"

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