Defence from every claim of evil lies in spiritual reflection of God, the one Mind. This cleanses human thought of the arrogance of personal merit and the discouraging belief in personal demerit. Spiritual reflection lifts one above submission to the suggestions of disease and of mental malpractice. "The Lord will create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defence."

The substantiality and purity of Jesus' consciousness presented an insuperable barrier to sin, disease, and death. He walked unsullied in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. In spite of what appeared to be an environment of dense materiality, he discerned and demonstrated his own individuality; and what he did we can do. "Walk as children of light" is the command which we must heed every step of our earthly way.

The defence of Christian Science is spiritual, scientific, adequate, and the Christian Scientist is responsible for its conscientious use. Mrs. Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," on pages 234 and 235, "Evil thoughts, lusts, and malicious purposes cannot go forth, like wandering pollen, from one human mind to another, finding unsuspected lodgment, if virtue and truth build a strong defence." Evil cannot penetrate the consciousness which reflects divine Love. Absolute good, inseparable from God, needs no defence, for good is infinite, and evil is not to be defended, but abandoned. Protection lies, then, in mentally repudiating evil suggestions in any form, and in accepting under all conditions only the true, pure thoughts of divine Mind. To believe that false thinking can overpower true thinking and its protection is to distrust the omnipotence of divine Principle. But as Truth uncovers and destroys this atheistic belief, the return to intelligent thinking means the return to scientific, spiritual defence.

Our Leader writes (Pulpit and Press, p. 2): "The real house in which 'we live, and move, and have our being' is Spirit, God, the eternal harmony of infinite Soul. The enemy we confront would overthrow this sublime fortress, and it behooves us to defend our heritage." And she goes on to explain the manner of defence. Our heritage is spiritual, utterly distinct from the dream of materiality, and no aggression from without finds entrance to our thought when there is no traitorous weakness within. To increase our obedience to divine Principle by acknowledging but one Life, one Mind, one lawmaker, decreases to the point of extinction our fear of falling into disease, sin, poverty, or failure of any kind. Sin is a claim of disbelief in God, good. Fear betrays superstitious doubt in the supremacy of good. But these assumptions of error do not enter the "sublime fortress" of true consciousness which the real man represents. To have the true sense of God is to have the true sense of everything in heaven and on earth, and this true sense is the true defence.

"Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." Those who profess to disbelieve in Deity will sooner or later find their feet slipping, and they will inevitably be drawn to the Rock, Christ, whereon there is no slipping. On the other hand, those who depend upon the power of divine Principle can here and now remain untouched by shafts of fear or animosity from within or without. So the scientific understanding of defence includes the art of self-defence.

Perhaps the most pretentious claim of mortal mind is human will. Self-will is self-enthroned, and it requires humility to dethrone it in human thought, for self-will asserts that without it the human race would be volitionless, doomed to failure. Christian Science shows us that the defence against both failure and the mistaken concept of success lies in laying down the human will for the divine, for thereby one is guided into the straight paths of "virtue and truth," wherein there is no stumbling. Every temptation should be met with Truth's rebuke, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Through spiritual obedience the vaporous shadows of rash impulse, ruthless ambition, headlong human will vanish, and the security of spiritual reflection appears in their place.

"My defence is of God, which saveth the upright in heart." The Christian Scientist's defence lies in conscious oneness with divine Love, which "thinketh no evil," for this oneness ensures mental uprightness. But until the general belief in an evil mind is exterminated by the full understanding of infinite Truth and Love, evil must be untiringly denied person, place, or thing through which to present its false evidence. Devious, dilatory thinking can be immediately exchanged for upright thinking, for true consciousness is omnipresent even as God is omnipresent. To know this unswervingly is to learn the way of dominion such as Christ Jesus demonstrated under all circumstances. Spiritual defence lies in a deeper understanding of Christian Science and a closer walk with God. Christ Jesus conveyed the secret of defence in his holy utterance, "I and my Father are one."

Violet Ker Seymer