"Who is thine enemy?"

[Written Especially for Young People]

AILEEN E. WAVRO

Ralph had made the high school basketball team. He was very proud of this accomplishment, despite the fact that there were several other boys who felt they should have received the appointment.

In returning from a game one evening, in which he had played an important part, Ralph was pushed from the step of the streetcar, and in falling, his ankle turned under him. It seemed impossible to stand on the foot, so he hobbled over to the curb and sat down.

The boy knew who had pushed him from the step, but as he sat there thinking about it, he suddenly recalled the lesson of the previous Sunday at the Christian Science Sunday School. His teacher had spent almost the entire period explaining and stressing the importance of impersonalizing evil, of separating evil from the person, and then knowing and declaring its nothingness. She had told the pupils that evil has no power of its own, and that we ourselves give evil the only power it seems to have by attaching it to some personality. This had seemed rather difficult to understand at the time, but now, as he sat there on the curb, Ralph saw very clearly what his teacher had meant. He had done just that; he had attached jealousy and envy to two of the boys, thus giving power to these evils to push him around. "Why, it wasn't those two boys who pushed me from the step at all," he reasoned; "it was jealousy and envy! And what are they? Error. Nothing, absolutely nothing! And if nothing pushed me off the step, I guess I wasn't pushed!" So interested did he become at this point in his reasoning that he jumped up and had taken five or six steps before he realized that he was walking with no discomfort whatsoever.

Perhaps there is a lesson here in which we too may share. Are we attaching various forms of evil to persons, and allowing ourselves to be pushed around? In her inspiring article entitled "Love Your Enemies," on page 8 of "Miscellaneous Writings," Mrs. Eddy begins by asking us this pertinent question: "Who is thine enemy that thou shouldst love him? Is it a creature or a thing outside thine own creation?" In all truthfulness we must answer "No." In John we read, "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." In Genesis we are told, "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Having this divine authority, the student of Christian Science can be assured that there is nothing real outside of God, good, and that which expresses Him. Any other seeming presence is but false belief. It is this illusion which must be destroyed.

Perhaps nowhere is there a more forceful example of this than in the Bible account of Daniel's deliverance from the den of lions. When thrust into the den, Daniel did not find it necessary that the lions should be destroyed. Did he not, rather, cast out thoughts of bitterness, jealousy, hatred, malice—yes, thoughts of animality—from his own consciousness, thus rendering the lions harmless? The Bible narrative says, "So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he believed in his God." "No manner of hurt"! There was no resentment for having been placed there, no bitterness toward those responsible for his ordeal, no self-pity!

When next we are tempted to feel hurt because of unkindness, or perhaps unjust criticism, let us remember Daniel; for we will note that the reason no "manner of hurt was found upon him" is summed up in the few words "because he believed in his God." Daniel believed in God, believed that God was indeed good. He refused to give evil reality, power, or presence, by believing that it could operate through persons or creatures.

In proportion as we realize that there is nothing outside of God and His reflection, shall we be able to understand that marvelous statement on page 468 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all."

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