Article December 10, 1949 Issue

"GET THEE BEHIND ME"

DOROTHY PRICE

An entertaining anecdote is told of a Sunday School teacher who rebuked the mischievousness of a little fellow in her class. "Tommy," she concluded, "when error tempts you to disturb the others, turn upon it right away and declare, 'Get thee behind me, Satan.'" The lad was visibly impressed and manfully strove to be obedient. Occasionally he was heard to murmur: "Get thee behind me, Satan. Get thee behind me, Satan." Finally, after a brief interval of quiet, the lad glanced over his shoulder and remarked roguishly, "Satan, what did you say?"

Do we sometimes turn, even though briefly, to hear what mortal mind says or to observe how the apparent problem is responding to treatment? The remedy for error lies not in the material thinking which produces error, but in the spiritual understanding which effaces it. Material thinking is the nest of evil. Spiritual understanding abides serenely and securely "in the secret place of the most High."

Whatever form it assumes, error, or evil, is always the aggressive mental suggestion of the supposititious carnal mind. The way to treat error is to handle it as such and to refuse to give it reality or locality, hour or power, because God, infinite Spirit, omnipotent Mind, and His infinite, spiritual, perfect ideas constitute all reality and law. Error must be dismissed instantly and decisively with the rebuke of Truth that says to the illusion of error, "You are nothing; God is All." Mary Baker Eddy makes this clear in "Miscellaneous Writings," where she says (p. 332), "The supposition is, that God and His idea are not all-power; that there is something besides Him." Then a few lines farther on she adds (p. 333), "God cannot be obscured, and this renders error a palpable falsity, yea, nothingness."

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