Article November 10, 1951 Issue

THE DISMISSAL OF ERROR

EMILY WOODING

"Jesus of Nazareth was the most scientific man that ever trod the globe." This statement concerning our Master is to be found on page 313 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. In studying different passages in this book and in other writings by the same author, we find that it is Christianly scientific to dismiss from thought sorrow, sin, sickness—all error—because they have no place in God's universe. God did not make them, for He made only that which is good. He does not send any of these errors to His children to try them, as has been mistakenly supposed, for the truth is that evil is not real.

How happy should we be to dismiss, to cease to remember, to regard as never having happened, the manifold troubles of mankind! Jesus, who was truly scientific in the treatment of disease and sin, did this. He is our Example; he commanded us to follow him, so it is right to use that method of healing now. Moreover, Mrs. Eddy gives very clear instruction on this point. She says (ibid., p. 390): "Suffer no claim of sin or of sickness to grow upon the thought. Dismiss it with an abiding conviction that it is illegitimate, because you know that God is no more the author of sickness than He is of sin."

To the woman taken in adultery and brought before him for judgment by her accusers, Jesus said (John 8:11), "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." Instead of punishing her, Jesus dismissed the sin as not belonging to her true selfhood as the reflection of God. He dismissed disease as unreal when he said to the leper desiring to be cleansed (Matt. 8:3), "Be thou clean." When he said to Jairus, referring to his daughter (Luke 8:52), "She is not dead, but sleepeth," he dismissed death as something that had never happened to her true selfhood. He calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee, because he knew that no such upheaval was taking place in his Father's kingdom, where his true being dwelt.