Final Limits of Error

ETHEL COLWELL SMITH

The Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and the other writings of Mrs. Eddy are replete with sentences containing truths which are continually bringing healing to students of Christian Science. As we study faithfully and diligently, these sentences become illumined to the waiting thought; and the awakened understanding brings peace and salvation. Every student has had this experience with such sentences; and each time he finds himself a step nearer the goal set for us by Christ Jesus, and his heart is filled with gratitude to our revered Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, for the revelation of Christian Science. One such sentence is to be found on page 476 of Science and Health. It is short and concise, but so full of healing as to be worth the attention of everyone: "Error, urged to its final limits, is self-destroyed." How many times the personal element enters into our daily problems of dealing with error, and human sense becomes weary with its efforts to destroy something! We often feel as if error were a tangible thing with which we must wrestle, or against which we must make long and forceful arguments. Becoming involved in these arguments, we seem helpless and discouraged, because we believe we are contending with something which may prove too much for us. But let us look at the wonderful sentence, "Error, urged to its final limits, is self-destroyed." Error "self-destroyed"! We do not have to destroy anything, then; error destroys itself. What a relief!

But there is something for us to do, for "error, urged to its final limits, is self-destroyed." Our part, then, is to urge error "to its final limits." But the question arises, What are the final limits of error? Surely the final limits of error must be entirely outside of the consciousness of good. And when our consciousness is completely filled with the truth about God and man, His image, error is not to be found therein. In proportion, then, as we see God and man aright, thus taking our neighbor into the kingdom of God along with us, to that extent does error recede from us.

So with the strain removed, the strain of having to destroy an adversary, the urging of error to its final limits becomes a simple process. It becomes a process of bringing into thought gratitude, love, confidence, with the result that resentment, hate, and fear are removed from our experience. We realize with humility that all these loving thoughts crowd error out of our consciousness, whereupon error disappears, not because we destroyed it, but because, being unreal, it vanished when we replaced it with Truth and thus ceased to cherish it or fear it as real.

Mental work, as known in Christian Science, has been rightly named because the persistent effort required to think in obedience to the teachings of Christian Science certainly is work, even to those who have become accustomed to watching their thoughts. Some problems seem to need more continuous and faithful effort than others, because we are more afraid of some things than we are of others. Those errors which we resent or hate sometimes seem to cling until we realize that it is the resentment and hate which we must dismiss, and not a bodily disorder. So the mental work of daily and hourly living as Love directs, striving to keep our thinking intelligent and spiritual, striving to know the unreality of error, is the urging of error to its final limit—outside of true consciousness, where it is self-destroyed.

The illustration of the camp fire may be helpful. In a camp in the vicinity of which wild animals may be prowling, an open fire is kept burning brightly. The larger the fire the brighter the light, and consequently the greater the distance the curious night prowlers keep from the fire, which they are afraid may be destructive to them. The sleepy wilderness dweller who lets his fire burn low may awaken frightened by the dark shadows and the nearness of the approaching beasts. It is like this in daily living. Perhaps we have not sufficiently watched the thoughts of our hearts or the words of our mouths. Perhaps error is so close that we feel its hot breath on our cheek. But error, like the beasts, is afraid of light; so we need to replenish our fire with the logs of unselfishness, temperance, loving-kindness. Perhaps our fire has been neglected and has burned nearly out. It may require much patient and painstaking effort to rekindle it sufficiently to make a circle of light about us.

But even when the night seems long and stormy the light may be kept bright until the morning brings salvation. John tells us that "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." How wonderful to be in a circle of light that knows no boundary; for God is unlimited in any direction! How wonderful to know that the final limits of error are outside infinite Truth! And by reason of this, error is destroyed for ourselves, and all the world is benefited thereby. For in this infinite circle of light there can be no shadow to disturb any idea of God. No one can really know the truth and benefit himself alone. On page 496 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy speaks of Love as "underlying, overlying, and encompassing all true being." Thus it is that our struggle with error gradually ceases to be a struggle—it rather becomes a knowing, as we joyously acknowledge the allness of God; for "error, urged to its final limits, is self-destroyed."

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