There is no actual impediment to victory in Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy declares why this is so. In two potent laws she stipulates the code of spiritual conquest: "Truth is always the victor." ^{Science and Health, p. 380;} "Error is a coward before Truth." ^{p. 368;}

What a mighty summons to action sounds through these words! Science proclaims the certitude of success, for the triumph is not a personal achievement. It is the result of applied spiritual power, the proof of God understood.

A man who was going through deep waters of fear called a Christian Science practitioner. In anguish he cried, "Oh, you don't know what I'm going through. I'm just going through hell." With vigor his helper replied, "That's no place to stop. Keep going."

There was a short silence. Then a ripple of amusement followed by a wave of laughter as the mesmerism burst. Quietly, then, the practitioner and patient shared some of the simple, profound truths to which we subscribe and cling in Science. The man was healed.

The solution cannot hang in the balance when the truth is discerned. Truth is true, and error is false. Because Truth is invincible, error is vincible: it can be conquered. Because Truth is inevitable, error is evitable: it does not need to happen. It can be ruled out as unreality, proved to be nothing.

What has been predicted as to any inharmonious condition of body or mind, business or home, individual or world, is of no real moment. Mortal mind predicts; Truth prophesies. Mortal mind foresees discord; Truth foretells harmony.

Nor does it matter what is retrospected of any erroneous condition. Its age does not make it real. Its tenure in human memory has not given it divine credence. The false belief is not even a reasonably exact facsimile of man, let alone his likeness. It can disappear in a trice under categorical Truth. The student of Science can say with dominion, "I dispatch you with the fact that there is only one Mind, that good alone is real."

The infinite meanings of such a declaration can never be challenged by an erg of genuine power, for it is as true and demonstrable as grace itself. Armed with invisible metaphysical weapons, we achieve visible results. This is why we can "during the battle the victory claim"; ^{Christian Science Hymnal, No. 204;} we have been vouchsafed unimpeachable power: the undefeatable fact that Truth is real and error unreal. And being unreal, error is scientifically nonexistent.

At the end of the term a schoolmaster strode to the blackboard. "Young gentlemen," he said, "you have nearly exhausted my patience on a certain point. I shall demonstrate." He chalked up a cipher. "That is zero." With an eraser he rubbed it out. "And that, sirs, is nothing."

When we understand in Science that error is unreal because it is not of God, who has created all, we have reduced error to zero. When we rub it out of thought as nonexistent, we have erased it from human consciousness, which thereafter knows it no more.

This is not an agonizing battle. It is the decisive handling of error with spiritual wisdom and understanding. We see through error with the truth. And we can prove that penetrative spiritual vision is accompanied by an unflagging perseverance that knows no defeat. We see through error, and then we see it through. We persist in Truth to behold its victory, for "Truth is always the victor."

Is this not patent as Christ Jesus stands before Pilate? The Roman questions him; the Master's replies are cogent. Never has he been more masterful. But then he is silent. When Pilate asks, "Whence art thou:" ^{John 19:9;} Christ Jesus gives him no answer.

The procurator is stung. "Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?"

Christ Jesus answers, "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above."

Is it not clear? He simply does not react to unreality. Being a witness to Truth he responds to reality. As to the error, he sees through it, sees its nothingness. He who has taught his followers to "resist not evil" ^{Matt. 5:39;} is applying his own teaching, but on his own terms. Does anyone believe that Christ Jesus ever submitted to evil? His whole human span was a victory over evil, the triumph of good as the only reality.

His disciple James said, "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." ^{James 4:7:} So we find the Master saying, "Resist not evil," while his disciple says, "Resist it." But in Christian Science we see how they mean the same thing: Resist not evil as reality; resist evil as unreality and it will flee from you.

Truth is resistless, in both meanings of the word. It is incapable of being resisted, which is to say that it is irresistible; and it offers no opposition because it knows no opposite. Mrs. Eddy writes, "The Principle of Christ is divine Love, resistless Life and Truth." ^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 149;}

Because man, in reality, is the full image and likeness of God, man is resistless to error. Awareness of this fact enables one to be a protestant of Truth, not a contestant with error. In Science the protest of Truth supplies the truly effective contest with error whereby we deny error as unreal because not of Truth.

The same certainty of triumph prevails in Science, regardless of how long one has struggled with a false belief. It is only a thing of time, behind us. The eternal Truth stretches endlessly before us in the panorama of Love divine.

Not only do we have a right to our victory; we have a solemn duty to claim it and win it. What challenges it save a mental lie suggested to mortal mentality by animal magnetism? Yet the conqueror of the animal is the spiritual, and the master of magnetism is reflection. Always spiritual reflection subjugates and exterminates animal magnetism. The Scientist who puts his advancing knowledge of God's law into action is destined to win and will win. His spiritual victory is simply his obedience to the will of God, and this will decrees man to be whole, sound, and intact, innately endued with virtue.

Often does Mrs. Eddy remind us of Paul's words, "In him we live, and move, and have our being." ^{Acts 17:28.} Daily we may relate this to God's kingdom and power and glory. This is why victory is ours in Science: because as Truth's expression we live in the kingdom of spiritual ideas, we move by the power of spiritual laws, we have our being in the glory of spiritual understanding. And "Truth is always the victor," for the power of God is supreme, and the dominion of man proves this supremacy once it is understood.