Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1907-12-08
"EVIL is NOT POWER
SCIENCE AND HEALTH
Christian Sciece:Pa per Re-
plies to Arena.
christian Science SentineD

An article in the October Arena
has unwittingly exploited the sup
posed power of evil, so-called, and
has conceded to this self-asserted
and seIf-asserting phenomenon of
mortal mind a place in human ex-
perience which it could not occupy
without dethroning Cod good, and
robbing Him of His Place as the one
supreme infinite Mind who governs
and guides the universe to His will
and pleasure, which will and pleas
ure must of necessity be in accord
with His own divine nature.
The belief of power in evil is a
belief in the power to harm yourself
and to harm others, to lie, to steal,
to murder, to break all the command
ments of God. That this belief should
prevail is possible only because the
truth of being is not clearly under
stood That it is a mistaken belief
is easily seen from its own contra
dictory character. Jesus said, "a
good tree cannot bring forth evil
fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring
forth good fruit" and if we start
with the admitted fact that God is
omnipotent, that He is infinite good,
we can never admit that there is
power opposed to Him and to His
nature. That evil is real or has pow
er is an unthinkable proposition I'M
less we absolutely deny the ininitude
of God, good. No form of evil can do
the work of Truth, or have power or
entity; evil can do nothing but des-
troy itself. If evil with it's train of
sin, sickness, and death could have
power, God, good would be dethroned
would not be omnipotent. Such
proposition must be rejected by every
Christian by every monotheist. Evil
is no more real because it seems to
be real, than a wicked or a painful
dream in sleep is real.
But the individual who attempts
mentally or physically to produce
the belief of sin, disease, or death, is
guilty of the attempt to commit
murder, and Mrs. Eddy says
scientifically and prophetically
that at no distant day
the mental assassin will b.
punished legally as certainly as the
man or woman who sends a bullet
into mans heart. Today even the
mental assassin is punished morally,
for no one can desire to commit muir
der without mourning the penalty
named in the Scripture, Eye know
that no murderer hath eternal life
abiding in him." in other words,
that the criminal can experience no
harmony unless he repents and re-
forms In Divine Science Life is
God is infinite, all; but to the per-
sonal senses the belief of death is
as real as the fact of life, hence the
belief that says, 81 can kill a man
mentally and not suffer for it" may
be father to the thought of commit
ting the crime of trying to kill man,
since as a man "thinketh in his heart,
so is he"
Christian Science combats the false
belief of power in evil, and frees
mankind from the effects of this de-
fusion. Its leading postulates are
that God is the only power, that evil
is not power. The perverted beliefs
which find their foundation is the sup
posed reality of matter and goddess
ness do disappear when the truth of
being is understood. Mrs. Eddy writes
in Science and Health, page 1856,
Evil is a negation because 1t is the
absence of truth. 1t is nothing, be-
cause it is the absence of some
thing. 1t is unreal, because it pre-
supposes the absence of the omnipo-
tent and omnipresent Cod Mortals