Los Angeles herald., 1910-01-09
OVERCOME EVIL
WITH GOOD IS
NEW TEACHING
AIM OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TO
EXALT MIND
KNOWLEDGE OF MATTER is NOT
PASSPORT TO HEAVEN
Way to Higher Things Is Purely Men,
tai, and Overcoming of Ma
terial Beliefs Is One
Essential

An early Christian writer has de
fined baptism as IAN escape from mat
ter This is in full accord with tht
Christian Science view of baptism
"Puriication by Spirit; submergenct
in Spirit" (Science and Health, p. 5S1)
Sooner or later the time comes wher
every child of earth must seek to es-
cape from a seeming material environ
ment, not through the belief of death
but through the gateway of purity ano
righteousness. He has perhaps read
of the vision of the new heavens and
new earth that came to the inspired
apostle while he was still on earth
but he had never thought of any sim
liar experience as a necessary STEP
ping-stone in his own progress heaven
ward.
Finally it is made clear to him that
a knowledge of matter is not the
Christians passport into heaven. Then
he begins to see that the problem con-
fronting him is how to escape from
materiality and to gain spirituality.
Step by step will he be led to the great
Teacher of Christianity, to find in him
''the way, the truth and the life" He
learns that "the way" is wholly men
tai, consequently that every step Spir-
itward involves the overcoming of
some material belief, theory or opin-
ion. He finds for the first time that
his belief in a finite or material sense
of existence is all that obscures the
heavenly vision and he begins to
emerge from the mystifying beliefs of
earth into a conscious recognition of
spiritual reality. His human sense of
the universe and man is changing, be-
coming less material and more spirit
ual.
Thought is looking more away from
matter and into Mind. the only reality
of being. 1t is becoming less and less
theoretical and more and more prac-
tical. 1t is gaining the conquest over
the belief in matter. These advancing
steps toward the goal of spiritual per-
fection do not indicate war between
two contending powers, as some might
infer; instead, it is the awakening
from a dream sense to find that the
issues of life were never in nor of mat
ter, and that God or good is the
creator of all things that really exist,
that He is the only power, presence
and reality.
Merely to believe this great truth
does not suffice to arouse human
thought from the mesmeric conscious
ness of life in matter; 1t requires some
thing higher than faith, to wit,
spiritual understanding, to bring forth
the works of healing performed by
Jesus and his disciples. The Christian
world seems slow to grasp this fact,
and is trying in almost every conceiV
able way to hold to the human mind
as an essential factor in healing. There
is no warrant in Bible teaching for
any such attempt. Jesus, the great ex-
ponent of God, declared that he could
do nothing of himself.
a very significant fact, .corroborative
of the nothingness of the claim of any
intelligence or power separate and
apart from the one Mind, is the atti-
tude Of the Master when informed by
his disciples of the beheading of John
the Baptist. "Come ye yourselves
apart into desert place and rest a
while, he said to his disciples. No
sooner had they departed than we find
the .sKnultitudes thrOnging him, and he
"s1ake unto them of the kingdom of
Cpd. and healed them that had neeu
81 healing" The student Of Christian
Science who has learned to escape
from the thraldom OF the material
senses and to give all power. honor
and glory to tine one Mind, viii have
numerous calls for healing, and the
power Of God will be present to heal
them This is already the experience
OF many Christian Science practition-
ers in various parts of the civilized
world.
No greater Christianizing influence
than the Christ-heaiing could possibly
be conceived Of in bringing about hu-
manity's escape from matter. The va
rious human systems which give power
to human thought and make healing
dependent upon materially are not
emancipating the human race from
the slavery of false beliefs. They can
not cling to matter and at the same
time let go of it. Jesus made it very
plain to his followers that no man can
serve two masters" Every human
system is unconsciously attempting to
do this very thing under the false as
sumption that God confers His bless
ing upon every available material
means. This is equivalent to saying
that God, good, upholds evil and
blesses men for doing wrong. If this
is not positive denial of Christ Jesus
and his spiritual teachings, what is?
The one supreme aim of the great
teacher was to exalt Mind and to de-
throne matter, by demonstrating to
humanity the practical availability of
spirit to meet every human necessity
and emergency He claimed that his
humanity of itself could do nothing
he nelIner employed nor advocated the
use of material means. His healing
afforded a practical means of escape
from matter, from suggestion, hypno-
tism and human will power. There
is no shorter route, no easier way,
known to humanity today.
Through Christian Science one can
learn to overcome evil with good
and so prove that omnipotent good is
all that is required to heal sickness
and to destroy sin. He will begin by
rejecting the belief of all supposed
pleasure or pain in matter, and by re-
fusing to acknowledge that matter
has intelligence or power to create,
bless or harm. The constant exercise
of right thought along this line, ac-
companied by sincerity, honesty and
self-abnegation, will reveal the bap-
tism of spirit in which matter plays
no part, but God, the one infinite
Mind, is acknowledged to be All-in-
All There is no other way of escape
from the belief in matter-Christiar
Science Monitor.