St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1914-10-14

sin, he no longer turns to it for
pleasure or fees from it in fear.
This understanding Of the unreality
of evil is attainable only as we gain
an understanding of God as the on
ly reality.
Is Sickness Real?
Omnipresent God, il it means any
thing, means that God is everywhere,
that he fills all space, and that there
is no place where He is not. 1t fol-
lows inevitably that evil, which from
its very nature cannot be a part of
God nor partake of His being, can
lind no Judgement nor foothold any
where and therefore cannot exist.
Yet to most protesting Christians
outside the ranks of Christian Sci
ence, evil, the opposite of good, is
as real, actual, powerful, and ever
present as good itself. Naturally
they ask, "'How are we otherwise to
account for the presence of the sick
ness, pain, and other forms of evil
which enter so largely into human
-experfence?"
Now if l were to say to you that
these evil things do not actually ex-
ist-that they only seem to-there
would be some in this audience of in
telligent people who would emphat-
ically protest, as many of us have
done at one time or another. "That
is all nonsense. You needn't tell me
that when my head aches l only
think it does. / know better for
feel it, and what feel 1 know, and
no argument of Christian Science
will convince me differently
Right here enters one of the most
common misconceptions about the
teachings of Christian Science con-
corning the unreality of disease and
the like. Christian Science fully
agrees with the sufferer that pain
seems to be about the most real and
actual thing in all of human expert
ence, but it makes a most decided
distinction between what seems to be
and what is. Christian Science takes
the high ground that if God is omni-
present, if He is everywhere, then
there is no place for pain to be, and
therefore it is not an eternal reality.
Men believe that sickness is as real
as health, because they see it and
feel it; they believe that evil is as
real as good because they see its eff
fects and feel it's hold upon them.
another remarkable thing.
1t says to the beginner you are to
look above and beyond what you see
and feel if you would know what
things are real and what things only
seem to be. In other words you are
asked to deny much of what the sens
es tell you about the body.
At first thought this may appear
to be a difficult thing to do and an
unreasonable thing to ask, for the
senses Of seeing, feeling and the like
are useful servants that at present
you would find it difficult to do with
out. But you do not hesitate to deny
much of what they tell you about
many other things. For example you
may spend an hour or two at the per-
Torrance of some skilled magician
witnessing an exhibition of sleight-
of-hand that is very deceiving and
come away knowing that the things
you saw were not at all what they
seemed to be and what your senses
told you they were. If you did not
know better you would have been
deceived by each feat that you wit
messed. Other familiar instances
of sense deception might be cited,
but this perhaps will suffice.
Now then is it to be thought a
strange thing if Christian Science
calls upon you to challenge the testi-
mony of these same senses when they
tell you evil things about your body?
If they are capable of misleading you
in one instance, may they not be do
ing it in another?
They may generally serve you well,
but they also serve you ill when you
fI.0
vital things of life. Did you ever
consider that all you know of pain
and sickness and want and misery
and suffering and the like, you have
learned through what these senses
have told you? And that they have
never told you a single thing about
God, or Spirit, or Mind or Truth?
Why then should you hesitate to
challenge their testimony when they
are arguing continually against the
and omnipresence of
God, against the very existence of
eternal Truth?
Granting then that the beginner
may see the reasonableness of this
position, we may hear him ask, How
will my rejecting the evidence of the
senses about the body aid me in get
ting we'll? Suppose 1 do know that |
am being deceived, how is that go
ing to help me?"
A necessary step towards getting
free from the influence of any kind
of a deception is to know the truth
about it. A lie that is believed is as
tangible as the truth itself, but when
you know it is a lie you are free from
it's control.
Jesus proved in his ministry on
earth, and Christian Science is today
that proof, that just in