The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-11-07
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
 OUTLINED BY NOTED ! SPEAKER AT LYRIC
Frank Bell, First Church, BOS. ton, Lecturer EntertainS
 Audience

Audience
 Frank Bell, the noted lecturer on Christian Science, member of the Board of Lectureship of the Mother Church, the First Church of Christ Scientist, in Boston, Mass, addressed an audience at the Lyric theatre Sun- day afternoon. In the discourse which interestingly discussed the var lous phases of interest, the speaker said:
 It is the mission of Christian Sci ence to bring to light the fact that mans true selfhood is not separated from the intelligence that makes and governs all Manifestly working knowledge of divine law involves and requires @ correct understanding of the nature and qualities of the cause or source of all things, the infinite 1n- telligence or divine Mind, which Is God In the light of Christian Science man begins to acquaint himself with his Maker by processes as satisfying to his reason as those by which the mathematician is assured of the basic clements of the science of numbers.
 Christian Science makes it clear that there Is a God, and that the Scriptural statements with regard to Him are correct, namely, that He is the one and only creator, having made all that was made; that His creation was and is spiritual and perfect and good; and that infinite Spirit is neces- sarily omnipotent, omnipresent, om- niscient; that is, the only power every where present, supreme intelligence. In I John it is stated that God is love-" and Mrs. Eddy, on page 40 of Science and Health says, ''The Christian Science God is universal, eternal, divine Love, which changeth not and causeth no evil, disease, nor death"
 It is needless perhaps to add that those to whom this definition of God is appreciable do not think of Him as in the nature of magnified human being with a material form, occupying a great throne in the sky and dealing with His children in a manner that would be considered reprehensible even in human parent, bestowing rewards on certain favored ones and punishing others for doing things He is supposed to have made them cap able of doing Christian Scientists learn to question the accuracy of any description of God that does not con- form, to the highest standards of jus tice, mercy and love, to say nothing ofA intelligence. Therefore they are not expected to believe that God created evil or uses evil to accomplish good, or that He could pvt into the heart of man the capacity to yield to sinful temptation and then eternal 1y torture man for succumbing to a God-bestowed tendency, or that an infinitely good God ever did or could destroy any of His children or even make them sick.
 Surely evil must be accounted for in a manner entirely in accord with mans natural desire to acquit infinite Intelligence of having committed a blunder that would be inekcusable event on the part of a human mind, namely, of having established a uni- verse and then deliberately put into that universe the/ /elements of self destruction.
 Disposing of Negation
 And now since it is obvious that an intelligent and goo0 God could not have made evil, and that to attribute to evil any other positive or actual source is equivalent to contending for the impossible theory of there being more than one primal cause or cre- ator, our conclusion necessarily is this: that evil is not an entity at all, but a negation. This thought may be illus trated in a simple way. Ignorance is one of the most pronounced types of evil. A very considerable proportion of human endeavor is directed to the overcoming of ignorance. Thousands of schools and colleges, hundreds of thousands of, teachers, tha tremen- dous modern printing, publishing and distribution, are devoted largely to this service. The profession of the educator is honored among men, and rightly so, and the business of educa- tion is supported by untold wealth of public and private funds. And all this vast expenditure of talent and time and treasure is directed against what ? Against ignorance, nothingness.
 Would the educator succeed if he were to regard that against which he contends as a positive thing, with a real source and an actual presence and power?' Is there a school anywhere whose curriculum includes a course of instruction in the origin and elements of ignorance? Though, all educational effort is exerted to the overcoming of ignorance, such effort is based on full recognition of the fact that ignorance Is not of itself anything, but merely the lack of something, and that the one practical way to dispose of lack Is by the positive process of supplying the needful thing.
 We are all familiar with the effects of ignorance on it's victims, the ham, pering and demoralizing influences at- tributed to it in the conduct and af- fairs of those about us. Therefore can we truly say we are unable to com prehend the idea of a merely negative evil which yet needs to be positively and vigorously handled and over- come?
 We find ourselves now, therefore, In the presence of two facts of the ut most practical value to each and all of us, namely, that every quality of every element of good is positive, and that every quality of every phrase of evil is negative. Good only is the presence of something; evil always is the absence of something. You do not need to accept this theory If you will take this simple rule and apply t}as best you can to your daily prob 1ems, you will be agreeably surprised, l am sure, at the change that shall come over you and your affairs
 Sickness Not to Be Ignored
 Sickness is a phase of evil and therefore needs to be considered from fbo cfa of ouipc aSsontioJ Yooo