Arizona republican., 1917-10-22
The Destruction of Error
(The Christian Science Monitor)

(The Christian Science Monitor)
 A most significant passage occurs on page 233 of Science and Health, where Mrs. Eddy writes: "Ye who can discern the face of the sky-the sign material-how much more should ye discern the sign mental, and com pass the destruction of sin and sickness by overcoming the thoughts which pro- duce them" In these words the Dis coverer of Christian Science dissects the human position. The human mind with all it's material beliefs has to be recognized as embodying only the counterfeit material symbol; and these beliefs must be replaced by the spirit ual idea in order that sin and disease may be destroyed
 Error as Christian Science invari ably uses the term, is all false belief winch holds sway in human conscious ness and denies the omnipotence of good Error is recognized to be untrue as Truth itself is known. And what is Truth? Truth is God, divine Mind, the one supreme and only real con sciousness What distinguishes Chris tian Science from every other system of thought is the fact that it holds the truth, the absolute truth, about God before mankind, never for one moment seeking to detract from all that the absolute truth implies. In Christian Science there is no cOmpro- missing with the truth, no desire to modify it to suit the vagaries of the human mind. The nature of God is stated therein in explicit terms; and men have to reason accurately there from to ascertain exactly where they stand Instead of existence seeming to be a heterogeneous mass Of liiogl- cal inconsistencies, constantly produc- ing the occasion for a gamble with the blind forces of so-called chance, Chris tian Science shows that real existence is the expression of perfect Mind and of a perfectly balanced universe em- bracing all spiritual ideas. Beholding perfect Mind as a complete unity through Christian Science, a man is enabled to look over the mist of mate rial sensuousness, seeing it, as it were, below him as false mentality, quite apart from spiritual being, which IS the expression of God.
 The destruction of error, then, can not be looked at as positive mental activity at all; rather is the destruc- tion of error the effect which follows upon the positive understanding of Truth Error is a negatiOn, the ab- sence, in belief, of something real. Suppose a man to be believing as firmly as he can that material force is being directed against him to bring about his destruction; what may hap pen? Very likely that which he so greatly fears he may be struck at and injured. even to the eXtremest point. But what does the situation reveal? A case where the facts of spiritual being have been, for the time being, lost sight of Where is the truth about God to the man? Has divine Mind, which is necessarily omnipresent, withdrawn itself from him with it's in finite spiritual power to protect each and all of its spiritual ideas, leaving the field to the destructive forces of matter? Not at all It is impossible for Spirit to be other than present everywhere. The power of Spirit is the one certain thing that is present; and this spiritual power cannot be de- pleted and never fails to act.
 But the credulous> human mind edu- cated all along its little finite life to believe in the reality of matter and material law or material force, shuts itself out in belief with almost incredi ble pertinacity from the divine facts, and brings upon itself every woe which human beings experience. Well does John, the beloved, state the temporary nature of all material belief: For all that is in the world he says, "the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever
 The will of God endures for ever! And that will is operative to bless mankind at every moment. even in the midst of the earthquake, the whirl wind, the pestilence. or the gale, as well as on the battlefield. How could it be otherwise? Has God become less than infinite? Has spiritual power lost it's infinite might? Error fails to reach a man in the exact degree in which he is understanding the omni- presence of God, as good. Let him know the allness of Spirit, and there fore the fact that man is spiritual
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