Page:Miscellaneous Writings.djvu/372

346 Life, not death, was and is the very centre of its faith. Christian Science carries this thought even higher, and insists on the demonstration of moral and spiritual healing as eminent proof that God is understood and illustrated.

The origin of evil is the problem of ages. It confronts each generation anew. It confronts Christian Science. The question is often asked, If God created only the good, whence comes the evil?

To this question Christian Science replies: Evil never did exist as an entity. It is but a belief that there is an opposite intelligence to God. This belief is a species of idolatry, and is not more true or real than that an image graven on wood or stone is God.

The mortal admission of the reality of evil perpetuates faith in evil; and the Scriptures declare that “to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are.” This leading, self-evident proposition of Christian Science, that, good being real, its opposite is necessarily unreal, needs to be grasped in all its divine requirements.

“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” It is a rule in Christian Science never to repeat error unless it becomes requisite to bring out Truth. Then lift the curtain, let in the light, and countermand