Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/553

Rh enters into the arena, evil has no history; and it is brought into view only as the unreal, in contradistinction to the real and eternal.

This account is given, not of immortal man, but mortal, and of sin which is temporal. Both having a

beginning, must consequently have an end; while the sinless, real man is eternal. Eve's declaration, “I have gotten a man from the Lord,” supposes God to be the author of sin and sin's progeny. This false sense of existence is fratricidal. In the words of Jesus, it (the Devil) is “a murderer from the beginning.” Error begins by sapping the foundations of Immortality, by reckoning Life as separate from Spirit; as if they were something which matter can both give and take away.

What can be the standard of Good, of Spirit, of Life, or of Truth, if they produce their opposites, such as evil,

matter, error, and death! God could never impart an element of evil, and man possesses nothing which he has not derived from God. How then has man a basis for wrong-doing? Whence does he obtain the propensity or power to do evil? Has Spirit resigned to matter the government of the universe?

The Scriptures declare that God condemned this lie as to man's origin and character, by condemning its

symbol, the serpent, to grovel beneath all the beasts of the field. It is false to say that Truth and error commingle in creation. This falsity is exposed by our Master, in parable and argument, as