Page:The Origin of Christian Science.djvu/224

216 have no place in God;” “Adam's desire for earthly things was evil from our standpoint, but not from God's.” Then it was not really evil.

The same doctrine is proclaimed as to pain and sickness. Since they arise from matter or are a material or imperfect sense of things the very idea of them should be banished from the mind. This is the reason Mrs. Eddy would have us stifle all sympathy. She has a form of consistency. She will ride in the Neoplatonic chariot though it dash over into the abyss. Did Christian Scientists take this doctrine seriously they would become both inhuman and immoral. We may thank God that he has so made men and women that among the many wheels there may be in their heads there is generally there also a balance wheel, so that the whole machinery is not smashed to pieces. This balance wheel is a native practical judgment that affirms the reality of wrong doing and the reality of the penalty that must follow it. It is the voice of conscience that all the sophistry of all the ages cannot wholly muffle. But it must be acknowledged that not all Mrs. Eddy's disciples are free from the cruelty that her cult would inculcate.

We have done with the first part of this chapter, namely, the nature of evil or vice; and we turn now to consider the subject of virtue.