Science & Health ~ Mary Baker Eddy ~ Chapter 13 ~ Teaching Christian Science
Excerpts on Evil Identification & Actions to Take ~ S&H 443:1 to 453:05
Science & Health Chpt 13 ~ Teaching Christian Science Index
Mary B Eddy
1. Immortals, or God's children in divine Science, are one harmonious family; but mortals, or the "children of men" in material sense, are discordant and ofttimes false brethren. [SH 443:27-30]
2. Divine Energy
Christian Science silences human will, quiets fear with Truth and Love, and illustrates the unlabored motion of the divine energy in healing the sick. Self-seeking, envy, passion, pride, hatred, and revenge are cast out by the divine Mind which heals disease. The human will which maketh and worketh a lie, hiding the divine Principle of harmony, is destructive to health, and is the cause of disease rather than its cure. [SH 445:19-26]
3. Blight of Avarice
There is great danger in teaching Mind-healing indiscriminately, thus disregarding the morals of the student and caring only for the fees. Recalling Jefferson's words about slavery, "I tremble, when I remember that God is just," the author trembles whenever she sees a man, for the petty consideration of money, teaching his slight knowledge of Mind-power, — perhaps communicating his own bad morals, and in this way dealing pitilessly with a community unprepared for self-defenses.
[SH 445:27 to 446:4]
4. Wicked Evasions
A sinner is afraid to cast the first stone. He may say, as a subterfuge, that evil is unreal, but to know it, he must demonstrate his statement. To assume that there are no claims of evil and yet to indulge them, is a moral offence. Blindness and self-righteousness cling fast to iniquity. When the Publican's wail went out to the great heart of Love, it won his humble desire. Evil which obtains in the bodily senses, but which the heart condemns, has no foundation; but if evil is uncondemned, it is undenied and nurtured. Under such circumstances, to say that there is no evil, is an evil in itself. When needed tell the truth concerning the lie.
Evasion of Truth cripples integrity, and casts thee down from the pinnacle. [SH 447:30 to 448-11]
5. Truth's Grand Results
Christian Science rises above the evidence of the corporeal senses; but if you have not risen above sin your-self, do not congratulate yourself upon your blindness to evil or upon the good you know and do not. A dishonest position is far from Christianly scientific. "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." Try to leave on every student's mind the strong impress of divine Science, a high sense of the moral and spiritual qualifications requisite for healing, well knowing it to be impossible for error, evil, and hate to accomplish the grand results of Truth and Love. The reception or pursuit of instructions opposite to absolute Christian Science must always hinder scientific demonstration. [SH 448:12-25]
6. Weakness and Guilt
A mental state of self-condemnation and guilt or a faltering and doubting trust in Truth are unsuitable conditions for healing the sick. Such mental states indicate weakness instead of strength.
Hence the necessity of being right yourself in order to teach this Science of healing. You must utilize the moral might of Mind in order to walk over the waves of error and support your claims by demonstration. If you are yourself lost in the belief and fear of disease or sin, and if, knowing the remedy, you fail to use the energies of Mind in your own behalf, you can exercise little or no power for others' help.
"First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." [SH 455:3-16]