Protection

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE has come to this age teaching how to demonstrate the omnipotence of God, good, and the impotence and unreality of evil. Christian Science is a revelation; and the understanding of it furnishes complete protection from all evil. By the clear light which Christian Science throws upon the Scriptures and upon human experience, mortals can gain an understanding of the truth of being, which includes all reality, and of the unreality of evil. And this spiritual understanding is the perception of the scientific fact that “the Lord he is God; there is none else beside him.”

When we speak of protection, we do not imply the actual existence of some harmful thing to be guarded against. The realization of absolute protection involves the understanding of God and of His true likeness, spiritual man; and this includes the understanding that there is no reality to matter. Mortals entertain a material sense of existence, which is accompanied by a sense of fear, and so feel the need of protection. But God dwells forever in the light which no shadow of evil ever penetrates. Likewise, the child of God, in the clear realization of his true spiritual selfhood, knows that no harm can come to him, because his dwelling place is forever in Spirit, where evil or matter is unknown.

To accept this truth theoretically may be far from proving it practically. Until we shall have demonstrated entirely out of the beliefs of material sense, we may experience trials and temptations, even while we are proving, through progressive steps, the absolute truth of the Scriptural statement quoted above.

There have been many through the ages who have habitually lived so near to God that they have realized in large measure His protection; but the scientific basis for proving man’s perfect dominion, namely, the fact of the allness of good and the unreality of evil, and the rules for demonstrating this truth, are for the first time fully revealed to human comprehension in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.

Mrs. Eddy has pointed out that one of the things mortals need to gain in making the demonstration of man’s dominion over error, is a knowledge of the ways and methods of evil—how it is that the lie seems to prevail. She has written,”A knowledge of error and of its operations must precede that understanding of Truth which destroys error” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 252). Not to be able to discern the seeming modes of evil is to be liable to be deceived by evil, that is, to accept the lie as true; and this would be to fall far short of proving its unreality. Having gained a knowledge of the nature of so-called evil and its methods, and having learned how so-called matter cooperates with evil, we must deny the falsely apparent while knowing the real. In other words, it is necessary to see spiritually instead of materially, at all times.

It is clear from many of the Bible narratives that some of the prophets of old were men who had spiritual vision to a remarkable degree. The story of Elisha illustrates to a considerable extent the teachings of our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy. Through his close walk with God, indicated by his remarkable works of increasing the supply of the widow’s oil, raising from the dead the Shunammite’s son, and healing Naaman, Elisha readily discerned the designs of evil, and was able to frustrate them. And when this uncovering brought against him the threatening manifestations of evil, in his being encompassed by the hosts of the king of Syria, not accepting the testimony of the material senses, Elisha was fearless because of his clear spiritual vision. But his servant, whose vision was more material, was alarmed at what appeared to his material sight. Whereupon “Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” How insignificant to Elisha were the hosts of Syria, when he saw that the mountain was full of the forces of God marshaled for his defense! Accompanying this spiritual vision was the wisdom and power to demonstrate full protection.

Besides discerning the modes and operations of evil, and learning that true vision is above and beyond the material sense of sight, it remains for us to crown all by consciously abiding in the truth, that we may not be found off guard by error. In all these things Christ Jesus is our great Exemplar. He met and fully uncovered all the claims of evil; having spiritual vision, he judged nothing by the appearance; and he knew the need of abiding “under the shadow of the Almighty.”

From the New Testament narratives we learn that Jesus gained the realization of conscious abiding in God through frequent meditation and prayer, and this protected him from evil. It is written that when the evilly-minded were bent on doing him bodily injury, “Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.” Later, in the garden of Gethsemane, surrounded by those who had come to take him, Jesus said fearlessly, “Whom seek ye?” When they answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth,” he said to them, “I am he.” And we read: “As soon then as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward, and fell to the ground,” proving the impotence of error in the presence of the understanding of Truth. It is true that the enemies of Jesus later crucified him; but this was through a voluntary surrender on his part, in order that he might teach mankind the lesson of the immortality of Life which he could teach in no other way.

The knowledge of Christian Science is greatly needed in these latter days; and this fuller revelation has come in God’s good time. Human society is to-day sufficiently well organized and policed to prevent in large degree the carrying out of grosser forms of trespass. Therefore mortal mind, which still claims to be capable of all evil, cowardly endeavors to use “slanderous falsehoods, and a secret mind-method, through which to effect the purposes of envy and malice” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 277). But if the methods of evil are to-day more subtle, being less evident to outward human sight, there has been given through the revelation of Christian Science the added wisdom and power needed to nullify completely these secret machinations.

There is thus every encouragement to-day for honest men and women everywhere to stand fearlessly for the right; for it was never so clearly revealed that all power is of God, and that every false claim of evil, whether ignorant or malicious, is nothing. The declaration of the Apostle John, “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world,” never carried so much assurance to the sincere Christian as it does to-day; for its significance is greater than ever before in the light of Christian Science.