Chapter 23: “Alertness To Duty”

WHOSO READETH LET HIM UNDERSTAND - Chapter 23.

“ALERTNESS
TO
DUTY”
MARY BAKER EDDY

IN ORDER to progress, the Christian Scientist, must pray daily for deliverance from the hypnosis which makes him believe that it is chance instead of “direction by malicious minds that are at work,” producing all the various phases of discord and disease with which he is constantly confronted.
Nothing could be more pernicious than this argument of Satan, because if the Christian Scientist can be misled into dealing with the seen instead of the unseen, evil will continue its domination and control and the cause of Christian Science will seem to disappear. Did not true Christianity seem to become enmeshed by the same subtle influences?

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Evil cannot be destroyed unless recognized as the influence and result of evil appearing as “direction by malicious minds,” and cast out as such. When all evil is seen and understood as “direction by malicious minds” it is readily destroyed. To quote again Mrs. Eddy’s full statement, “If any honest Christian Scientist can be deceived into believing that it is chance, not direction by malicious minds which are at work,—that ignorance instead of sin is what he has to meet at all times,—this error prevents him from understanding enough of the question to insure his own defense, and leaves him in the power of animal magnetism,—perhaps temporarily relieved of his suffering, rejoicing in a hope of freedom which he afterwards finds to be in vain.”
Test this for yourself. But remember that the only way to destroy this insidious influence and direction is to see first the nothingness of the whole lie of malicious influence, and then feel in your heart that God is the one and only Mind and therefore His direction is the only direction and is your direction.
There can be no true love without this understanding that all evil appears as the operation of malicious minds. But be sure that you understand that this appearance is just the language of evil itself,—otherwise, evil must seem per-

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sonal and the so-called persons expressing it the devil. The devil you cannot love. So if you really desire to show forth God as Love by loving, you must see that the whole of sin, disease and death, including, of course, every sense of finiteness, all phases of malicious dispositions and characteristics, are the direct influence of malicious minds and have nothing to do with the person expressing them, except in so far as he is victimized into voicing them. Did not Jesus declare, “but whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire?” Why? Because that made evil personal and impossible to heal.
Watch unceasingly on this point, because this same secret influence will argue to you that it is not “direction by malicious minds” but just your own thinking that is at work. Evil must argue this way because, if you were convinced that all error is “direction by malicious minds,” evil’s day would be doomed.
Keep reminding yourself, that evil is not something “over there,” malicious mind or minds, for that is only as it seems. It is always right “here,” operating as your mind. It seems to be “over there,” because it is evil appearing as consciousness, and consciousness must have that whereby it is made known. You are not deceived for you know that evil is always one and always

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here. However numerous its appearances and regardless of where, you rejoice at its so-called multiplicity because that constantly declares the infinity of good that it negates.
Oh that pen could express the infinite importance of being alert! What a change would take place with the Christian Scientist! Apathy would vanish and confidence would reign, and finally evil would cease its arguments, having been reversed,—translated into its true language— good.
But just so long as a cancer is thought of as misplaced cells, tuberculosis as a diseased lung, diabetes as diseased pancreas, bad temper as an ugly disposition, a thief as an unprincipled scoundrel, a murderer as a vicious villain and so on, such conditions cannot be healed. They are never what they appear to be, but are always the result of “direction by malicious minds.”
The only remedy is to replace the belief of “direction by malicious minds” with the absolute realization that all direction is by divine Mind. You know you are never dealing with aught but Mind,—never with a thing. For as Science and Health declares “All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all.”
Unwillingness to accept this truth bars the door of your mind to beholding its inestimably

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beneficent power and leaves you at the mercy of the subtle influence of “direction by malicious minds.”
Why cling to evil’s argument? Arouse yourself and throw off the mesmerism that would hold you in ignorance of what is terrorizing you with its suggestions. Mesmerism has no power to harm you and cannot act as your mind if you are awake to its operations. But if you will not awaken and handle this evil you will dream on in the darkness of “chaos and old night.”
What could make an earnest Christian Scientist, one who for many years has faithfully striven to practise Christian Science, become dissatisfied with it or with his demonstration of it? What could cause him to be attracted by writers whose theories and ideas of Being are so unlike the exact statements made by Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health and her other writings, which he previously loved so deeply and found so helpful? It should be far more natural for him to hold tenaciously to that which he has proved to be true, in however slight a degree, than to be thus attracted. That is what he would do, were it not for the malicious arguments of the mental malpractitioners deliberately attempting to substitute their argument of unbelief and dissatisfaction for his natural inclination and confidence.

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It is wholly unnatural for a Christian Scientist, left to his own impulse, to turn from what he knows to be the truth of Being. Nothing but wilful and malicious interference could cause such a catastrophe. It is entirely the result of mischievous suggestion exercised for the sole purpose of harassing and distressing him, and finally putting out his light. The only remedy is to destroy the belief that there is malicious mind to operate as malicious mental malpractitioners influencing and controlling his thinking. This is his only help. He should use it at once.
If he does not apply this remedy his light will fail and finally be extinguished and he will be under the delusion that he no longer cares for Christian Science. But he knows he does care for Christian Science. He knows he loves Christian Science. He knows it is the one and only way to obtain heaven and harmony here and now and he will not allow any subtle suggestion, calling itself his mind to rob him of this knowing.
Mrs. Eddy lovingly admonishes in Science and Health, “Wait for your reward, and ‘be not weary in well doing.’ If your endeavors are beset by fearful odds, and you receive no present reward, go not back to error, nor become a sluggard in the race
“When the smoke of battle clears away, you

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will discern the good you have done, and receive according to your deserving. Love is not hasty to deliver us from temptation, for Love means that we shall be tried and purified.”
Pray to be delivered from a false sense of peace, which would lead you into handling that which has no real bearing on the case. The law of Christ or Christian Science opens our eyes to the fact that all error is malicious animal magnetism and every erroneous condition the specific result of “direction by malicious minds” and not one’s own thought.
Was it not to emphasize this that Mrs. Eddy felt it imperative to state in her Church Manual, under the significant heading of “Alertness to Duty,” that it was the duty of every Christian Scientist “to defend himself daily against aggressive mental suggestion, and not be made to forget nor to neglect his duty to God, to his Leader, and to mankind.” Notice the “daily.” Do you think Mrs. Eddy would have made that request unless this “defense” was of paramount importance? You know as metaphysicians that this is true and you also know that if you do not pray daily you will shipwreck your progress. It is not surprising that Mrs. Eddy should add, in the same connection, that by your works ye “shall be judged,—and justified or condemned.” Why? Because

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your works will show whether or not you are defending yourself against aggressive mental suggestion and destroying the “direction by malicious minds.”
One of the most insidious and aggressive forms of this “direction by malicious minds” comes as the pollution of the “air” by hourly and daily harangues and mental absurdities. Because radio has many uses, it has by the false sense of the law of reversal, many abuses.
Since radio is rarefied matter it is a nearer approximation to mentality, hence its hidden danger and the great need for carefully guarding against the subtlety of its use for suggestions, political, financial and religious. The Christian Scientist must think alone with God, and preserve the tablet of his mind “from every blemish free.”
There is only one way to counteract this constant effort of “malicious minds” to direct your every act and that is to be consciously directed by divine Mind every moment. To insure this continuous direction requires constant alertness and watchfulness,—never to deal with effect but always with cause.

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