exion--that, as Mrs. Eddy openly states, _what seems "vice"
is to be explained as "illusions of the physical senses_." That is
precisely what every sinner would like to believe. "I have done that,
says my memory. I cannot have done that, says my pride, and remains
obdurate. In the end, my memory gives in." So wrote Nietzsche, keenly
and cynically observant of his kind. As a matter of fact, men would give
almost anything to be able to convince themselves that they "have not
done that"--not necessarily from pride, but in order to be rid of shame,
of remorse, of self-contempt; will not many of them only too eagerly
accept this fatal anodyne when it is offered to them in the pretended
name of religion?

We have but one comment to urge, one protest to make. It has taken long
ages to develop and heighten man's sensitiveness to {136} the distinction
between good and evil; we say with the most solemn emphasis that anything
calculated to dull that sensitiveness, to wipe out that distinction, to
drug the conscience, is nothing less than a crime of high treason against
humanity. Better call evil an unfathomable mystery, so long as we also
regard it as a dread reality, a foe we must conquer or be conquered by;
but to solve the problem by denying its existence, to get over the fact
of evil by declaring that all is good--that way not only madness but
moral disaster lies. Let us at least understand what this doctrine is,
which is being so energetically pressed upon us to-day; and if we see the
direction in which that ill-digested pseudo-revelation is likely to lead
those who consistently accept it, let us meet this insidious propaganda
with equal energy and better arguments. Our first and simplest duty in
dealing with the specious doctrine which asserts that evil is
"not-being"--a mere illusion which, like the idols spoken of by the
Apostle, is "nothing in the world"--is to point out promptly and
uncompromisingly that whatever such a reading of the facts may be, and
from whatever quarter it may be offered, it is not Christian, but at the
furthest remove from Christianity. Shall we be told that "the question
is not whether these opinions are dangerous, but whether they are true?"
We reply that we are well aware that truth is the highest expediency; but
we are not {137} acquainted with any other test of the truth of an
opinion save this--whether and how it works. If a speculative theory,
when carried into practice, should app