The evil-doer can do little at removing the effect of sin on himself, unless he believes that sin has produced the effect and knows he is a sinner: or, knowing that he is a sinner, if he denies it, the good effect is lost. Either of these states of mind will stultify the power to heal men- [15] tally. This accounts for many helpless mental practi- tioners and mysterious diseases. Again: If error is the cause of disease, Truth being the cure, denial of this fact in one instance and acknowledgment of it in another saps one’s under- [20] standing of the Science of Mind-healing, Such denial dethrones demonstration, baffles the student of Mind- healing, and divorces his work from Science. Such de- nial also contradicts the doctrine that we must mentally struggle against both evil and disease, and is like saying [25] that five times ten are fifty while ten times five are not fifty; as if the multiplication of the same two numbers would not yield the same product whichever might serve as the multiplicand. Who would tell another of a crime that he himself is [30] committing, or call public attention to that crime? The belief in evil and in the process of evil, holds the issues [Page 222.] of death to the evil-doer. It takes away a man’s proper [1] sense of good, and gives him a false sense of both evil and good. It inflames envy, passion, evil-speaking, and strife. It reverses Christian Science in all things. It causes the victim to believe that he is advancing while [5] injuring himself and others. This state of false conscious- ness in many cases causes the victim great physical suffering; and conviction of his wrong state of feeling reforms him, and so heals him: or, failing of conviction and re- form, he becomes morally paralyzed—in other words, [10] a moral idiot. In this state of misled consciousness, one is ready to listen complacently to audible falsehoods that once he would have resisted and loathed; and this, because the false seems true. The malicious mental argument and [15] its action on the mind of the perpetrator, is fatal, morally and physically. From the effects of mental malpractice the subject scarcely awakes in time, and must suffer its full penalty after death. This sin against divine Science is cancelled only through human agony: the measure it [20] has meted must be remeasured to it. The crimes committed under this new _régime_ of mind- power, when brought to light, will make stout hearts quail. Its mystery protects it now, for it is not yet known. Error is more abstract than Truth. Even the healing Principle, [25] whose power seems inexplicable, is not so obscure; for this is the power of God, and good should seem more natural than evil. I shall not forget the cost of investigating, for this age, the methods and power of error. While the ways, means, [30] and potency of Truth had flowed into my consciousness as easily as dawns the morning light and shadows flee, [Page 223.]