With the fantastic exegesis of Scripture on which this creed professes to be based, we are not directly concerned; else something might be said of the method of interpretation which is to be found in the official text-book of the movement--a method which sees in the serpent the symbol of malicious animal magnetism, which identifies the Holy Ghost and the New Jerusalem with Christian Science, and the little book brought down from heaven by the mighty angel with Mrs. Eddy's own _magnum opus_, _Science and Health_. As Mr. Podmore drily remarks, "In these holy games each player is at liberty to make words mean what he wants them to mean"; at the same time, these grotesque and arbitrary constructions are not precisely calculated to inspire the confidence of balanced minds. Let us, however, turn at once to the fundamental axioms of Christian Science:-- (1) God is All in all. (2) God is Good. Good is Mind. (3) God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter. (4) Life, God, Omnipotent Good, deny death, evil, sin, disease. In other words, Christian Science begins--and, for the matter of that, ends--with the categorical statement that the one and only Reality is Mind, Goodness, God, all three of which terms it uses synonymously and interchangeably. So much being granted, the rest follows "in a concatenation according"; the {125} possible permutations are many--the result is always one. _God is All_: hence, says Mrs. Eddy, "_All is God_, and there is naught beside Him"; but _God is Good_, and as He is _All_, it follows that _All is Good_; and if all is good, _there can be no evil_. Again, Mrs. Eddy propounds the following three propositions: _God is Mind; Good is Mind; All is Mind_; therefore, once more, all is good, all is God, and _there can be no evil_. Or, to introduce another variation--_God is All_, and _God is Mind_; therefore _Mind is all_; therefore _there is no matter_. Grant the Christian Science premises, and there is no escaping the Christian Science conclusions.