“Why, Katherine, if that is true I can understand how God can be omnipresent!  That is a doctrine of my church, that has been a tantalizing mystery to me all my life.  My dear girl,” she went on in an eager tone, “I begin to see a ray of light—­I must think more about it, though.  I have always thought of Deity as a ‘personal God,’ and, yes”—­smiling—­“I used to believe in a personal devil, too; with a very vague conception that although the latter had always managed to keep the preponderance of power in his hands, God would, in some miraculous manner, win the battle in the end.  But, even now”—­with a look of perplexity—­“I do not grasp where or how, according to your logic, God comes in as supreme, infinite, so long as evil exists.”

“Let us go back to the lie for an illustration,” said Katherine.  “You said that it originated in the person’s own evil thought and desire to deceive.  Well, what happens when you turn the light of truth upon a lie?”

“Why, it disappears—­vanishes; you learn the fact and are no longer affected by, or conscious of, the falsehood.”

“Then truth has destroyed, annihilated it; it has become nothing to you.  As long as you believe a lie you are its victim and suffer from it; but once learn the truth you are free from that illusion and its power over you is gone.  Now, you would not say that truth created the lie, permitted it, or was in any way responsible for it, or your suffering on account of it?”

“N-o; so God, being good—­infinite good—­knows nothing of evil in any form.  Is that your point, Katherine?”

“Yes; so it follows He could neither create nor permit what He knows nothing about.”

“Why!” exclaimed Miss Reynolds, turning a glowing face to the girl, “those same arguments must hold good for everything!  Then sickness and suffering must be the outcome of wrong thought on the part of mortals!  What unlimited possibilities that suggests!  Divine Principle!  I begin to understand why you call yourselves ’Scientists’—­you think and live in accord with this infinite, absolute Principle—­you demonstrate it, as—­as I demonstrate mathematics.”

“Yes,” said Katherine, smiling; “so you see that Christian Science is, as some one has aptly said, ‘the Science of sciences.’”

“That is a very sweeping assertion,” responded her teacher in a somewhat doubtful tone.  “I’ll have to ruminate on that.  However, this little glimpse of a better way than I have hitherto known, seems like an olive leaf of hope and promise to me, for I have been tossing on a restless sea of doubt and skepticism for years, reaching out and groping after some substantial plank that would float me into a haven of peace and rest.  But how is it that you, so young, argue so clearly and logically about these things that have puzzled older and wiser heads for ages?”