ordinary Christians protest against this stanza of Bowring's, and its
sentiment is foreign to Christian Science. If God be _changeless goodness_,
as sings another line of this hymn, what place has _chance_ in the divine
economy? Nay, there is in God naught fantastic. All is real, all is
serious. The phantasmagoria is a product of human dreams.




The Ego


From various friends comes inquiry as to the meaning of a word employed in
the foregoing colloquy.

There are two English words, often used as if they were synonyms, which
really have a shade of difference between them.

An _egotist_ is one who talks much of himself. _Egotism_ implies vanity and
self-conceit.

_Egoism_ is a more philosophical word, signifying a passionate love of
self, which doubts all existence except its own. An _egoist_, therefore, is
one uncertain of everything except his own existence.

Applying these distinctions to evil and God, we shall find that evil is
_egotistic_,--boastful, but fleeing like a shadow at daybreak; while God is
_egoistic_, knowing only His own all-presence, all-knowledge, all-power.