Article April 11, 1908 Issue

SUFFERING PATIENTLY FOR ERROR*

SAMUEL GREENWOOD.

In an article in the Christian Science Sentinel of Sept. 23, 1905, Mrs. Eddy asks this pointed question: "Which should we prefer, ease or unease in sin?" Our Leader here presents a line of thought and self-examination which we would do well to enter upon earnestly. How many of us have faced this question fairly, — have defined our position, and have answered it rightly, in our hearts? Do we honestly desire that our errors be punished ? What is our attitude towards the discomfort which our wrong thinking and wrong doing bring upon us? Are we patient or impatient with the sufferings we experience because of our lack of goodness and love? Do we rejoice for the discipline whereby we become willing to forsake our errors, or do we, in our own case, "ask wisdom to be merciful and not to punish sin"? (Science and Health, p. 10.)

Do we not too often look at this question from a self-indulgent point of view : that is, do we not persuade ourselves that our errors should pass unpunished, or that at least we should escape their full penalty without full repentance and reformation? The children of God are not punished, for we read in Scripture that "whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin;" hence it must be a false sense of man that sins and suffers. Should we ask or expect that this false sense continue its delusions and be at peace? What is there to waken mortals to the falsity of material sense except the dis-ease or dis-comfort which attends it? Although we willingly consent to the punishment of sin in the abstract, do we patiently endure the penalties for our own transgressions, knowing that thereby the nothingness of evil is being wrought out and our affections being weaned therefrom ?

We may thoughtlessly indulge in seemingly petty errors, without reckoning what we must pay for this indulgence, and perhaps without realizing that the resultant suffering is self-imposed, but such experiences seem necessary to teach us the impartial law that one must reap according to his sowing. If mankind were only as loth to sin as they are to suffer for sin, how quickly they would advance towards righteousness. When mortals realize that their "every idle word" must be accounted for, that they will be charged with and must pay for all their follies, whether great or small, they will be ready for the first step towards their overcoming. Right doing is always rich in blessing, always health-giving and joy-producing; but wrong doing brings no compensation, and the only virtue in suffering therefor is in arousing the victim to the real nature of sin and destroying his pleasure in it. Although the Science of good reveals the unreality of evil and also of its consequences, it teaches that sinners are those who "would make a reality of sin," and are punished for so doing and so long as they do it (Science and Health, pp. 339, 497). Immunity from suffering belongs only to the pure in heart, they who know no evil and desire none. He is not truly righteous who refrains from wrong only because of the penalty, for men are not made pure through fear of suffering, but through love of good.

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