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CONFESSING OUR OWN FAULTS
THACKERAY, speaking of one of his most lovable and admirable characters, says, "No man could admit his own faults with more engaging candor than our friend." Robert Browning says that "when the fight begins within a man, he is worth something." The apostle James admonishes us to confess our "faults one to another, and pray one for another," that we may be healed, and Mrs. Eddy makes the wise observation that "when a man begins to quarrel with himself he stops quarreling with others" (Message to The Mother Church, June, 1900, p. 13). Again she says, "To recognize your sin, aids in destroying it" (Science and Health, p. 461). She makes it equally clear that the habit of thinking and talking about another's faults is itself a sin, and tends to do harm to all and good to none.
Both the letter and the spirit of the teachings of Christ Jesus are that we should confess our own errors and, in the first instance at least, mention the faults of our brother "to him alone." Experience, and our own sense of good, confirm the wisdom, reason, and justice of these teachings. Nearly all of the worst misunderstandings of mortals arise from their selfish and unjust tendency to cover and to justify their own errors, and to expose and condemn the errors of others; and reconciliations can nearly always be made and a good understanding brought about as this tendency is reversed. We cannot do other than forgive and love those who are awake to their own faults, and who are seeking to correct and atone for them. Indeed, repentance, confession, and reformation bring forgiveness as well as a good conscience.

July 18, 1908 issue
View Issue-
CONFESSING OUR OWN FAULTS
PROF. J. R. MOSLEY.
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THE STUDY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
REV. G. A. KRATZER.
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PATIENCE
HARRIETT B. MAYNARD.
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THE POWER OF TRUTH
JESSIE WENTZ THOMPSON.
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STUDYING CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
WILHELM SEGERBLOM.
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THE TRUE AMBITION
LOUISE SMITH GLANVILLE.
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HUMILITY
LUCY HOLMAN HINCHCLIFFE.
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Some eighteen months ago I attended a Christian Science...
Isabel A. Walker
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It is not an extravagant assumption that those who...
Frederick Dixon
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Mrs. Eddy has discerned the spiritual import of the...
Frank W. Gale
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Christ Jesus was the great demonstrator of the ever-present...
J. V. Dittemore
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In your report of a sermon delivered last Sunday morning...
Herbert M. Beck
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In a recent issue of The Free Press a clergyman expressed...
Charles K. Skinner
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Christian Scientists emulate the Master and obey his...
R. Stanhope Easterday
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One of the tenets of the Christian Science Church is as...
A. W. Mainland
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"IN HIM WE LIVE."
MARY I. MESECHRE.
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MRS. EDDY TAKES NO PATIENTS
Editor
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"BUT THEIR EYES WERE HOLDEN."
Archibald McLellan
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THE TRUTH MADE PRACTICAL
Annie M. Knott
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"SCIENCE AND RELIGION."
John B. Willis
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LETTERS TO OUR LEADER
with contributions from C. A. Q. Norton, Madeleine Taylor Jocelyn, William R.Nessly, Charlotte F. Lyon, Minnie D. Symonds
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THE LECTURES
with contributions from Heber Rice, Henry Allen, Frederick Neudorff
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Truth and its proof go hand in hand
George J. Wilson
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Four years ago I gained my first knowledge of Christian Science
Winnifred R. Hawkins
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I am grateful to Christian Science for what it has done...
Lyndof J. Smith
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For the benefit of those who may be suffering in much...
Hazel Wellbaum
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The truth of the statement, God is Love, I realized in...
Carl P. Schimpf
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Several months ago our child became dangerously ill...
Carl Schnuerle
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My father was a physician, and from early childhood...
Agnes L. Meeker
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To me Christian Science is all there is,—I have proofs...
Rose Cutler Stone
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Our little girl of four years was healed of a fever in...
N. W. Lincicome
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I want to tell what Christian Science has done for me...
Florence Rollman
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FROM OUR EXCHANGES
with contributions from Malcolm Taylor, Arthur Chamberlain, Shailer Mathews, Schurman, T. S. Childs, A. R. Henderson