Article July 18, 1908 ISSUE

CONFESSING OUR OWN FAULTS

PROF. J. R. MOSLEY.

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.

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