Article April 30, 1910 Issue

FORGIVENESS

MARY VANSANT FINNEY

Several years ago I heard a story which exemplifies the true spirit of brotherly love and forgiveness. Two brothers owned a field of wheat in common. At harvest-time a disagreement arose concerning the division of the wheat, and the brothers parted in anger. Late that night the anger of each subsided, and each was ready to say, like Abraham of old, "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, ... for we be brethren." By one impulse each brother determined to go into the field, take a sheaf of his own wheat, and lay it among his brother's sheaves. Obeying the impulse, they met at the dividing line, each with the peace-offering in his arms.

In the light of Christian Science we know that this is the only way to blot out malice and envy and selfishness when they try to hide our brother from us and to lead us to think of man as a monster instead of the perfect image which Scripture declares him to be. We have no time to brood over wrongs. There is but one course to pursue when disagreements arise, and that is to send out our message of love,—the spiritual sheaf. We may not always take it in person, but we know that "thought is deeper than all speech," and that when we think love, and love only,—when our minds are filled with Truth and Love, as our Leader tells us,—then "all upon whom [our] thoughts rest are thereby benefited" (Sentinel, Oct. 6, 1906).

Nothing matters but our thought about it; we are not asked to call black white, nor white black. We have but to know that good alone is real, and that we war not with persons. The whole field of warfare is in our own mentality; the rest we leave with God, and "one on God's side is a majority." Who knows but that our brother is even now coming toward us with his offering of love; and even if he is not, we are but following Christ's admonition when we continue to love, and refuse to know evil or to hold our brother in thoughts of condemnation. Moreover, when disagreements do arise, neither party is apt to be altogether right, for every one has still much of mortal personal sense to overcome; and he who removes the beam from his own eye has risen to a position where he can perceive no mote in that of his brother.

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