Article August 27, 1910 Issue

PENALTIES SELF-IMPOSED

G. B. POTTER.

In studying the Lesson on "Everlasting Punishment," I came upon this passage from Science and Health (p. 542): "Sin will receive its full penalty, both for what it is and for what it does." This brought to my thought an experience which I had one summer, while on a vacation.

A friend seemed very anxious that I should climb a certain mountain near by, as the view from the top was grand. I did not want to make the trip, but was in a position where I could apparently do nothing else than consent; so I went, but most reluctantly. It was a hot July day, and was becoming warmer as we ascended. All the way up I resented the insistence upon my going, until I was in a much stirred up condition of thought. At last I declared that I would not go one step farther; so I turned and began to retrace my steps, but I had gone only a short distance when I fell, injuring my ankle very badly. For an instant I was indignant, then self-pity poured in upon me, and the pain was so great that I was ready to weep.

I then tried to realize the truth, and to know that a child of God could not be hurt, when it suddenly came to me that a child of God would not have any sense of resentment in his own thought, and I certainly had felt most resentful. I then began to see more clearly and to look within, in order to realize my own condition of thought. Resentment had brought its own punishment, and as soon as I had cleared my thought of this discordant feeling I was relieved of the physical suffering; I could stand on my foot without difficulty, and walked to the base of the mountain, then five miles home to the neighboring village. I am sure, had I gone on the trip in a more willing frame of mind, trusting in divine Love to deliver me, I would have been spared the fall and possibly even the climbing of the mountain.

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