Article August 17, 1912 Issue

SALVATION

JEANIE F. GIBB.

The student of Christian Science becomes ever more and more grateful for the clearer understanding of the Scriptures that comes to him from the study of the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. Passages which in the old thought only became more puzzling the more he brooded over them, are now in the light of divine Science seen to be full of meaning—beautiful and practical. The writer had an instance of this a short time ago. The verse was that oft-quoted one in the first chapter of St. John's gospel: "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."

An error of thought, a fault of character, which had clung persistently to me and had been only partially overcome with the help of Science, was through a chain of circumstances shown up clearly in all its hideousness. The consciousness of it was so overwhelming, and the desire to rid myself of it so great, that I determined to ask help from a practitioner. That same day I had occasion to talk over some matters with a fellow Scientist, and error of thought in another was brought before my notice. It appeared difficult to overcome, and my friend was greatly troubled about it. When alone I spent some time working on the problem in Science, with the result that all depression and fear about my friend's difficulty vanished. I saw that the error we had been discussing had no existence, because "error, Truth's unlikeness, is unreal" (Science and Health, p. 288); that the false belief in evil is all there is of it, and that "Truth is the light which dispels error" (p. 282). Then light flooded my consciousness, and I saw that the fault of character in myself which I had been mourning over was also unreal—without foundation, origin, intelligence, or strength; that God never created it, and therefore it had no real existence. Its seeming existence was a lie.

With this clear realization of Truth's allness there came into my thought that beautiful verse already named: "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," and its meaning, in the light of Christian Science, stood out clearly before me—not that Christ Jesus came to suffer "in our room and stead," as one school of theology teaches, but that "Christ came to destroy the belief of sin" (Science and Health, p. 473), the belief in anything apart from God. Since this experience the error of which I had been so conscious has become a thing of the past, and my gratitude for the healing power of Christian Science is beyond expression.

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