Article January 15, 1916 Issue

Danger of Making Excuses

ALFRED FARLOW

One of the most prolific causes of mistakes is the habit of excusing one's self on the ground of having been influenced by some other person. It is a habit which dates back to the beginning of the world's history and plays a prominent part in the Adam-allegory.

It is entirely proper that one should note his proneness to foreign influences as a warning and as a means to remind him of needed caution or defense against such supposed influences, but to excuse one's self on the basis of having been unduly influenced is simply to admit that one has not the moral stability to withstand such influence and constitutes an admission of weakness. It is quite as unbecoming Christian manhood, and quite as harmful, to blunder by invitation as to err from one's own initiative. We are not on the safe side until we are strong enough to resist undue outside influences as well as our own weaknesses. St. Paul refers to the pressure of principalities, powers, things present, things to come, and so on, which beset the Christian in his warfare; but in another connection he says, "None of these things move me."

One of the essential duties is to withstand the intruder and meddler. Christian Science teaches us that "man is properly self-governed only when he is guided rightly and governed by his Maker" (Science and Health, p. 106). Every foe of righteousness within and without must be silenced, and we must be governed alone by divine Principle in order to gain our crown. An excuse is a form of self-justification. It amounts to an argument that the wrong concerned is within the bounds of propriety because other things and persons besides one's self have contributed to the act. If, however, we have the law of right doing written in our hearts, we shall be alert to its demands whenever a suggestion of error presents itself and whatever its source. Paul says that in the cases of those who are striving to obey the law of God their consciences also bear witness, "their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another."

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