Article December 4, 1920 Issue

Destroying the False Concept

MARY H. CUMMINS

When Christ Jesus said, "Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven," he gave utterance to a metaphysical law the meaning of which, however much it may have been understood by the spiritually illumined who heard him, had certainly been hidden from the world for centuries until Christian Science again brought it to light. To forgive in the generally accepted meaning of the word is simply to condone, and such an attitude of thought accomplishes little or nothing either for the forgiver or the one forgiven. When, however, through an understanding of Christian Science one comes to perceive something of the meaning of forgiveness, he sees that not alone is it the greatest thing he can do for his fellow man but also the greatest thing he can do for himself. To forgive simply means to destroy in human consciousness the false concept with regard to another, to see God's man as the only man, and just to the extent that one does this for his neighbor is he winning his own forgiveness.

It is quite impossible to bring out the true concept of man in one's own human experience while holding the wrong concept with regard to others, and yet is not this what we frequently try to do? Similarly, it is not possible to bring out the true concept for one individual successfully while holding the false concept of another. Not until we free the whole world in our thought, not until we refuse to accept the false concept with regard to any one, no matter how unideal he may seem to be, shall we know what complete freedom means, for "with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again."

Some of us have known what it is to work. conscientiously for days, yea, even weeks or months, to obliterate the false concept in some degree for ourselves and thus bring about a desired healing, and all at once we have awakened to the fact that what we had to do was to obliterate it with regard to some one else, to see this other in his true selfhood as a child of God. It may not have been an easy thing to do, but it was the mount of true vision which we had to ascend before we could win our freedom. That this other may not as yet have awakened to the truth of being, that he may still be enshrouded by the Adam-dream, does not alter the situation in the least so far as we are concerned. Our part is to see the true concept, God's man, and in thus forgiving our brother we shall find our own forgiveness; for it is a fact that as we allow ourselves to hold our neighbor in the thralldom of false belief we are really holding not him but ourselves, and in order to release ourselves we must release him also, for thus only do we fulfill the law of Love.

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