Article October 8, 1921 Issue

The Treatment of Sin

CATHERINE ALLER

The objection is sometimes made by those unacquainted with the actual teaching of Christian Science, that it is dangerous to say that evil is unreal, because it will tend to encourage the criminal in committing crime under the excuse that it is not real evil. This sort of assertion is made notwithstanding the fact that on page 339 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy has written, "A sinner can receive no encouragement from the fact that Science demonstrates the unreality of evil, for the sinner would make a reality of sin,—would make that real which is unreal, and thus heap up 'wrath against the day of wrath.'"

An illustration that cleared all doubt from the thought of the writer on this point was found in an experience with a little child. A little girl had been for some time manifesting a tendency toward disobedience. Small penalties had been tried with no effect, and a member of the family had remarked that in justice to the child stricter measures should be meted out. Although neither parent relished the thought of corporal punishment, it seemed preferable to allowing the child to indulge in self-will and to develop a sense of insubordination. At this point, it was decided to take the problem to Christian Science, in which all the family were beginners. A study of Science and Health revealed unmistakably that, as Mrs. Eddy says on page 404: "Healing the sick and reforming the sinner are one and the same thing in Christian Science. Both cures require the same method and are inseparable in Truth."

Already the treatment of disease had been followed by healing in Christian Science, and it had been a wonderful joy to realize in a degree that pain and sickness are indeed unreal. It was clear that were the child to manifest evidences of disease, the method to pursue would be to deny the sense testimony by affirming the truth. It was evident that the method to follow in the present case was to deny the evidence of sense that there was a naughty child and to declare that in the place where there seemed to be one, was God's image and likeness, manifesting good, incapable of sin. To think of God's image and likeness as disobedient was not only dishonoring God but was fastening a lie on the child, and, instead of helping her to see her real self, was leading her to consider herself as a sinner, condemned by those who loved her best, and deserving punishment. But Mrs. Eddy asks on page 461 of Science and Health, "If you commit a crime, should you acknowledge to yourself that you are a criminal?" and answers her own question, "Yes." Then it was plain that the child must be made to see clearly the presence of the real self, sinless and perfect, instead of any sinning counterfeit. Sin is not pardoned until it is forsaken nor the penalty removed until the sin is seen to be unreal, and unless the child could be shown clearly the odiousness of sin and would forsake it gladly of her own accord, there would have to be sufficient suffering of some nature to lead her to relinquish it voluntarily.

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