Article May 3, 1924 Issue

The Gift of Repentance

MAUDE WESTON BRIDGES

We read in the fifth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, "Him [Jesus] hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins." The word "repentance" may strike the average modern ear with a remote sound, as of something quite outside and unnecessary to its experience. It is too apt to be hastily relegated in thought as pertaining to revival meetings and emotional forms of religion, or to the experience of criminals. But Christian Science shows us that repentance is a need of all, and therefore its contemplation is one of the most vital questions of the day. Without it war will never be exterminated, homes never made happy and secure, true dignity of living never attained, moral freedom never gained.

It is clear that what all need is freedom from burial in the flesh, with all its ills and lusts; freedom from every suggestion, malicious or otherwise, of sin and sickness. The grand fact, which Christian Science reveals, of God as the one infinite divine Mind, and of man as reflecting this Mind, is assuredly the solution to those vexing problems of evil suggestion in whose darkness the world so deeply lies. The claim to a mind apart from God is so tenacious that we find ourselves helpless to turn to the divine Mind; so that without the loving gift of repentance, promised in the Messiah, the world's retrogression to the beast would be complete.

Who that has been healed of wrong desires or lifted out of the cold, cruel vise of pride and self-righteousness in its many forms; who that has felt the blinding evils of jealousy melt away, or been healed of some torturing sense of injustice, does not rejoice in this wonderful gift of repentance through the healing ministration of Christian Science? The writer is gratefully conscious of the protection of Christian Science in her life from an early age; but not a tithe of the blessings which she has received during the past ten years from the Christ-forgiveness or destruction of sin could be enumerated in this article.

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The Motherhood of God
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