Editorial November 6, 1926 Issue

On Rectifying Our Mistakes

Albert F. Gilmore

On page 20 of "Unity of Good" Mrs. Eddy asks, "How is a mistake to be rectified?" and she answers directly, "By reversal or revision,—by seeing it in its proper light, and then turning it or turning from it." And there follows a marvelously concise exposition of the method by which error seems to build up its case in thought and of the means by which it may be destroyed.

One result of believing in the reality of evil manifest as sin and sickness is the thought that God knows our sinfulness; and immediately we become fearful of the punishment with which, it is held, because of our wrong thinking, the divine power will inflict us. A false concept of Deity is at the base of this fear. When we learn in Christian Science that God is infinite, all-inclusive Love, ever present and omnipotent, we shall cease to be afraid of what God may do to us. Let us be assured, rather, that God, divine Love, has already done everything for us—has greatly blessed us in the bestowal upon His children of bounteous good, which meets every need; and that since divine Love, infinite consciousness, is aware only of good, for only good is real, we shall cease to fear God's punishment.

This reasoning, however, will not lead us into the erroneous conclusion that we are free to sin, and that sin is unpunished because God does not know of wrongdoing, is wholly oblivious to it, and hence does not punish it, for Mrs. Eddy makes it very clear that sin is punished so long as it is indulged. "Error excludes itself from harmony," she writes on page 537 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." "Sin is its own punishment." The belief in the reality of sinful pleasure assuredly carries with it its own punishment; but both sin and its punishment arise from our own false concepts—they are not of God. The third tenet of Christian Science, which appears on page 497 of Science and Health, deals conclusively with this problem. Affirming that God forgives sin when it is destroyed through spiritual understanding, Mrs. Eddy concludes that as long as the belief in sin lasts, the belief will be punished. The need, then, is to destroy the belief that sin is a reality; that it has any hold whatsoever upon true consciousness, or any slightest necessity which demands recognition.

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