Article February 3, 1934 Issue

"The island of the innocent"

DOROTHY MARY HUTCHINGS

What a beautiful quality is innocence! Spotless and unsullied, it directs its childlike gaze on all with which it comes in contact, expecting naught but the good. Innocency is the heritage of the pure in heart, who see God expressed in His spiritual creation. Complete innocence contains no element of duality or double-mindedness, for its essence is spiritual purity.

The Psalmist cried, "I will wash mine hands in innocency: so will I compass thine altar, O Lord." But how is this innocence to be regained by those who seem to have lost the sense of purity, and manifest much that is foreign to the nature of good? Christian Science teaches that a sense of separation from God originated in the acceptance of the claim of material sense to power, intelligence, and attraction. It affirms that man, made in God's image, has never lost his innocence and his perfection. In order to come into a realization of this fact, the individual must deny whatever contradicts God's all-inclusive power, and affirm the great truth that since God is all-embracing Mind there is no place or time in which a belief in another mind or power can actually operate or gain acceptance.

A verse in the book of Job illustrates the healing, purifying process of right thinking. It reads, "He shall deliver the island of the innocent: and it is delivered by the pureness of thine hands." In the Revised Version the phrase "the island of the innocent" is translated "even him that is not innocent;" and this reading brings into strong relief the means through which this deliverance is to be effected, namely, by "the pureness of thine hands."

Enjoy 1 free Sentinel article or audio program each month, including content from 1898 to today.

Send a comment to the editors
NEXT IN THIS ISSUE
Article
True Ambition
February 3, 1934
Contents

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit