What a marvelous teacher was the Man of Nazareth! The homely parables and apt illustrations with which he elucidated a great spiritual lesson are as fresh and potent today as they were when he taught on the hillsides of Galilee. Take, for example, the parable of the Pharisee and the publican. The Pharisees were a self-righteous Jewish sect, who, according to the historian Josephus, were "supposed to excel others in the accurate knowledge of the laws of their country." The name Pharisee derives from a primitive Hebrew root meaning to separate; and the members of this sect certainly considered themselves separate and apart from the rank and file of Jewry.

Jesus therefore could not have pictured greater opposites than an egotistic, erudite Pharisee and a lowly publican or tax collector, the very name and profession of the latter being especially odious to the Jews. Hear the story which the great Teacher tells (Luke 18:10—14): "Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner." Then adds the master word-painter, "I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."

Certainly Christ Jesus in this incomparable parable indicates the first important step in the scientific handling of a problem of sin. It must first be uncovered and acknowledged as a false claim. Then, Christian Science teaches, it is to be repudiated and nullified by a consciousness of Love's sinlessness and allness.

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy makes a clear-cut distinction between the Christianly metaphysical treatment of sickness and that of sin, which should silence the charge that Christian Scientists airily aver that there is no sin, and thus ignore it. She writes (p. 461): "Usually to admit that you are sick, renders your case less curable, while to recognize your sin, aids in destroying it. Both sin and sickness are error, and Truth is their remedy." Then she adds: "To prove scientifically the error or unreality of sin, you must first see the claim of sin, and then destroy it. Whereas, to prove scientifically the error or unreality of disease, you must mentally unsee the disease; then you will not feel it, and it is destroyed."

An earnest religionist was once heard to remark, "What this church needs is more of its members beating on their breasts and crying. 'God be merciful to me a sinner'!" Will a Christian Scientist subscribe to this, or is there a touch of Pharisaism in his thought which whispers that first and last one should affirm that man cannot be a sinner because in God's sight there is no sin?

A remarkably challenging statement to Christian Scientists is made by their Leader in her book "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 293). We read, "To affirm mentally and audibly that God is All and there is no sickness and no sin, makes mortals either saints or sinners." These words merit prayerful study. Surely no student deliberately invites the classification of sinner; and yet if some sinful thought or practice is not seen as sin and turned from and earnestly repented of, do not the student's metaphysical affirmations of man's sinlessness smack of empty Pharisaical platitudes?

Now when one striving to be a Christian Scientist is willing to pray the prayer with which David concludes the one hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting"—when one in deep sincerity and humility is willing to pray thus and then with firmness and courage to grapple with and nullify any arguments of erroneous thought which this prayer may uncover, surely the next step can be one of thanksgiving to God for the sinlessness, the perfection of His kingdom, and the realization that man, God's noblest work, is not the victim but master of sin.

Bible dictionaries show that the word translated sin in the Scriptures conveys the meaning of missing the mark, or falling away from the right path. When the argument of sin has been exposed, repented of, and put down, how joyously may the student claim man's forever oneness with "the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning" (James 1:17). How thankfully may he realize that God's man, the eternal expression of infinite good, has never strayed from his Father's love and law, and has never missed the mark of perfection.

One of Mrs. Eddy's most important pronouncements on the matter of scientific handling of sin is to be found in her Message to The Mother Church for 1901 under the heading "No Reality in Evil or Sin." Let no Christian Scientist fail to read and ponder frequently this valuable instruction. Then let him watch and pray lest any Pharisaical smugness darken his thought and keep him from the publican's reward.

In this Message to The Mother Church our inspired Leader writes (p. 13): "Christian Science lays the axe at the root of sin, and destroys it on the very basis of nothingness. When man makes something of sin it is either because he fears it or loves it. Now, destroy the conception of sin as something, a reality, and you destroy the fear and the love of it; and sin disappears." Then farther on she concludes, "I rejoice in the scientific apprehension of this grand verity."

John Randall Dunn