Article August 14, 1948 Issue

PAST MISTAKES CANNOT OPERATE AS PRESENT CAUSES

FRANK W. GIBSON

In the study of Christian Science the student finds certain basic truths about God, man, and creation constantly reiterated in varying phraseology by our revered Leader, Mary Baker Eddy. Among these fundamental truths in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and in her other writings are the following: that God is Spirit, good; that man is His spiritual image and likeness, the perfect, sinless reflection of his Maker; and that creation is in reality the continuous unfoldment of the infinite idea, or manifestation, of God. Accepting these truths, the student awakens to the need of practical demonstration of these great spiritual facts in his everyday experience.

This unfoldment or awakening, because of its infinite source and nature, comes in infinitely differing ways, meeting each individual's need for enlightenment. But to each it brings one very definite result— an earnest desire to be what he has learned he really is, God's sinless, perfect child. To the Apostle Paul, whom we first meet as Saul of Tarsus, came such an awakening, transforming his character and changing the whole course of his life. Our Leader's estimate of this great apostle may be found in her statement coupling him with Christ Jesus (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 360): "Great only as good, because fashioned divinely, were those unpretentious yet colossal characters, Paul and Jesus. Theirs were modes of mind cast in the moulds of Christian Science: Paul's, by the supremely natural transforming power of Truth; and the character of Jesus, by his original scientific sonship with God."

The awakening of Paul to see something of his true selfhood as the perfect, sinless child of God, and his consequent conversion to Christianity—to a life of being and doing good—"by the supremely natural transforming power of Truth," are described in the ninth chapter of the Acts. Saul, as he was then known, had been so active in the persecution of Jesus' followers that he had witnessed with apparent approbation the stoning of Stephen. He was on his way to Damascus with letters from the high priest authorizing him to arrest any followers of Christ Jesus when, in a blinding light from heaven, the error of his course was revealed to him. His companions led him to Damascus, and several days later he was healed and his sight restored by a disciple of Christ Jesus.

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