Article October 17, 1953 Issue

REPENTANCE—THE MOST DIVINE HUMAN EXPERIENCE

WILLIAM HORACE WHITTEMORE

Our wise Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, makes this arresting and important statement in her Message to The Mother Church for 1900 (p. 15): "The Passover, spiritually discerned, is a wonderful passage over a tear-filled sea of repentance—which of all human experience is the most divine; and after this Passover cometh victory, faith, and good works." No seeker after spiritual enlightenment may sensibly disregard an experience which Mrs. Eddy states is the most divine of all human experience. He who would overlook it or turn from it as something for another day has robbed himself of an indispensable aid in his progress heavenward.

It is noteworthy that one of the three cardinal points about which Mrs. Eddy preached in her first address in The Mother Church, May 26, 1895, was repentance. This address is one of the most important and most essential for Christian Scientists to understand. In it she says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 107): "Three cardinal points must be gained before poor humanity is regenerated and Christian Science is demonstrated: (1) A proper sense of sin; (2) repentance; (3) the understanding of good." There is no doubt as to how vital Mrs. Eddy felt repentance to be when she spoke also these words that eventful day (ibid.): "The lack of seeing one's deformed mentality, and of repentance therefor, deep, never to be repented of, is retarding, and in certain morbid instances stopping, the growth of Christian Scientists. Without a knowledge of his sins, and repentance so severe that it destroys them, no person is or can be a Christian Scientist."

True repentance comes when the individual, tired of mortal mind's concepts and eager to renounce its leading and government and to put off its pride, jealousy, and fear, sees his mistakes and views them with sorrow and regret. When this state of development is reached and the human consciousness is willing for divine Mind to take over and rule, then the individual yields to the divine influence and begins to work out his own salvation.

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