Article December 7, 1968 Issue

We Need Not Suffer from Others' Sins

RUSSELL LUERSSEN

A Christian Science practitioner living near a school for young Christian Scientists found that many of the students who came to him for help were of top caliber. They were obedient to the letter as well as the spirit of boarding-school rules and were devoted in their study of Christian Science. However, they seemed to have physical difficulties to overcome, while others, less consecrated and less obedient, were pursuing their merry way in good health. For a long time the practitioner pondered over this situation, questioning much as Job must have questioned, " Why should the good suffer?"

Then, during his studies, the truth dawned upon his thought. Those obedient and consecrated students were suffering not from anything they had done but from what they believed others were doing. Self-righteous indignation over the deeds of others was the real culprit. When this fact was pointed out to the patients and the error corrected with the truth that the man of God's creating is sinless, healings promptly resulted.

The teaching of Christian Science that one can suffer only for his own sins, and that the suffering ceases when the sinning ceases, is the forever answer to the aggressive suggestion that we can suffer from the actions of others. Mrs. Eddy says: "It is error to suffer for aught but your own sins. Christ, or Truth, will destroy all other supposed suffering, and real suffering for your own sins will cease in proportion as the sin ceases."^{ Science and Health, p. 391;}

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