Article January 1, 1979 ISSUE

Don't rob anyone

Carmen B. Ginnel

You wouldn't steal money from your friend. But are you ever tempted to rob someone of his spiritual perfection?

Take the case of Anne, a young Christian Scientist, who was entertaining her friend Elise over the weekend at her apartment. They'd had a good time together, but after Elise left, Anne missed her wristwatch. As the week went by, she looked everywhere she could think of. Little suspicions kept creeping into her thought. Could her friend possibly ...? She hated even to wonder about it. Tormented by suspicion, she realized the time had come to pray about it.

Soon she found something in Mrs. Eddy's book Science and Health that helped her: "For victory over a single sin, we give thanks and magnify the Lord of Hosts. What shall we say of the mighty conquest over all sin? A louder song, sweeter than has ever before reached high heaven, now rises clearer and nearer to the great heart of Christ; for the accuser is not there, and Love sends forth her primal and everlasting strain." Science and Health, p. 568 ;

Anne saw she needed to put down the accuser in her own thought, not worry about Elise. "Elise is a child of God," she declared, "and hasn't the power or the desire to take what isn't hers."

With this, she threw out the accuser. She wasn't only standing up for her friend, she was affirming the Christliness of man. She felt completely on top of any thought of suspicion.

Christ Jesus said, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." Matt. 7:1 . In purifying her thought about her friend, Anne had obeyed Jesus' command. When her watch turned up in a place she had put it herself, Anne felt doubly happy.

Too often we mentally accuse people we haven't yet learned to love. Too often we allow suspicions to hide from us someone's pure, perfect identity. In fact, throwing out the mental accuser would be the first step in helping someone who really was guilty of stealing, because, as we learn in Christian Science, man's true selfhood is forever innocent. Only as we silence the accuser can we hear and join in singing Love's "primal and everlasting strain."

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