How could that be? Doesn't everyone make mistakes, sometime or other? Isn't that why pencils have erasers? Don't we all learn through our mistakes?

Humanly speaking, yes. Mortals seem to make lots of mistakes—little ones and big ones. But God's idea, man, never makes them, and we can begin to demonstrate this unerring manhood.

Christian Science reveals God as Mind, the all-knowing and supreme intelligence of the universe. The divine Mind is precise, perfect, unerring. As the Scriptures declare, "His work is perfect." ^{Deut. 32:4.} And in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, states, "This Mind does not make mistakes and subsequently correct them." ^{Science and Health, p. 206.}

What comfort is this to one who has made a mistake and is suffering the unhappy consequences thereof? A healing solution results when one begins to understand and demonstrate his real spiritual selfhood as the perfect idea of this one infallible divine Mind, instead of insisting that he has a separate, fallible, mortal mind of his own. Man is God's idea—His image, or manifestation. Man reflects God. He reflects all that God is. By reflection, each individual idea is forever faultless, guiltless, sinless, blameless—deserving neither condemnation nor self-inflicted punishment.

This does not imply that Christian Science condones or excuses wrongdoing. Sin in every form must be honestly confronted— uncovered, repented of, and consciously abandoned. Only when genuine reformation has taken place is the penalty scientifically canceled.

Perhaps one of the greatest occupational hazards of the honest Christian, however, is the tendency to ruminate unceasingly over mistakes of the past. Mrs. Eddy gives some very helpful counsel along this line: "Where the motive to do right exists, and the majority of one's acts are right, we should avoid referring to past mistakes." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 130.} And, one might add, referring and referring and referring! We should rather insist upon divine Mind's omnipresence, knowing that God was never absent to permit or tolerate a mistake in any form.

If we feel the need to blame someone for a mistake, it should be neither ourselves nor another person—scientifically speaking—but impersonal evil. And when impersonal evil is destroyed, individual actions are more consistently intelligent and accurate. This belief in evil, or more than one Mind, alone is the basic cause of every mistaken perception, for unerring divine Mind never has been and never could be connected with that which is mistaken or wrong. Mind is always right, and that right Mind is our Mind by reflection. The Psalmist sang, "In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion." ^{Ps. 71:1.} Confusion, blunders, misstatements, faulty judgment, errors of any cause or classification, are no part of infinite Mind and its manifestation, man. We need to realize and demonstrate this as the Master did.

Christ Jesus consistently claimed the Father, divine Mind, as his governing intelligence. From the age of twelve, when he intelligently reasoned with the learned men in the temple, to the later years of his ministry when he amazed and confounded even his enemies with his understanding and insight, the Master exemplified the infallibility of Mind.

Divine Mind is our "no fault" assurance. Both the Old and the New Testament furnish evidence of the demonstrations that are possible to those who fully accept the one Father-Mother Mind and refuse to bow down to the suggestions of any other so-called mind. We read in Daniel, "Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find none occasion nor fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him." ^{Dan. 6:4.} Having Daniel-like allegiance to the one Mind and faithfulness to its commands will help us rule out any mistaken sense of ourselves and the suffering it can bring.

Appearances are so often deceiving. What appears to be a mistake may be part of a solution. A Christian Scientist who owned a small business had had a particularly discouraging day, with no money coming in and a rent bill due the next morning. Late in the day, she started home through heavy city traffic, only to discover when nearly there that she had left her purse with her house keys back at the store. More disheartened than ever, she turned around and started back, inwardly condemning herself for this unnecessary detour because of a careless mistake. Then she recalled what a Christian Science practitioner had often said to her, "Mind never makes mistakes, and as His reflection, neither can you." He had pointed out that one definition of the word "mistake" is to misunderstand the meaning or implications of something. The woman began declaring that as the idea of God, she included no misunderstanding nor mistaken sense of anything.

By the time she arrived back at her shop, she felt more at peace and was surprised to see an out-of-town customer of hers at the door, trying to get in. The customer said she had come to pick up the dress she had ordered. "But that wasn't to be ready until next Thursday," the shop owner reminded her. "You're a week early." The customer looked chagrined. "Of course, I remember, now. How could I have made such a foolish mistake?" She paused and added, "But since I'm here and have the check all made out, why don't I just pay you in advance?"

When the customer drove away, the Christian Scientist could only stand in awe and gratitude. Through two "mistakes," the needed rent money had been provided on time. It was a lasting lesson to her on the importance of never accepting a mistake, of never misunderstanding the meaning of God's plan of good for all His children.

To let unerring divine Mind govern our decisions and actions brings a peace and assurance that can only be described as "heaven." Believing ourselves to be saddled with an erring, mistake-prone mortal mind tends to keep us in a "hell" of indecision, doubt, and remorse. We all need to reassure ourselves daily, hourly, sometimes moment by moment, "Thank you, God, that 'I' never made a mistake, because You are the only I or Ego there is, the only knower, doer, communicator. Your work is perfect. You are Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, so there is no mistake to begin with or to end with."

Despite physical sense testimony, human opinion, or aggressive suggestion, we can scientifically insist that there is never, ever, any such thing as a mistake in God's allness—for Principle is unerring in judgment; Truth is incapable of error; and divine Mind is forever infallible. But of course this must be proved true in our daily lives. Prayerfully turning to divine Mind for direction and then wholeheartedly trusting Mind's guidance, we experience blessings unlimited. The benediction of Jude falls gently on our heart: "Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen." ^{Jude 1:24, 25.}

Mind makes no mistakes. Let's prove it!