FORGIVENESS is usually thought of as bestowed by one person on another. Yet, is it not a question whether, in a deeper sense of the term, any human being can presume to forgive another? As understood in Christian Science, the perfection of divine Principle alone can blot out the mortal sense of evil and its effects on health, character, and circumstances.

On page 497 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy writes: "We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts." God alone imparts the spiritual illumination which destroys mental darkness, fear, superstition. Hence true forgiveness, liberation from material sense and all its torments, is brought about by divine Love alone. Reconciliation to Spirit melts every barrier to harmony. "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee."

The spiritual man's consciousness has never been darkened, for it consists solely in the reflection of God, perfect divine Mind. But from the human standpoint certain conditions are attached to winning the pardon of divine Principle. Sin continues its depredations until wrong thoughts and actions have been forsaken. This forsaking is accomplished through recognizing that the omniscience of infinite Spirit includes no matter, no sinner, no sufferer, and then honestly abandoning one's belief in them. To turn in love and repentance to God, good, means to anchor thought in the infinitude of good, where refuge from the storms of sin and fear may unfailingly be found. To turn to God understandingly means to realize Love's power to redeem to the uttermost each and every one who has wandered into the mental wilderness of sin, disease, sorrow. Through divine grace human thought is lifted above disgrace.

Personal pardon, so called, may be more or less tinged with Pharisaism and condescension on the one hand, and on the other hand may leave behind it a morbid sense of remorse and human obligation. But the scientific forgiveness wrought in human consciousness by divine Principle leaves no stain. Divine Mind breaks the mesmerism of sin. The winds of God, good, bear into oblivion the dark mistakes which had seemed to veil from sight man's sinless, spiritual being.

In "No and Yes" (p. 31) our Leader writes, "To me divine pardon is that divine presence which is the sure destruction of sin; and I insist on the destruction of sin as the only full proof of its pardon." As the beauty of spiritual being grows clearer and dearer, one is impelled, in very gratitude, to abandon sin in thought and action; for in infinite Spirit there is no materiality, therefore no sin or penalty.

Thus is human consciousness purged through the sevenfold—complete—baptism of Spirit.

Restoration to health through Christian Science equally betokens Truth's scientific destruction of the belief in materiality with its sequents, sin, disease, death. Our need as Christian Scientists is to realize the omnipresence of Truth and its power to free humanity from all error. Divine Love knows naught of hate or jealousy, naught of physical or moral discord. Eternal Life knows naught of death. Spirit knows naught of matter. Therefore infinite Love, Life, and Spirit alone can lift human thought above the belief in imperfection and finity. In every case material sense is the transgressor, and Spirit, discernible through spiritual sense, the liberator.

Jesus said, "Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk?" All Christian Scientists should wake to see that it is easy, indeed inevitable, for the power of Truth to destroy the mortal belief in sin, disease, and death, since these are groundless lies, and may be proved such. They should realize and prove that it is easy for the magnitude of divine Mind to destroy the pusillanimous beliefs of the flesh. Step by step spiritual vision and purity, bestowed by God, reveal the ever-presence of blessedness, health, and righteousness, which man in God's likeness is consciously enjoying.

Through rendering full-hearted homage to God, all-powerful good, one is impelled to cease expressing evil; one is compelled to obey the Ten Commandments and to dwell in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount. Should one drift into voicing, indeed insisting upon, the supposititious presence of fear, selfishness, sickness, he would not be rendering full homage to God, the All-in-all. In the measure in which the truth about God and man is utilized, it brings redemption to humanity. Knowing this, the Christian Scientist constantly deepens his heart's homage to God and rejoices in his widening perception of the resistless might of divine Principle, Love. In growing spiritually he outgrows materiality. "God's pardon is the destruction of all 'the ills that flesh is heir to' " (ibid., p. 42). In the sight of infinite Love there is no prodigal: there is only sonship.

Violet Ker Seymer