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;}

In connection with a statement made by Mrs. Eddy while teaching a class a student reported, "We were to declare daily, 'I cannot suffer from others' sins for sin is its own punisher and I will not sin, then I am free from suffering.' " ^{We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Third Series p. 66 ;} Each is individually responsible for his own thinking and acting, not another's. Watching one's own thought is a full-time occupation. There is hardly time to concern oneself with another's thought and action unless one is specifically invited to do so or is evilly affected by it, and certainly to suffer mental or physical pangs over another's wrongdoing is folly.

One will never fail to find the solution to any problem, whether social, political, economic, or academic, if he realizes that the solution lies within, not without, that one is never at the mercy of another but can cease suffering from any situation by changing his thought about it. An example of this was seen in the experience of a secretary who came to a practitioner's office one day and asked for help in dealing with what she described as a tyrannical boss. His unreasonable demands and outbursts of temper had become unbearable, she said, and yet financial needs made it impractical for her to resign her job. The practitioner reached out for inspiration and was led to ask quietly, "Is the problem really a tyrannical boss, or is it a timid secretary?"

The woman stared at him a moment and then burst into tears. "You are right," she said. "All my life I've been fearful of someone or other."

When the fear and timidity were seen as no part of man's real spiritual nature, she began to manifest a greater sense of peace and dominion in her work, and the whole situation cleared.

Blaming others for our difficulties is a tempting and easy thing to do, and a most popular pastime. As one learns in Christian Science the necessity of working out his individual salvation, he becomes less prone to fall for the argument of imposed suffering. There is also a need to be alert not to let self-condemnation take over. Evil is impersonal, never personal, and always a dream, always unreal. Christ Jesus made this clear to his disciples in an incident recorded by John. We read: "As Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents : but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."  ^{John 9:1-3.}

If we are to follow our Way-shower, we too must ascend to the level of understanding that refuses to admit to anything but God and His allness and to man as His likeness. Then we shall not only refuse to suffer from the actions of others but see that in reality there are no mortals to suffer or cause suffering, only God and His perfect, sinless, spiritual, immortal idea. And we shall further realize that we cannot actually suffer from any cause since all our thoughts come to us from the one perfect divine Mind, which is forever manifesting itself through man. Understanding and living in accordance with these truths, we cannot suffer from others' sins.