All suffering originates in sin somewhere; but if sin is unreal, wherefore comes the suffering? A child has been told there is a bear in the darkness, and he suffers terribly if alone at night. What causes the suffering? Simply the belief that there is something near by with power to injure. In like manner all sin is in the belief that there is life, power, and intelligence apart from God. Herein mortals are constantly breaking the first commandment: Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. In the indulgence of pride, passion, appetite, arises the supposed ability of material power to confer gain or pleasure.
The child's bear is no less unreal than the superstition called Consumption. Both bear and disease vanish in the presence of light, understanding, revealing the perfect harmony which always existed where the supposed ghost was said to be.
One is tempted by another and suffers. Is the innocent to suffer for the guilty? No! Where one is tempted, in whatever manner, and yields, he is overcome by belief in a power other than the All-good. He suffers for his own sin. If ignorantly transgressing law, he suffers for that only. If knowingly he errs, a greater punishment follows. The tempter certainly suffers for his sin to the full extent. So also with hereditary delusion. The child suffers only for the sin of belief that there is a power for evil in heredity, belief that God is not the All-powerful. The parent can escape naught of his just due, for "everyone shall die of his own iniquity." (Jeremiah xxxi. 30.)
