FROM my earliest remembrance the meaning of the word sin was vague and hypothetical. I was taught that we should not commit sin for fear of eternal punishment. My childish imagination and my dreams were often haunted by terrible phantoms of fear as to what I might expect in an ever-imminent future because men were born in sin and were living sinful lives. What I had done to deserve this terrible infliction, what this sin was, I did not know, but I religiously obeyed certain so-called necessary statutes laid down by my elders, hoping thereby to appease God's wrath. As I grew older and of a more analytical turn of mind, I found out that in spite of all this predicted woe I was still alive and happy, and I began to wonder if there was so much in this theory of sin as I had been taught to believe. I could see some people breaking these honored statutes and evidently happy and prospering therein, while some of those who had told us of the terrors of sin, were in many ways heavy laden, and seemed to be making unhappy failures, although living exemplary lives.
I then learned that there are many who doubt the usually accepted propositions regarding sin, and who are willing to risk the future punishment, since, as it seems, a little sin often brings present happiness. Why worry so much over future punishment for doing something that brought pleasure and profit now? especially as no one had ever returned from that mystical land to tell us whether the evil reward was meted out or not. As these conclusions seemed perfectly natural and all too satisfying, it never came to my thought to question the accepted teaching as to the nature of sin; or to inquire into the cause and effect of sin from a scientific standpoint. No one seemed to know that we could with mathematical certainty discern sin and its inevitable results or so-called punishments, and that these could be forestalled, not by the forgiveness of a capricious God, but by a knowledge of what Life is and how to live truly.
Religion, in waging its war on sin, has too often been mystical. It has made an ineffective appeal to the emotions, instead of showing mankind how to gain a practical, demonstrable understanding of God, applicable to man's every need, mental and physical. Sin has thus come to be erroneously considered as merely the breaking of ethical law, and as the result of a superficial understanding of the Ten Commandments, the first two, which contain the very essence of them all, are deemed useless, or not intended for this enlightened day and generation; idolatry, to the self-satisfied human mind, being considered a thing wholly of the past. The dictionary thus defines sin: "Any voluntary transgression of the divine law or violation of a divine command." In weighing the truth of this definition, the first questions that naturally present themselves are, "What is the divine law?" "What are divine commands?" Are these laws like human laws, to be broken at pleasure, and is their violation attended by punishment, provided the offender can be caught in the act? or is that which is divine to be regarded from an entirely different standpoint? The latter question will certainly be answered affirmatively, if we consider the meaning of the word divine in the light of Christian Science. Divine means God-like, that is, possessing or manifesting the God nature, which is all-inclusive intelligence, all-power, presence, action, infinite Principle. A law of God, then, is absolute; it cannot be broken without inevitable punishment, since to break the law is to put the offender out of harmony with Life, Truth, and Love. Law-breaking without punishment would signify a state of fundamental disharmony without any sense of discomfort, an impossible condition.
