THE forty-ninth chapter of Genesis closes the record of Jacob's earthly experiences, and it must have been a wonderful realization of the allness of God and His spiritual idea, man, that came to this faithful patriarch before his departure. Through repentance and patient, persistent effort on his part to overcome sin, he had been delivered many times from sinful beliefs of the flesh which the carnal mind had so often inflicted upon him, and the saving power of Christ, Truth, was always revealed to him through an angelic message. In Science and Health angels are defined as "God's thoughts passing to man; . . . the inspiration of goodness, purity, and immortality, counteracting all evil, sensuality, and mortality" (p. 581). These messages sent from his heavenly Father helped to destroy the errors which assailed him, and step by step, through the renunciation of belief in a material selfhood, he attained his spiritual freedom.
The healing Christ had at last come to his waiting consciousness to abide with him forever. It is evident that he now understood in some measure the unreality of the material sinful mentality which mortals have named man, and through this illumination of spiritual understanding he was able to expose and denounce the many hidden sins which were embodied in the mentality of some of his children, before he blessed them. He did not accept one of these errors, for we read: "0 my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united."
It was when the last and most severe test came to Jacob, that he was able to prove the glorious fact that into the consciousness where the presence of the Christ-idea abides, sin cannot enter. His human sense of fatherhood had been relinquished, and neither fear nor self-pity had any more power to torment him, nor did the uncovering of so much sin make him angry for one moment and so deprive some of his children of their blessing. It thus becomes clear to us that the divine birthright of the children of God cannot be taken away by a belief in the reality of sin.
