In her Message to The Mother Church for 1901 (p. 33) Mary Baker Eddy writes, "To plant for eternity, the 'accuser' or 'calumniator' must not be admitted to the vineyard of our Lord, and the hand of love must sow the seed." In John we have Jesus' benign assurance, uttered with the authority of him who did always those things that please the Father, "God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved."
It is evident from this statement of the Master that he recognized two opposite methods of dealing with mankind, and that in choosing the one he repudiated the other as contrary to the divine purpose. Between salvation and condemnation there is no co-operation.
Yet how continually throughout all time has his example been ignored or misunderstood; how relentlessly in their zeal have men sought to bring about salvation with the weapon of condemnation! Hardly have the inspired utterances and experiences of those prophets who found in God their friend, counselor, and protector, outweighed the picture of God, allegorically and falsely presented in the second chapter of Genesis, as condemning man without prospect of rehabilitation or hint of forgiveness, to a life of toil and sorrow. Indeed, little if anything emerges from that scene in the garden, but an overwhelming sense of guilt on the one hand and of condemnation on the other.
