never started with time, and it cannot keep pace with
eternity. Mortals' false senses pass through three states
and stages of human consciousness before yielding error. [20]
The deluded sense must first be shown its falsity through
a knowledge of evil as evil, so-called. Without a sense
of one's oft-repeated violations of divine law, the in-
dividual may become morally blind, and this deplorable
mental state is moral idiocy. The lack of seeing one's [25]
deformed mentality, and of _repentance_ therefor, deep,
never to be repented of, is retarding, and in certain mor-
bid instances stopping, the growth of Christian Scientists.
Without a knowledge of his sins, and repentance so severe
that it destroys them, no person is or can be a Christian [30]
Scientist.

Mankind thinks either too much or too little of sin.

[Page 108.]

The sensitive, sorrowing saint thinks too much of it: the [1]
sordid sinner, or the so-called Christian asleep, thinks too
little of sin.

To allow sin of any sort is anomalous in Christian
Scientists, claiming, as they do, that good is infinite, All. [5]
Our Master, in his definition of Satan as a liar from the
beginning, attested the absolute powerlessness--yea,
nothingness--of evil: since a lie, being without founda-
tion in fact, is merely a falsity; spiritually, literally, it
_is nothing_. [10]

Not to know that a false claim is false, is to be in danger
of believing it; hence the utility of knowing evil aright,
then reducing its claim to its proper denominator,--
nobody and nothing. Sin should be conceived of only
as a delusion. This true conception would remove mortals' [15]
ignorance and its consequences, and advance the second
stage of human consciousness, repentance. The first
state, namely, the knowledge of one's self, the proper
knowledge of evil and its subtle workings wherein evil
seems as real as good, is indispensable; since that which [20]
is truly conceived of, we can handle; but the misconcep-
tion of what we need to know of evil,--or the concep-
tion of it at all as something real,--costs much. Sin
needs only to be known for what it is not; then we are
its master, not servant. Remember, and act on, Jesus' [25]
definition of sin as a _lie_. This cognomen makes it less
dangerous; for most of us would not be seen believing
in, or adhering to, that which we know to be untrue.
What would be thought of a Christian Scientist who be-
lieved in the use of drugs, while declaring