Watching Point 490

490 — WATCH that you realize that Mrs. Eddy’s love and pity for her enemies was her Science, as well as her Christianity. The only way our enemies can be handled scientifically, is when we love and pity them. She once wrote, “To forgive your enemies is equivalent to having no enemies.”

Jesus was able to meet the hatred of his enemies through his love and pity, as shown in his words, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Only as we impersonalize error can we be sure that we do not hurt the oil and the wine. If we were living in the old Roman days and trying to destroy a ship full of our enemies, one that was being rowed by galley slaves who were our own countrymen who had been captured, we would be careful to kill only the enemy, and not to harm our friends. We always hurt the oil and the wine when we condemn individuals, hate them or attach error to them. You cannot meet error scientifically until you love and pity the channel through which error seems to come.