On the analogy of Ohm’s Law our error is making our “R” so rigid that it ceases to be a conductor, and so no current is delivered and no work done.  This is the true nature of sin, and it is this opposition of our R to E.M.F. or Eternal Motive Force that has to be removed.  We have to realize the true function of our R, as the channel through which the E.M.F. is enabled to carry on its work.  When we awake to the fact that our true place in the Order of the Universe is to be fellow-workers with God in carrying on the work of Creation, then we see that hitherto we have entirely missed the purpose of our calling, and have misused the Divine image in which we were created; and therefore we want an assurance that our past errors will not stand in the way of our future advance into continually fuller participation in the Divine Creative Work, which, in virtue of our true nature should be our rightful inheritance.

That our future destiny is to actually take an individual part, however small, in guiding the great work of Evolution, may not be evident to us in the earlier stages of our awakening; but what is clear as a matter of feeling, but not yet intellectually, is, that in some way or other we have been cutting ourselves off from the Great Source of Light, and that what we therefore want, is to be re-united to it.  What is wanted, then, is something which will give us a firm ground of assurance that we are re-united to it, and that that something must be of such a nature as never to lose anything of its efficiency at any stage of our progress—­it must cover the whole ground.

Now, if we think deeply upon this question, we shall gradually come to see that this expansive quality is to be found in the doctrine of the Atonement.  It meets all the needs of our spiritual nature in a way that no other theory does, and responds to every stage of our progress.  There is only one thing that will prevent it working, and that is, saying that we have no need of it.  That is why St. John said, that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John i, 8).  But the more we come into the light of Truth, and realize that sin is everything that is not in accordance with the Law of our own essential being as related to the Eternal Life, the more we shall see, not only that we have transgressed the Law in the past, but also that even now we are very far from completely fulfiling it; and the more light we get the more clearly we shall see this to be the case.  Therefore, whatever may be the stage of our mental development, the assurance which we all need for the basis of our new life is that of the removal of sin—­the sins of the past, and the daily errors of the present.  We may form various theories, each to our own satisfaction, as to how this takes place.  For instance we may argue that, since “the Word” is the undifferentiated potential of Humanity, every human soul is included in the Self-offering of Christ,