Article April 4, 1908 Issue

HUMILITY

LAURA COOLEY TUCKER.

Says the wise man: "By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, and honor, and life;" and in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 356) Mrs. Eddy tells us that "this virtue [humility] triumphs over the flesh; it is the genius of Christian Science." It is manifest, therefore, that humility is essential to the understanding of divine Science, the knowledge of Truth, wherein old things of the flesh, material conceptions and false beliefs, pass away and all things become new, the spiritual idea of man and the universe dawns upon human consciousness.

According to the Scriptures the fruits of humility are "riches, and honor, and life," a lack of which indicates an absence of humility; but false teaching has so beclouded the consciousness of men that it is only through the lens of Christian Science that a correct apprehension of what constitutes humility is obtainable, and in order to emphasize this virtue it is well to consider what humility is not, as well as what it is. Humility is not submission to evil, but a scientific handling of the claims of evil. It is not the mistaken sense which binds mortals to sin, sickness, and death. Believing God to be the author of discord and disease, men have been taught to submit patiently to the so-called "wise providence of God," and this submission has been designated humility. They have been taught that evil is personal; that man has fallen from his divine perfection as the child of God; that he is the personification of sin and disease, a mixture of good and evil; in fact, that man is the very opposite of the divine idea of man as revealed in Christian Science, the idea which reflects divine Principle, God, and by the very nature of its spiritual origin is perfect as the "Father which is in heaven is perfect." Hence, instead of being denied and proved to be unreal, without Principle, intelligence, or foundation in Truth, evil has continued to usurp the power and presence of God, good, in belief, thus hiding the divine individuality of man.

Humility is not human weakness. It is spiritual strength; the courage of honest convictions; unselfed love. It is not attained by believing man to be a sick, sinning mortal, the sport of circumstance, the victim of a material law which would set aside the divine order and supremacy of Mind, but by knowing man to be the reflection of Deity, and in demonstrating this truth by the realization of a more spiritual type of manhood and womanhood, governed by the law of God and manifesting man's spiritual and unlimited power for good as the expression of divine Mind.

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