Editorial March 5, 1927 Issue

The Open Door of Self-Abnegation

Ella W. Hoag

Most men have called self-abnegation a negative subject, for they have often felt it implied giving up something desirable. Comparatively few have understood its positive side; few have glimpsed that it is the open door to the gaining of all reality. To the student of Christian Science there is no subject that demands more earnest consideration, since the human consciousness must have self-abnegation before it can win good: it cannot realize good until it has let go of error. The student must therefore awaken to that necessary understanding of self-abnegation which will enable him to demonstrate his way out of evil into the consciousness of all good.

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 568) Mrs. Eddy has written, "Self-abnegation, by which we lay down all for Truth, or Christ, in our warfare against error, is a rule in Christian Science." This leaving all for Christ, this laying down all for Truth, is indeed the rule which must be used from the first moment that Christian Science knocks at one's mental door; and it must be applied with all its effective activity until every mortal fault, every human belief, has been proved unreal. It is a great comfort to know that as we accept this rule and allow it to act in our thinking and living we may take all our heavenward steps perfectly. Each day, each hour, through obedience to its righteous law, we may gain a fuller, more demonstrable understanding of the Christ, Truth. This will enable us to let go of the myriad forms of selfishness which shut out from our realization our unity with God, and would clog our spiritual progress.

There is no claim of evil which is not based on a belief in a false selfhood. Error in all its forms has for foundation only the unstable groundwork of the belief in a material personal sense of self. From this it is plain to be seen that if one is to be rid of evil, the first necessity is to learn what constitutes true selfhood, that he may therewith deny the beliefs in an opposite. Too long the world has been working to make good out of evil; too long it has believed it could make something holy out of sinful mortality; too long has it been trying to remodel effects.

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