Editorial May 7, 1927 Issue

Dictatorship Annulled

Ella W. Hoag

"It is our pride that makes another's criticism rankle, our self-will that makes another's deed offensive, our egotism that feels hurt by another's self-assertion." Thus declares Mrs. Eddy on page 224 of her book, "Miscellaneous Writings," in one of the most pregnant of known sentences. Surely in these terse words she has marked out the dangers which are continually besetting the pathway of the Christian Scientist; and, if her warning is heeded, her words also reveal the possibility of deliverance from all mental disturbance or perturbation.

There is little doubt that in pride, self-will, and egotism are included the most frequent, most insistent, and most destructive forms of error. These are they which perpetually assail the human consciousness and would shut the door on all spiritual progress. When our Leader has so ably shown how we may recognize their presence by certain resultant effects, she has also indicated something of the way of the complete vanquishment of all for which they stand—even for all their invariable tendencies of personal domination and dictatorship.

While pride and egotism are sometimes used synonymously, each has its own definite and particular shade of meaning. Pride stands for the paltriness of vanity and self-conceit—that which is always desiring human approval and therefore is apt to be morbidly sensitive, resenting as a personal rebuff whatever differs from it even in opinion, and distraught at the least evidence of criticism of itself, its words or acts.

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Dictatorship Annulled

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