Article January 11, 1947 Issue

Surrendering False Selfhood

MARY BARNES

Nothing can be outwardly manifested which is not first mentally conceived. How important it is then that only God-like thoughts, the graces of Soul, should be allowed to tabernacle with us!

In her article entitled "Love" on page 250 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mary Baker Eddy refers to "the self-forgetful heart that overflows," that is, overflows with love, for God and man; whereas in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," dealing with the opposite state of thought, she says (p. 242), "Self-love is more opaque than a solid body." Opacity precludes the passage of light; therefore whoever indulges in self-love is in darkness, or in an unenlightened state of consciousness. Such a one would do well to heed and obey the injunction contained in the remainder of the paragraph: "In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error,—self-will, self-justification, and self-love,—which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death."

An outstanding example of a physical healing resulting from the replacement of some of the unlovely phases of false self by the Christlike qualities of humility, obedience, and self-surrender is to be found in the fifth chapter of II Kings. There it is stated, "Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honourable, because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria: he was also a mighty man in valour." Naaman's spiritual growth, however, had not kept pace with his material accomplishments, as is evidenced by his pride and rebellion when Elisha commanded him to "go and wash in Jordan seven times" in order to be cleansed of his leprosy. Not until Naaman was willing to do this, or, in other words, was willing to surrender his pride and self-will, did his healing take place and some of the qualities of real manhood appear. Then, it is recorded, "his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child."

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