Benjamin Franklin perceived the wisdom of subduing self-glorification

ARE WE PROUD OF HUMILITY?

In his autobiography Benjamin Franklin, writing of the virtues which he tried so assiduously to cultivate, says: "In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our national passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be pround of my humility."

It is well to search our motives most diligently to see if we are entertaining the slightest trace of selfglorification. The Scriptures exhort us again and again to glorify God. Jesus' healing works, which so completely glorified God, rested in his understanding of the true nature of God and man as perfect and immortal. And he expected, even commanded, his followers to heal as he did. Christian Scientists are able to repeat his works because through the study of Christian Science they have gained some degree of the same understanding of God as Spirit and of man's at-one-ment with the Father.

As followers of him who restored the daughter of Jairus and raised Lazarus from the dead, we must stive to gain an ever deeper understanding of God's power and presence and to put aside all that would obscure or darken the light of Truth in our thinking. Pride is a false quality, which, unless recognized and overcome, would obscure. In her writings Mrs. Eddy couples pride with ignorance. In the understanding which knows God to be the only cause and man to be His effect there is no place for pride.

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