Article June 9, 1951 Issue

KNOW THYSELF

RICHARD P. PALMER

On a balmy starlit June evening a group of young men gathered together on the steps of their college chapel to give the graduating seniors an opportunity to say an informal farewell. Several of the departing men expressed gratitude for the progress they had made. But many, as they looked at their college careers in retrospect, focused their thoughts on neglected opportunities and personal shortcomings to such an extent that they lost sight of the very creditable work which they had done.

Why did these fine young students fall so easily and unwittingly into an attitude of self-reproach and self-depreciation? Why did they not think better of themselves? Their acceptance of the suggestion of personal goodness, with its corollary, personal badness, had helped to hide from them the facts of spiritual selfhood.

Christian Science eliminates both self-depreciation and egotism by revealing that the truth of man is his likeness to God. Jesus, who clearly discerned his oneness, or unity, with God, was alert and decisive in his denial of any personal or corporeal sense of goodness. When someone addressed him as "Good Master," he immediately rejected this personal adulation with the declaration (Mark 10:18), "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." In complete accord with Jesus' reply, Christian Science teaches that man possesses no quality, attribute, or activity of his own, but exactly expresses the character, nature, and activity of his Maker, God.

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