In the study of their companion textbooks, the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Christian Scientists often become greatly interested in the use of words; delicate shadings of meaning are a challenge to deeper study. The words "humiliation" and "humility," for instance, both grow from a common root and express closely related states of thought, yet they are far from synonymous.

Most of us have experienced humiliation; we have made mistakes, and our self-esteem has been sadly hurt. To the discomfort of remorse there may have been added an awareness of silent or audible comments by our associates. All this is hard to bear!

However, our textbooks lead the way out of such distress, and it is the way of prayer. Mrs. Eddy writes in "No and Yes" (p. 39): "Prayer can neither change God, nor bring His designs into mortal modes; but it can and does change our modes and our false sense of Life, Love, and Truth, uplifting us to Him. Such prayer humiliates, purifies, and quickens activity, in the direction that is unerring." Through prayer we can put off false pride and the arrogance of human will and in humility begin to correct our mistakes.

With renewed insight into the teachings of Christian Science, we may declare and understand our true status as the perfect child of a perfect Father, incapable of error or inharmony. We may say with the Apostle Paul (Rom. 7:20), "Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." It is the false sense of self that sins, and whatever is false has no place with or relation to that which is true or real.

However, a mistake cannot be successfully corrected or wiped out by our glossing it over with the general statement that our real self did not do it! That comforting statement has to be proved step by step in our human experience as we endeavor to demonstrate our perfection as the image and likeness of God, to whom mistakes are impossible. On that true, firm basis, effective correction can begin, and the task of restitution calls for humility.

A woman who had made a serious mistake in connection with her work as a member of a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, was humiliated to the point of incapacity to continue that work. She feared she had offended irretrievably. In her distress she called upon a wise and experienced Christian Science practitioner, who closed their interview with the statement, "My dear, your mistake will perish, but your correction will live."

Gradually, the truth of that statement was demonstrated. As she made the necessary correction, the woman's crippling sense of humiliation gave place to humility; to a receptiveness which promoted spiritual growth.

Through honest and humble prayer she came to understand more clearly than ever before her own status as a child of God and her complete dependence on Him for wisdom and guidance. Her false sense of herself as an individual capable of working independently and therefore making mistakes was lost through her correction of the situation, and the whole experience proved to be of inestimable value to her in many years of church work.

Many centuries ago a far more serious humiliation and discipline came to Saul of Tarsus. Relentlessly he had persecuted the followers of Christ Jesus. Then suddenly, and with a literally blinding force, the wrong he had been doing was revealed to him, rendering him temporarily helpless.

However, he reacted with a militant repentance and reformation, spending the rest of his years as Paul, preaching the Christ, Truth, because of which he had once so bitterly persecuted Jesus followers. He did not permit humiliation to weaken him, but turned his full ardor and ability to his work of correction; to his evangelism. His former pride and self-will were lost in true humility, and he became, and remains, a great religious leader.

A blessed progress, indeed, from humiliation to humility! We all can make it; we can cease to be hampered by arrogance and loss of face, and with selfless teachableness find the truth of Mrs. Eddy's words in "Miscellaneous Writings'" (p.1): "Humility is the steppingstone to a higher recognition of Deity."