Editorial February 8, 1964 Issue

True Greatness

Helen Wood Bauman

Great men and women are those who rise to the demands of their times and contribute to the progress of the race. It is hard for the worldly-minded to realize that there can be no true greatness without goodness. Tyrants and sinners have dominated the stage of events at times. They may have left the unpleasant imprint of their lives upon the pages of history; but true greatness was not theirs, for their lives were bent upon selfish ends.

Mary Baker Eddy says in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 194), "Only those men and women gain greatness who gain themselves in a complete subordination of self." Christian Science explains that the self which must be subordinated is not the real man. It is the human sense of man, which supposedly has a will of its own and can disregard God. One who sees the falsity of this concept of self is likely to accept what Christian Science teaches of man: that he is the likeness of his Maker—incorporeal, sinless, deathless—spiritually great.

The greatness of the real man is his perfectness; and this true state is always demonstrable because, as God's expression, it is eternally present. We see the qualities of real manhood shining through the mist of mortal selfhood in the generosity, nobility, and forgiving spirit that hint the presence of Christliness in individual thought. Success in gaining this true kind of greatness does not come through personal ambition. The nearer to greatness an individual comes, the more unconscious he is of that greatness, and the more conscious he is of God's greatness.

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