Article December 26, 1977 Issue

What Do You Think of Yourself?

JAMES NORMAN WOMACK

"... you've no idea what a poor opinion I have of myself, and how little I deserve it," lamented the young baronet in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera Ruddigore. I recently found myself chuckling over that line as though I were reading it for the first time. But as my laughter faded, it was replaced with a sobering thought: what a poor opinion many people really do have of themselves and how little they deserve it!

Harmful opinions of ourselves are not fostered so much by self-hate as by self-ignorance; ignorance of our true birthright, of our real substance, of our stupendous potential, of the natural perfection of our being. We tend to accept suggestions telling us how limited we are, how imperfect, unsure, unhealthy, unhappy. Instead, we need to reject these as utterly false. We don't deserve a poor opinion of ourselves.

Mrs. Eddy bestowed a great gift on humanity when she published her book Science and Health, the textbook of Christian Science. In this single volume she sweeps aside the veil of the Adam-dream of life in matter and shows how we may free ourselves of self-imposed suffering.

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