Article January 30, 1995 Issue

Key to victory: humility

Jonathan Craig Huntley

In the spring of 1864, during the fourth bloody year of the American Civil War, the new federal commander, General Ulysses S. Grant, sent a message back to the Union Army's chief of staff. It said, in part: "I ... propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer." The fighting was to last about another ten months, but Grant did not give up and the North won the war—a victory that put an end to slavery in the United States.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, lived in New England during the American Civil War. She had taken a strong stand against slavery. Later, when she was writing the textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, she remembered General Grant's statement. Immediately after quoting him, she shared what it is that we must take a stand for in the battle against sickness, sin, and materiality. She writes: "Science says: All is Mind and Mind's idea. You must fight it out on this line. Matter can afford you no aid" (p. 492).

Many of us yearn to take such a strong stand. Man, as the idea of God, is spiritual, made in God's image and likeness. But what I've discovered is that in the battles we fight against sickness, sin, or lack, just the personal will to fight for truth is not enough to win. Our stand is effective only as we yield to God's government and supreme will, which are entirely good. There's an essential quality of thought that enables us to do this and to go forward spiritually—it's humility.

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