Humility is an excellent antidote for fatigue. Christ Jesus indicated this centuries ago, and the prescription has never been improved upon. He showed what was needed to restore the weary and the heavy-laden. While he promised he would give them rest, he also told them that they needed to learn something. "Learn of me," he said; "for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls."

Henry Drummond once remarked upon "the extraordinary originality of this utterance," the novelty of the connection between the two words "learn" and "rest." "How few of us," he says, "have ever associated them—ever thought that rest was a thing to be learned; ever laid ourselves out for it as we would learn a language; ever practiced it as we would practice the violin." But what must one work at? he goes on to ask. What is it which, if duly learned, will steep the restless human heart in rest? Jesus answers without the slightest hesitation. He specifies just two things: meekness and lowliness of heart.

What a prescription for human strain and defeat, disappointed pride, wounded vanity, thwarted ambition! Are we weary and heavy-laden? Do we really desire rest? Then let us take the Way-shower at his word. Let us practice humility.

This thought of a mental or spiritual prescription for a seemingly physical ailment is also clearly stated by Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, on page 268 of "Miscellaneous Writings." "God's preparations for the sick," she writes, "are potions of His own qualities." Meekness, humility, lowliness of heart are certainly divinely derived qualities, and there need be no fear of an overdose of this kind of medicine.

Seldom in human history has tired humanity stood more in need of rest than it does at the present hour. Even at a time of widespread unemployment many still may feel conscious of a sense of pressure, as though having too much to do, a feeling of hurry and nervous haste often entirely out of proportion to any actual demands made upon them. A few years ago, at the apex of its material prosperity, the world seemed to be called upon to live at high speed most of the time. Nearly everyone was in a hurry. "Step lively" was the watchword of the day. Yet even today, when the business machine is supposed to have slowed down somewhat, many are still oppressed by this same feeling of pressure, and have found no material solution for the sense of restlessness and frustration. Even the home is not always immune, and, as our Leader says (ibid., p. 7), "The mother of one child is often busier than the mother of eight."

Weariness and exhaustion are not the result of having too much to do. Rather are they the products of the belief in a self apart from God, of pride and of fear, of impatience and self-assertion, of failing to realize that of ourselves we can do nothing. God is the only source of true power, and the arrogant belief in a selfhood apart from Him gets tired; it could not do otherwise.

Perhaps we unconsciously set up a standard of what an efficient business man or woman should be, and spur ourselves to act the part; whereas we should do better work, and experience at the same time a large measure of rest and relaxation, if we were only unselfed enough to be truly humble, turning to the divine Mind for whatever is necessary of energy or wisdom.

In the rush of modern traffic it demands not only courtesy but true humility to turn our car aside to let another driver pass, and so we may be tempted to scramble and "cut in," instead of "in honour preferring one another," as St. Paul has it, thus attaining some measure of the rest which Jesus promised to those who would learn of him. It takes humility to brave the world's opinion: to be simple, relaxed, and childlike; to cease the human desire and effort to be thought clever or wise. And yet, what peace and rest are ours when we obey the Master's admonition and practice lowliness of heart!

Meekness is not weakness. Any athlete knows that his sense of power comes not from tenseness but from relaxation. Spiritual strength comes not from the assertion of self, but from the consciousness of our oneness with God; and men never will really find rest until they begin to practice humility and learn that God "doeth the works."

Strength of character often has been confused with self-assertion, but Christian Science teaches that true strength of character consists in humbling oneself before God; and that as we become more conscious of the divine presence and ever-present Love we shall find, to our surprise perhaps, that we do not have to assert or even to defend ourselves in order to obtain good.

True humility, however, is in no way related to mere human self-abasement. Through meekness and lowliness of heart we learn to reflect not less but more of the real man's dominion "over all the earth." Only through humility, indeed, may we learn effectually to "put off the old man" and lift ourselves and others to the contemplation of the grandeur and completeness of the real man in the image and likeness of his Maker, and thereby prove that we are able to do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth us.

To him who walks with God and is truly humble comes good of which he had never dreamed; obstacles melt before him; seemingly barred doors swing open at a touch; and in meekness and in lowliness of heart he enters into that peace which the world can neither give nor take away. "Humility," we are told in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 1), "is the stepping-stone to a higher recognition of Deity. The mounting sense gathers fresh forms and strange fire from the ashes of dissolving self, and drops the world."