Self-esteem is essential to worthy achievement but it must be founded not on human judgment, one's own or another's, but on the estimation of man as God's likeness.

As I hear, I judge," said Jesus, "and my judgment is just." How, indeed, could it be otherwise, since it was the result of his communion with the divine? Another statement of his in this connection is given for our guidance: "I receive not testimony from man." Do we receive testimony from men, and, listening not to Spirit, but to personal viewpoints, form our own judgments thereby?

Mankind esteemed Jesus as "stricken, smitten of God." Jesus knew himself as "beloved Son." Had he accepted the verdict of the world regarding him, there would have been no Saviour; the spiritual power of healing, and redemption, would not have been experienced; the crucifixion would not have been followed by the resurrection; the triumph of Life over death would not have been witnessed and the way revealed.

He who esteems himself stricken of disease, smitten of disaster, is accepting testimony of men, is believing that to be true about man which Jesus came to refute and to replace with divine evidence. It is not enough that men should denounce and deplore mortal testimony. They must rise in positive, vigorous recognition of themselves as Soul's representatives, knowing its boundless might, its all-embracing tenderness, reflecting its health and beauty. He who esteems God aright, knowing Him to be Love and Life, Principle and Truth, will not fall into the grievous error of believing that He bestows disease and death upon His offspring.

The little child, brought up in Christian Science, who when asked if he were not afraid of catching a prevalent infectious ailment, replied firmly, "No, I never take anything that doesn't belong to me," showed he had been taught to trust in a power which preserves those obeying it from the dangerous possibilities of lawless accident or chance. Confident that God would send him nothing that spelled ill-health or sadness, he was unafraid.

The tendency of mortal man is to rise or fall in his own esteem according to material evidence. Encouraged or discouraged by praise or blame, by success or failure, he turns from that which is his, the intelligence of Mind, the illumination of spiritual sense, to that which does not belong to him, or indeed to anyone, the false values and unjust sentences of personal sense. "The great Metaphysician," writes Mary Baker Eddy on page 187 of "Miscellaneous Writings," "wrought, over and above every sense of matter, into the proper sense of the possibilities of Spirit. He established health and harmony, the perfection of mind and body, as the reality of man." As we clearly esteem the possibilities of Spirit in our own lives, recognizing, accepting, no argument of liability or weakness as able to turn us from our purpose to hear truly and then judge rightly, the supremacy of Spirit will take shape in word and action.

Undisturbed in his dignity and divine assurance of sonship was Jesus before the scorn and repudiation meted out to him by those he came to bless. The testimony of men, whether it were "Hosanna in the highest" or "Crucify him," gratified as little as it disturbed this representative of God. He knew what was being wrought in his progressive dominion over matter to the eternal esteem of God and the man of His creation.

What is it that men most profoundly esteem in themselves, in each other? How easily and swiftly do false values deflect their judgment, debase their motives, undermine the whole structure of their lives? He who seeks the esteem of others for personal reasons, for ambition or ease, how far he wanders from that which is esteemed of God, from the possibilities of Spirit; how baseless amidst its jealousies, rivalries, and disappointments is the foundation on which he builds. "Who," asks our Leader on page 17 of the Message for 1902, "of the world's lovers ever found her true?" And she continues, "Only what God gives, and what we give ourselves and others through His tenure, confers happiness: conscious worth satisfies the hungry heart, and nothing else can."

Until the altitude is reached where there is a refusal to accept that which does not belong to man, because it has never been bestowed on him, the false will continue to be esteemed, the worthless exalted. Only he who listens, hears; and only he who hears can judge. Jesus heard because the clamoring and, to material sense, often deafening testimony of men, bent upon destroying the spiritual idea, was never able to silence for him the voice of Truth.

Everything that is worthy of possession belongs to him who esteems himself correctly. Never separated from, never out of touch with, never stricken or smitten of God, is he whom the Christ reveals. That which materiality would impose, bringing with it suffering, limitation, and sadness, is proved to be as bereft of claimant as it is of ownership.

Mind's estimate of its own idea is the divine ideal. In the measure that men understand their heritage do they learn to esteem themselves not in material but spiritual terms, not according to the measurement of human attainment and possession but with divine appraisement. They learn to refuse to accept as theirs, the untrue. So do they understand at least in a degree what Paul meant when he wrote to the Corinthians. "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."

Evelyn F. Heywood