THERE sometimes comes into the experience of the student of Christian Science a sense of deep humiliation because he has seemed to fail in something which he had set about to do. In fact, sometimes he may have seemed to be compelled to take what looks to him like a backward step, to return to a position which he felt he had outgrown. For instance, he may have had again to take up a work with which he thought he had finished forever, with the added chagrin of knowing that all his little world is looking on and commenting, perhaps none too charitably. In his first bitter mortification and resentment he tells himself what a miserable failure as a Christian Scientist he must be to have had such a thing occur.
If any one has just now reached this milestone in his human pilgrimage, and is standing disconsolately beside it, battling with hurt pride and self-pity, let him remember, first of all, that self-condemnation never has been known to help any one in a bad situation, but on the contrary only renders its victim less fitted to cope with the difficulty. So, instead of wasting valuable time in this way, why not just begin to analyze, step by step, the whole experience to see what much-needed lesson may be in it for him, to find out wherein his work was left undone, or badly done, then try to detect the weak point in his spiritual armor with a view to strengthening it without further delay. During this process so much may unfold to him which will prove of inestimable value as a future asset that he may suddenly find himself rejoicing and thanking God for the entire experience, instead of feeling sorry for himself because of it.
It sometimes also occurs during these quiet hours of self-examination that one discovers that this thing which at first looked so like a backward step was not really so at all. The world may say that it is; but does that make it true? We are warned not to judge after the sight of the eyes and the hearing of the ears, but to "judge righteous judgment." God's viewpoint and that of mortals strangely differ; and what at first looked like a loss may prove to be a gain not yet understood. For example, if any one were at one time pushed into a certain situation by personality, instead of being led into it by divine Love, is it loss or gain to give it up? It surely could not be considered a backward step to give up something which never was ours by divine right in the first place. It is true that the letting go, the "losing" as the world may call it, often involves the overcoming of a tremendous amount of pride; but is not that very thing—the overcoming of pride—in itself of immeasurably greater value than that which was laid down? When one proves that he has the moral courage to do right even in the face of misunderstanding and censure, does he not at the same time prove the truth of Mrs. Eddy's statement (Poems, p. 4) that "loss is gain"?
