HISTORY is full of instances of what might be termed spurious greatness. Its records contain the names of many whose lives, although accounted great in the eyes of the world, were almost entirely barren of goodness. They were actuated by selfish ambitions. The temporary power they possessed was wielded, not to benefit others, but to aggrandize themselves; and, nemesis-like, frequently the result was disastrous to them.
Mortals are invariably afflicted with egotism, a false sense of self which cannot correctly discern the real or spiritual selfhood, but sees it out of perspective and distorted, and therefore erroneously. Egotism is boon companion to envy, jealousy, dishonesty, pride, and false ambition. It is unscrupulous, too, and under its unrighteous sway men are made to suffer wrong. And where egotism prevails, spiritual growth is stagnant. Mrs. Eddy writes on page 79 of "Retrospection and Introspection": "Dishonesty, envy, and mad ambition are 'lusts of the flesh,' which uproot the germs of growth in Science and leave the inscrutable problem of being unsolved. Through the channels of material sense, of worldly policy, pomp, and pride, cometh no success in Truth."
Christ Jesus, truly the greatest man who ever lived on earth, was able through his marvelously clear spiritual understanding to "judge righteous judgment" as no other had ever done. And nothing is plainer from the Gospel records of his life than that he had the utmost scorn for the egotism of worldliness, and condemned it unhesitatingly. His attitude towards it is summed up in his words to his disciples, "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" The Master did not reckon true greatness in terms of materiality; to him it meant the very opposite, even the conquest over all worldliness, through the acquiring of spirituality. Examine the teaching of the Nazarene, and it will be found that the only life he approved was that in which meekness and unselfishness predominated to the exclusion of pride and arrogance; that in which honesty, compassion, affection, and purity reigned.
