One of the moral qualities that is so essential to spiritual progress is humility. Mary Baker Eddy speaks of its significance: "This virtue triumphs over the flesh; it is the genius of Christian Science." Miscellaneous Writings, p. 356. And humility is absolutely vital if we hope to heal in the way Christ Jesus taught. One who attempts to heal without it cannot succeed.
As the Discoverer of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy surely knew her place in Christian history. But this wasn't pride or merely a sense of personal accomplishment. Rather she listened to God and did His will. She meekly followed her Master, Christ Jesus. Humility was a fundamental point in her teachings and, we might say, a foundation stone in the establishment of the Church of Christ, Scientist.
In Retrospection and Introspection she writes of her discovery and what it taught her of the need to relinquish trust in matter and to accept an undeviating allegiance to Spirit and all things spiritual. She declares: "The first spontaneous motion of Truth and Love, acting through Christian Science on my roused consciousness, banished at once and forever the fundamental error of faith in things material; for this trust is the unseen sin, the unknown foe,—the heart's untamed desire which breaketh the divine commandments. As says St. James: 'Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.'
