From the February 1913 issue of The Christian Science Journal
In his work of arousing humanity to the all-presence of God and the closeness of our relation to Him, Jesus chose the name of Father as typifying most clearly our utter dependence upon Him, His loving interest in our every-day needs, and His infinite power to supply them. Christians have accepted this term for God in theory, but in practise they have to a large extent set aside all that it implies of protection and maintenance in human conditions, and continued to scramble for one material thing after another to supply their various needs, experiencing as a result all sorts of discord and privation. Yet Jesus reveals to us, in the parable of the prodigal, the Father who declares, “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.” Could there be a clearer “Peace, be still,” to the strife and fear of mortal existence?
Christian Science shows us that it is our failure to recognize God as our Father, and as the real source of supply, consequently our failure to see what the real supply is, which causes all sense of limitation and want; so that lack is overcome not by material acquiring, but by mental readjustment. Of course this is in direct contradiction of the testimony of the physical senses, nevertheless it can be shown on the plane of ordinary human reasoning that any supply of what we call material need is mental in its origin and not material. If, for example, the choice could be made between owning a painting of a popular and successful artist or of possessing the ability of the painter himself with all the qualities of mind and heart that made for his success, one would see that as a matter of profit the skill of the artist, wholly supersensible in its nature, would be a far greater source of gain than the possession of any of his pictures.
In the same way, if we were given the choice of owning a business, its material organization and system, or the intelligence which produced and directs it, we would realize that any business establishment without wise management would soon fail, while the man who has the kind of intelligence, industry, and wisdom which produce business success, is capable of building up a successful organization wherever he is placed. In this way any apparent material possession can be traced to a mental power behind it which is the real source of supply.
The thought then presents itself that if the source is mental, that which is supplied cannot be material. Just as it is merely superficial thinking that makes the source of supply seem material, so it is this same carelessness which would call food or money or clothes supply instead of simply a means to an end. A story which one of the Christian Science lecturers told is a good illustration of this point. He said that during a period of business depression a man was approached by a laborer with the request for work. “Do you see that boulder over there on the hillside?” asked the man. “Roll that down the hill, and up again; there’s work for you.” “You don’t understand,” said the laborer; “I want money.” “Well, here is a five-dollar bill for you, if you will promise me not to spend it.” “But my family is in want; I need it for food and clothes and fuel.” “Very well, then, spend it for these, if you will promise not to eat the food, burn the fuel, or wear the clothes.” “Oh, no,” said the laborer wearily, “it isn’t food I want and it isn’t clothes; it’s comfort and happiness and peace.”
This is what we all want; and no matter what the material thing may be for which we are striving at the moment, or how misguided our efforts, this is the real supply which we are all seeking. So, even according to human reasoning, what we have been accustomed to consider material causes, and corresponding material effects, are simply mental conditions expressed in terms of matter. Then it is plain that the remedy for discord and limitation must come through mental readjustment and not through material acquiring.
Mere human reasoning is incapable of carrying us any farther, and stops with the declaration that mind is the source of supply; still we have not found the Father who is ever with us and who supplies us from His abundance. Indeed, no! the mortal mind, or what Paul named the carnal mind, is “enmity against God,” and this fact is the sole cause of the discord we are seeking to escape. The great need is that the human sense, the belief in both good and evil, be informed by Christian Science, which declares and proves that “Mind is not both good and bad, for God is Mind; therefore there is in reality one Mind only, because there is one God” (Science and Health, p. 330).
When we comprehend that divine Mind is the source of supply, and that God, our Father, is infinite Mind, the failures and restrictions which a false sense would put upon us begin to disappear, for we have reached the real basis of supply, the ever-present divine Mind whose ability is available for all alike under all circumstances, since “God is no respecter of persons.” When we once catch a glimpse of the purity of this eternal Mind, unmixed with a single evil element, and realize that He is indeed our Father, abundantly able to supply every need, we begin to give up the notion that selfishness, dishonesty, or any other evil passions of the human so-called mind can possibly be sources of supply to us or to any one else, and so we begin to give up fearing or harboring them.
Here human sense would declare that dishonesty, avarice, and greed are sometimes more successful than honesty and unselfishness. But we have only to remember what the real supply is,—not money or food or clothes, but peace and joy and love, —then we see that no evil passion can be successful in supplying these. We are then prepared to understand Mrs. Eddy’s declaration that “the imaginary victories of rivalry and hypocrisy are defeats” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 268). We can also see that it is acquiescence in or cooperation with evil which has hindered us from receiving the divine supplies, and that it is natural for honesty, intelligence, and industry to be successful, for these qualities reflect the divine Mind, and so lead up to the very fountainhead of all good.
The incongruity between divine causation, with the sublimity of its effect, and the means employed by human beings, is sometimes felt most keenly by the individual who is just becoming interested in Christian Science. When his attention is called to a financial demonstration, or the supplying of merely human needs through scientifically applying the spiritual law of cause and effect, he is inclined to see only the material conditions involved and to feel that there is no spiritual law in operation at all. He is quite apt to say, “I do not see any demonstration in that. You got the money and bought what you needed, just as any one might do.” He feels that an all-powerful spiritual cause must directly produce a spiritual result, independent of matter; which is of course ultimately true. Meanwhile, however, what is to become of this same individual who feels with his present understanding and environment that food and clothes and other material means are positive necessities? Surely it was to this condition of consciousness that Jesus spoke when he said: “Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
In seeking to understand the relation of the spiritual law to our human environment, the following illustration helped the writer and perhaps will be of benefit to others. The child who is first learning the law of addition may be incapable of grasping the abstract fact that one and one are two; so the teacher, understanding his need, supplies two apples and shows him how one apple and one apple make two apples. When he has learned this, very often he has to be taught all over again how one pencil and one pencil make two pencils, and he goes on learning the same law, with the help of various other objects, until at last he sees that pencils and apples have really nothing to do with the law, and that one and one would be two if there were no apples or pencils in the world. As a result of the conformity of the material symbols to the mathematical law, he has learned to dispense with the symbols and to see the law as a mental fact wholly independent of matter.
We are very little children yet in our power to perceive the spiritual operation of the laws of Mind, and need to have the material symbols conformed to this law until at last we, too, will be able to dispense with them and perceive this law quite apart from material symbols. The apparent response, through material objects, to the operation of the spiritual law is really an eliminating process, set to work by our increasing reliance upon divine Mind. The final attainment is the complete overcoming of all belief in matter and its discords. Mrs. Eddy says: “Christ, Truth, gives mortals temporary food and clothing until the material, transformed with the ideal, disappears, and man is clothed and fed spiritually” (Science and Health, p. 442).
The account of Christ Jesus’ feeding of the multitudes is a perfect illustration of how the material sense of acquiring falls back upon itself defeated, and of the efficacy of mental adjustment to the divine Mind. When the disciples looked into the basket for their supply, they immediately felt a sense of lack and saw only five loaves and two fishes; but Jesus, “looking up to heaven, … blessed, and brake,” and the disciples gathered twelve basketfuls of the fragments that were left after the five thousand had been fed. We may be sure that if a sense of want in any direction steals over us, we are looking into the basket and counting the loaves and fishes; but if, with Christlike understanding and pure purpose, we lift our eyes to heaven and then act immediately with full confidence in the divine assurance of supply, as did Jesus when he blessed and brake, we too will be able to give out of the riches of infinite Mind abundantly, above all that we can ask or think.
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