Article November 15, 1913 Issue

Appropriation

EVELYN SYLVESTER KNOWLES

If we would be perfect, even as the Father "which is in heaven is perfect," must we not claim and appropriate all the qualities and attributes of the divine nature which belong to man as God's idea? When Jesus said, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also," he was thoroughly in earnest. He had claimed man's birthright of spiritual dominion which enabled him to do the works of the Father, and he assures us that it is ours to do the same. A gift or a promise is of no actual value to us until we claim it. The toy given to a child affords him no enjoyment until he accepts and uses it. A promissory note may lie in one's safe for years, adding nothing to one's material wealth unless payment is received. A gold mine or a diamond field will yield nothing to the one who refuses to explore it and appropriate its treasures.

God has given man dominion over all the earth, and it is therefore our part to accept and appropriate this divine gift. Are we doing this, or are we letting the things which we should rule, rule us? We are prone to fear what we should govern; to cater to so-called material laws which we should control; to succumb to sorrow, disease, sin, and death as the result of our belief in the power of that which we might defy. Thus by failing to appropriate man's God-bestowed dominion, we fall a prey to material laws instead of making them sunservient to the universal good.

Mrs. Eddy says that man "is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas" (Science and Health, p. 475). Possessing "all right ideas," the real universe is his by birthright. The carnal senses, however, can no more possess the spiritual, than the senses of Soul can cognize the material. At present, while overcoming the flesh and all error, while displacing material concepts by spiritual facts, we cannot ignore the manifestations of falsity, but we can and must educate ourselves out of the belief that they are real, thus ceasing to mistake the counterfeit for the genuine.

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