Article August 1, 1901 Issue

Success

BY A. E. VAN OSTRAND.

Let us consider the question, What is success? Is it merely the gratification of these material senses? Is it the accumulation of worldly goods? Is it dominion over mankind through any of the various phases of social, civil, political, or professional life? Ask those who have met with success in a material way, and, without doubt, the vast majority will tell you that it did not give them the happiness they so much desired, and in the main the results were far from satisfying.

Jesus when he rebuked his followers, in the parable of the man who laid up treasures for himself, but was not rich toward God, said, "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?" but he defined real success, when he declared, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me;" meaning by this, that his overcoming of self was complete, and there was nothing left in his consciousness that responded to the temptation of the world, the flesh, and evil. Can anything be called success, in its truest sense, which is not substantial and permanent? St. John said to the Laodiceans, "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Jeremiah declared that "he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool," and the Master asked, "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" showing us that in his opinion so-called success, if not gained through spiritual understanding, was profitable for nothing. In following the teachings of Christian Science, we learn that all error, in each individual consciousness, must be overcome, before we can have dominion over sense and self, realize that perfect freedom of the children of God, and awake in his image and likeness. We must strive to purify our thought of all that beclouds the spiritual sense, obstructs the light, and hinders the perfect reflection of divine Mind.

We are learning each day that as a man "thinketh in his heart, so is he;" that thoughts are things and have power to benefit or injure us and others, in proportion to their purity or impurity, truth or falsity.

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