Editorial August 5, 1905 Issue

"Treasure in the heavens."

Annie M. Knott

IN the study of our text-book we are frequently reminded that an understanding of spiritual law and order must take the place of mere belief in what the world calls "the supernatural." Most persons who accept Christian Science come to see this very readily with respect to the healing of sickness, but they fail to apprehend it with equal clearness when attempting to apply their understanding of the truth to other problems of human existence. Now every schoolboy knows that if he understands how to work a problem in arithmetic he will get the correct answer. It may sometimes happen that a boy who does not understand, also gets a correct answer, but his chance success would be no argument against the necessity for study of the basic law and rules involved in every case. We can never become mathematicians by chance, but only through understanding.

It would seem that in many instances students of Christian Science hold mistaken notions respecting the overcoming of poverty or lack, and the tendency in some cases is to depend upon what is really blind faith,—a belief that a supply will come in some unknown way,—or else they seek to identify the material with the spiritual, and thus claim for the unreal the qualities of the real. It is true that the promises of the Bible are both definite and positive as to the supply of all our needs, but every promise is conditioned by the faithfulness of our observerance of law and order. The command to seek first the things of God can never be thrust aside by any clamoring of material necessity, and in every case the condition to be fulfilled is a provision of divine Love and wisdom. The Master said to the anxious and troubled, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow," and this admonition has often been taken as an endorsement of idleness, a thought which is doubtless wide of his meaning. While the flowers of the field neither toil nor spin, they fulfil the ends of their being, in obedience to law and order, and that, too, without fret or failure. Surely no less should be expected of man, who, according to the teaching of our text-book, includes in his consciousness all the lesser ideas of divine Mind. It is therefore his privilege to express in his character and his activities the beauty and fragrance of the flower, the diligence and forethought of the ant, the swift, unwearied flight of the denizens of the air.

The birthright of God's man is the sole charter of our liberties. It admits of no subjection save to the supremacy of God, good. The recognition of this birthright gently loosens the frenzied grasp of mortals upon their material gods, and lifts the liberated thought up to noble achievement and true success,—the attainment of possessions which are not burdensome. A business man who has proved the value of Christian Science on this line, writes of his experience as follows:—

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