Article January 11, 1908 Issue

WORK AND WEALTH TRULY CONCEIVED

GRACE E. SELLON.

"The wealth of nations, as of men, consists in substance, not in ciphers, and ... the real good of all work and of all commerce depends upon the final worth of the thing you make or get by it." So writes Ruskin in "The Crown of Wild Olive," and later, in concluding the same essay, he defines as the substance of the divine riches, "serviceable for the life that now is," "free-heartedness and graciousness, and undisturbed trust, and requited love, and the sight of the peace of others, and the ministry to their pain—these, and the blue sky above you, and the sweet waters and flowers of the earth beneath, and mysteries and presences innumerable of living things."

Thus did the English reformer seek, with a new statement of an eternal truth, to awaken the world from its apathetic content with a material definition of the purpose of labor and nature of wealth, to an apprehension of the economic value of Christian love and helpfulness. Doubtless in his early study of the Bible Ruskin had learned from such impressive questions as "Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth not?" and again, "For what hath man of all his labor, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath labored under the sun?" as well as from such injunctions as "Labor not to be rich," "Labor not for the meat which perisheth," that all striving to find substance and satisfaction in material possessions must ultimate in "vanity and vexation of spirit;" and the truths thus gained must have been reinforced and established by experience.

To those who seek the truth concerning the essential nature of labor and wealth, Christian Science comes with unequaled radiance. It positively and authoritatively asserts and demonstrates that man's needs are wholly spiritual; that the source of supply for these needs is infinite Love, and that the possession not of a partial but of a thoroughly adequate understanding of the nature of divine Love is indeed man's wealth and the end of all his labor. No compromise is made with mortal sense, however much it may argue for material need and satisfaction. While Mrs. Eddy material lays stress upon the folly of attempting to dispense with material food and clothing before the belief of food and raiment as material has been honestly overcome (see Science and Health, p. 254), she nevertheless adheres strictly to the truth that man lives because God lives; that the correct sense of supply, which is gradually eradicating mortal misconceptions, is that expressed by Christ Jesus in his allusions to the true bread and water of life as spiritual.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

MRS. EDDY'S CHARITABLE FUND