Article March 28, 1908 Issue

GOD'S WORK

JAMES S. CLAYTON.

A young man who had recently become deeply interested in Christian Science, was sitting at his desk in the office where he was employed, attending to the duties before him. He was apparently absorbed in the work, but suddenly, pushing back his chair, he closed his books and looked out of the window. He was thinking of how unsatisfactorily his duties had been performed during the past few months. A few days before he had made a serious error in his work, and he had at various other times displayed evidences of carelessness and inattention which were fast bringing down upon him the displeasure of his employer. Presently his thoughts turned to the subject which had so completely occupied his mind of late, and he sighed mentally, "I wonder when divine Love will deliver me from this?" What an error it was, he thought, that he, whose grasp of Science was so clear, should have to do this kind of work. He wished the clock would hurry up; he wanted to get out of this place early this Saturday afternoon, so that he could go home and study the Lesson.

While he was thus lamenting, his employer came up to him and said, "Smith, do you want to stay a while this afternoon and help us out?" Smith was decidedly displeased, but he answered, "Why, yes; if you want me." The closing hour was one o'clock on Saturday, and he thought how ridiculous it was for his employer to ask him if he wanted to work on Saturday afternoon. He was chagrined to think that "business" should prevent him from doing God's work that afternoon. He wished he could break "this mesmerism of business," as he called it, and step right into God's work now. Suddenly the thought came to him, But what is God's work? Who is my employer? And then in a wave of repentance he remembered that all work with the right motive is God's work. It moved him deeply to think that he had rebelled against his employer, when in reality God, Principle, was his employer. Not to this man nor this company of men did he owe his service, but to divine Love itself. An overwhelming sense of the divine sovereignty possessed him. The utter dependence of man on God appeared to him, and he saw how inadequate is the human concept of employment, when every employer, however great or small, derives all his credentials and authority from the one Mind. Whose work could it be, then, but God's, if God governs all men?

He went back to his work with a changed and chastened mental attitude. Thereafter a new sense of pride and personal interest entered into the performance of his daily duties, and he began to regard even those in chief authority as fellow-workers in a common cause. A new idea of honesty inspired his work, and he no longer sighed, during office hours, to be a Christian Science practitioner, nor meditated on the beauties of Christian Science when he was being paid to keep books. Thenceforth his work was without mistakes and he ceased to fear them.

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