Article July 11, 1908 Issue

A HOUSE OF LOVE

GRACE LIVINGSTON FURNISS

The article "A Real Investment," in a recent number of the Sentinel, came as a timely rebuke to me,—even though I had already made two contributions to the Publishing House fund,—for I had thought, "Well, I've given all I had for that purpose; my money is certainly needed in other directions, and I can do no more." After reading this article, however, I realized that my sense of limitation was not caused by lack of money, but by too much sense of a self apart from God, and that as a matter of fact I had nothing at all to give or withhold except in God, if I was sincere in claiming Him to be my only source of supply. Consequently, I had no right to accept the suggestion that I could be kept from doing any other good or necessary thing, if I sent the money I had on hand to help complete a building which is to be devoted to advancing His truth and is certainly His house.

I remembered with shame the unnumbered times my needs had been met by divine Love through the Sentinel and the Journal,—by some new presentment of that marvelous truth which is stated in the three words, "God is all;" yet this truth must be amplified and explained to reassure the timid thought which finds it so difficult to realize that this broad, impersonal statement covers the whole ground and meets the most minute personal need. I have in a scrap-book certain treasured articles from the Sentinel and Journal, which came to me like God's angels when I was suffering from such an agonizing sense of personal grief, illness, and worry over finances that I could not seem to grasp the truth. It was then that these inspiring articles talked to me just as some strong, kind, wise friend might have done, and I am sure there are very few Scientists who have not received precisely such aid from our periodicals, and who have not the same reason for profound gratitude for the privilege of reading them.

It would therefore seem as if each and every one of us had the right to claim a keen personal interest in the building of this new house for our old friends. It should be distinctively a labor of love for us all, and we should first build it right mentally,—resolve the whole question of demand and supply back into the spiritual facts, and then ask ourselves if God ever demanded any good thing of us except a just acknowledgment that He had supplied us with all the good we had to give. God never compels us to make "bricks without straw," nor does He ask us to "rob Peter to pay Paul;" let us all, therefore, give cheerfully and promptly whatever we have on hand, knowing that we are not donating to a fund, but building a house of Love (See Science and Health, p. 578),—a house wherein God will spread the table in the midst of our enemies, as He promises, by answering through both Sentinel and Journal all the subtle suggestions of error, in the way of doubt, fear, ignorance, etc., that seem to attack our peace of mind.

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