Article August 15, 1908 Issue

NO STRINGENCY IN GOD'S KINGDOM

GEORGE HENRY TRADER

The financial problem occupies a large place in human experience, yet Christian Scientists are sometimes taken to task for claiming that Truth, divine Principle, helps them out of their financial difficulties. This objection is hardly reasonable when we find that frequently the lack of needed supply brings about a fear which is often the basis of sin or disease. If the lack of money leads any one to commit sin, and the fear of poverty causes sickness, surely it is reasonable to get at the basis of the financial error and destroy it. Moreover, it is not only the lack of money which causes worry; we sometimes see those who are rich in this world's goods greatly disturbed over the problem of guarding and expending their means to their complete satisfaction. Christian Scientists may not be wholly immune from financial trouble, but they will tell you that they are much happier concerning their affairs than they were before they were governed by the understanding of Christian Science. Sometimes there comes to the minds of the people the belief that times are hard, that confidence in plenty has departed, and this despite the fact that God's supply never wanes, and that we still see the visible signs of plenty and of activity everywhere.

Recently two lessons in Christian Science came to my notice. One was through the case of a man who had to carry with him quite large sums of money for the firm of which he was business manager. An accumulation of mental worries had seemingly brought him into a very frightened condition, and in making up his weekly account he found himself about a thousand dollars short. This unsettled him still further, and he proceeded to make arrangements to raise enough on his insurance policies to make up the deficit to his firm. Some work was done for him in Christian Science, and that night, as he awoke several times thinking of his problem, he was finally led to count some packages of money again, and found that he had been counting a thousand-dollar bill as a hundred-dollar one. His great fear had been based upon a mistake, and when this was once uncovered the fear of course subsided. This man's condition appeared to me to have been the same as that of many panic-stricken people, who seem confident that hard times are upon them when God is always pouring out plenty upon man; but a baseless fear, reared upon a false sense of things, makes mortals believe that they have not the supply which is needed.

The other case was that of a man who feared he was not going to receive all that was due him; those who owed him had failed to pay some others, and there appeared to be an avenue of excuse which they might use for the non-payment of his bill. He took the matter up in Christian Science, and began to realize that fear and evil could not keep him from that which was rightly his; but although he worked along these lines for some time, there still remained the sense of an incomplete demonstration, the fear was not entirely destroyed. It was not until he saw clearly that God not only supplied his needs but also the needs of those who owed him the money, and that if it were necessary he would be willing to let the others keep it until the right time came to pay him, that he knew the demonstration was made. He was so thoroughly convinced of God's all-protecting care, that a great calm came over him. In knowing that divine Principle governed all sides of the proposition, fear was destroyed, and he received his money in full without delay.

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