Article September 19, 1908 Issue

IMPERSONAL GIVING

FRANK H. SPRAGUE

Despite the declaration of the great Teacher, that "it is more blessed to give than to receive," Christians, as a rule, have been accustomed to treat the subject as if the recipient were almost if not quite the sole beneficiary in the case. On this, as on almost every point, the teachings of Jesus, when interpreted in the light of Christian Science, are found to rest on a basis of metaphysical certainty instead of the arbitrary dictum of personal sense. The giving to which he referred in the passage cited was evidently not of the perfunctory order, in which a sense of duty is the main incentive. Whatever the intrinsic value of a gift, the spirit which prompts it is always of paramount importance. This becomes increasingly apparent as we approach the question from its metaphysical rather than its physical side. While giving discriminatingly and with a right motive cannot fail to benefit the recipient in a greater or less degree, the reflex influence of such giving is calculated to bless the donor even more abundantly. The instinct of giving, rightly exercised, tends to free human consciousness from the bondage of false, material sense, which is the source of sin, suffering, disease, and all forms of evil.

The pool without an outlet stagnates, and the springs which feed it become clogged with scum and debris,—"Ceasing to give, we cease to have," the poet Trench phrases it; and so the consciousness which is absorbed with self and ceases to give out, stagnates until it becomes congested with beliefs of discord and disease. Christian Science diagnoses the ground of all human discord as personal, self-centered sense, a false sense of self. Giving releases consciousness from the fettering conditions of a limited, selfish existence, and opens a wider outlook on which the center of human affection is transferred from the individual to the larger circle of mankind. The unfolding of ethical ideals and purposes which attends this expansion of personal sense marks a step toward spiritual freedom. Such ideals belong to a transitional stage of experience, in which the self-centered tendencies of personal sense, manifested in acquisitiveness, self-aggrandizement, and gravitation matter-ward, are being superseded by outgoing, liberating tendencies, which lead away from the personal to the impersonal, from the finite to the infinite. The steps in this progression are clearly indicated by Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health (p. 115) under the caption "Scientific Translation of Mortal Mind."

The impersonal standard of giving must be apprehended in some measure before the true status of man as the spiritual reflection of God, the All-giver, can be discerned. Thus understood, giving becomes the means of raising consciousness to a plane where personality—the essence of self-centered sense—is seen to be myth, a figment of false belief. Jesus declared, "He that loveth his life [sensuous existence, personality] shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal;" i.e., through self-abnegation and the pursuit of spiritual ends one comes naturally, by degrees, into a realization of man's immortal selfhood. "Be of good cheer," said Jesus, "I have overcome the world." His acknowledgment of Spirit as the only Giver or source of power, ruled out of his consciousness self-centered, personal sense, so that material so-called laws and conditions, in other words, matter—which, according to its structural basis, represents the combined aggregate of self-centered sense or supposed resistance to Spirit—offered no impediment to his demonstration of the allness of Spirit. During his earthly career he rose superior to material beliefs and triumphed over matter because he had so far overcome the claims of self-centered sense subjectively, in his own consciousness, that he was able to meet and master those self-same claims when presented objectively to the physical senses in the guise of a material world.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

THE LAW OF SUPPLY