Article October 1, 1910 Issue

WORTHY OF HIS MEAT

ARTHUR F. FOSBERY.

Most people admit that the man who is doing the necessary material work entailed by present conditions should receive ample reward for his time, but many seem to think that any one who strives to lift his fellows toward that ideal condition where work will not be drudgery, but where all will rejoice in unity of purpose and action, in the loving expression of infinite bliss, and who spends his time in ameliorating untoward conditions to the best of his ability now, should receive but a mere pittance, a bare living in return for his labor. One reason for this peculiar notion is, that those who seek spiritual things denounce the folly of relying for happiness on material things, and maintain that we should be ever ready to give up material things for spiritual; therefore the onlooker, who does not discern spiritual substance, thinks that the proof of spirituality must necessarily be lack, because from his point of view the idealist is advocating the giving up of everything, and getting nothing in return except the hope of happiness in some mythical future state.

The Christian Scientist is striving to show that those who rely wholly on spiritual consciousness for their supply do not suffer from any sense of lack, but gain abundantly, now—in the present time. He does not always rise to the visible demonstration of this fact, and one of the causes which sometimes contribute toward his failure in this direction is indiscriminate giving. There are times when it is right to give freely, and there are times when such giving is even harmful. If a bricklayer built houses for nothing, or for half the regular wages, because he used an improved method of building, and wanted people to adopt it and build their own houses, he would, instead of accomplishing his object, be merely tempting people to let others do their work for them. His time being taken up by people who should do their own work, he would not be able to teach or build gratuitously where such gratuitous teaching or building would be right; whereas, if he charged full value for his time, and his work being more important, his time would be more valuable than it had been while using the old method, people would pay more attention to his teaching, and be sooner able and willing to do their own work. Justice requires a full recompense for labor; and if we labor in the right way, we get our supply and use it in the right way, because we know that only as we discern it rightly is it of value to ourselves and others.

Mrs. Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 307): "God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies." The most important thing about our supply is the understanding of what its substance consists,—God's spiritual ideas. But if we combine a mere intellectual acknowledgment of this with a love of and reliance on the material, instead of a spiritual consciousness of the infinitude of supply, we have on hand only so much matter, the value of which will continue to shrink, even to the finite sense which grasps it, because the sense of limitation continues to increase in proportion as it is indulged, whether the material possessions increase or diminish.

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