Article June 4, 1910 Issue

TRUE PHILANTHROPY

ELIZABETH EARL JONES.

The psalmist said: "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee." Never was there a wiser and kinder saying than this, and we do well to heed it, especially when we are tempted by false pity to shoulder the burdens of others for them. The only helpful sympathy is to encourage those in need to avail themselves of the ever-present help of God, and lovingly instruct them to work out their own salvation according to divine Principle. Some helpers are wise enough at the start to discern the real need of humanity, but some have to learn by experience.

If we shoulder a brother's burden in a kindly but mistaken effort to help him progress in the way of perfect liberty, we first of all betray our own lack of faith in the impartiality and all-sufficiency of divine wisdom and Love to meet the every need of His every child, and to be able to do this more quickly, thoroughly, and permanently than we could ever hope to do it. Secondly, we do the needy one a vast injustice, for we thereby foster in him human dependence, laziness, and selfishness, and thus deprive him of the very foundation stones of progress, i.l., the mighty wrestlings with and victories over temptation which are absolutely necessary to insure safe and honest growth in Christian Science. Dwarfing one's growth in this manner spoils his mental perspective, and blights his realization of gratitude.

When mortals pay for themselves the full price of spiritual dominion, then, and not until then, do they properly estimate its priceless value and manifest true gratitude to God, the giver of all good, and to the human helper who has pointed the way to the one infinite source. Paul said, "When I am weak, then am I strong;" and so it is that our own experiences make us truly strong, and no other's can. The Christian Science practitioner finds that he has constantly to remind himself of the psalmist's admonition in order to guard his consciousness against the subtle mesmerism of false pity. How he may best bear his own and another's burdens, "and so fulfil the law of Christ," is the subject of his most earnest prayer, and its answer involves an understanding of how to help himself and others to find in God's Word the truth which Jesus said would make us free.

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