Article June 25, 1910 Issue

THE SPIRIT OF GIVING

CLARENCE W. CHADWICK.

Christian Scientists have been so bountifully blessed, physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually, that their gratitude finds spontaneous expression in giving, and, since gratitude is an enduring virtue, their giving does not cease. They no longer give from a stern sense of duty, but rather because it is a pleasure and a privilege to do so. It is no longer a question of giving "grudgingly, or of necessity," but liberally and freely; they give because they love to give. Giving becomes to them a recognized factor in the activity of righteousness, and they have no desire to lose sight of the God-given privilege thus afforded them.

Before the healing Christ-idea has entered individual consciousness it is doubtful whether there can be any true appreciation of the spirit of giving. The true Christ-healing severs the knotted cords of human selfishness and sets thought free to take of the things of God and to give them unto others. The advent of the spirit of giving marks the downfall in individual consciousness of "the love of money," the god of this world. This accounts for the cheerful and liberal giver in Christian Science,—he has lost that love of money which Paul declared to be "the root of all evil." He is learning to love God supremely and to seek first His spiritual kingdom. As the result of this spiritual reversal of the thoughts and ways of mankind, the student of Christian Science emerges from the thraldom of human limitations and finds out that God has indeed given him "richly all things to enjoy." He no longer doubts God's bountiful supply, but he trusts it implicitly to meet every human need.

The idea of the divine sufficiency supplants the illusions of human want and limitation, and the invariable result is an increase of mental, moral, and spiritual income. The greater the activity of right thought, the more abundant the influx of good things. Because human sense would place its own material construction upon the problem of supply and demand, this does not vitiate the divine law or order of the universe. The Christian Scientist has learned that God's arm is not shortened, and that the giver of all good will continue to care for His own throughout time and eternity. Instead of worrying about what may come to pass upon earth, he is content to meditate upon spiritual things, knowing that God and His ideas constitute the substance and reality of being. He strives to keep his consciousness filled with the ideas of a spiritual plenitude, and the activity of these ideas not only keeps him supplied with the acknowledged necessaries of life, but it finds expression in a constant spirit of giving.

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