Article September 2, 1911 Issue

GIVING AND RECEIVING

W. D. MC CRACKAN, M.A.

ON a recent ocean voyage the question presented itself of how best to give to the seamen's fund. It is customary on all ocean liners to give an entertainment of some sort toward the end of the voyage, generally a concert, and to take up a collection for the support of seamen's homes and the families of disabled seamen. There has at times arisen a certain rivalry between the bigger ships to see which could contribute the most toward this fund, and occasionally more attention has been paid to ingenious ways of making people give than to the spirit in which the giving was done.

It occurred to the writer of this article to make the giving toward this fund repose upon his understanding of Christian Science, and on reflection many helpful thoughts came from this right desire. The donation toward the fund, what did it really represent? Evidently gratitude for service received. In this gratitude was included the captain, whose loyal vigilance made for safety, as well as all the other officers of the ship who watched day and night over the ship's course and marked her position on the trackless sea. In this gratitude were also embraced the willing stewards who contributed to the comfort of all passengers, in fair weather or foul, in times of good or evil report. Whoever worked for the good of the ship in any way was worthy of receiving gratitude, whether it was the sailor on deck, the cook in the galley, or the stoker in the engineroom.

The writer then recalled that gratitude was a spiritual or mental concept; that safety and comfort are dependent upon our recognition of certain qualities of the divine Mind, which insure our safeguarding at all times, so that the whole matter of giving and receiving in connection with the seamen's fund resolved itself into an exchange of mental concepts, into the expression of divine characteristics on the part of giver and recipient, supply coming forward to meet the demands of either side, all in reality working together in a fraternity which was none the less true because all on board the vessel were not yet fully aware of the fact of God's ever-presence and all-power, or of the deep significance of human brotherhood.

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THE CLOSED HAND
September 2, 1911
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