Article January 11, 1913 Issue

"TREASURES IN HEAVEN"

MYRTLE B. S. JACKSON.

Failing the spirit of generosity and compassion within, it is well-nigh impossible to recognize, certainly to appreciate, a manifestation of it from without, even when it is personally presented for our consideration. Because of this lack in human nature, much of the joy and protective love offered to us by our Master, to be realized here and now, has not been discerned; rather has there been that hard and ofttimes cruel tendency to twist his straight and simple meaning into the crooks of sacrifice and the renunciation of some present pleasure.

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven," is one of the Master's sayings which, if really interpreted through the understanding of divine Love, contains a goldmine of inexhaustible happiness. But who has not felt on reading it a lurking sense that it was a request to invest capital in an unknown concern; that it was far removed from all human experience, and that we might glean a doubtful dividend only when we had passed the ordeal of dying; that at best having treasures in heaven paid the somewhat negative interest on earth of begetting distrust of anything which appeared to be of a bright or happifying nature to us now, pronouncing any such delight material, and preserving the term spiritual to express a phase of existence always tantalizingly out of reach and unlike any concept of happiness we had ever possessed.

Remembering, however, our Master's life of love and devotion, his deep comprehension of human needs and his ceaseless labor to supply them, we may surely feel that he wished us to know the love of God as he knew it; that we should possess for ourselves the sweet and substantial remedy with which to mend all the breakages and bankruptcies of human life. Christian Science makes it clear that we do not need to give up or go without any good thing in order to remove it from earth to heaven, but rather to hold such a true mental attitude toward it, to have such a right and enduring concept of its quantity and quality, that the results may manifest themselves tangibly in the ratio of our true thinking. The objects of our affection will thus be made to symbolize spiritual ideas, although we should never forget the apostle's inspired words: "When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away."

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