Article January 9, 1915 Issue

Reliance on Principle

ROBERT O. CAMPBELL

To the one who has repeatedly received benefit from the study and practice of Christian Science, who has been healed both morally and physically, and who has gained some ability to prove the helpfulness of reliance on Principle in whatever vocation he may be engaged, there is no instruction more desirable than that which enables one to replace reliance on self with trust in a present knowledge of God.

Beginning with the initial step into business or professional activity, the individual who has grasped in some degree the worth of a progressive life, is often taught, both by precept and example, that self-reliance is an essential characteristic if success is to be won. Such instruction would not be without merit, were it taught with the understanding that true reliance is possible only when we make selfhood subordinate and obedient to spiritual law; but this teaching is impossible where there is no perception of basic spiritual truths. As Mrs. Eddy writes, "Spiritual perception brings out the possibilities of being, destroys reliance on aught but God, and so makes man the image of his Maker in deed and in truth" (Science and Health, p. 203).

In the world of business affairs there are two ways of building up a successful enterprise into what is commercially known as a profitable establishment. One way is so to equip the workers engaged in the enterprise, by experience with the different tasks and responsibilities, that the combined force becomes effective, like a huge and more or less perfectly working machine. The other method is to make subservient all human energy and activity to the control of a dominant character, who holds within his grasp all responsible action and reserves all right of correction and elimination. In both of these plans some action and results are assumed to be lawful and generally operative; but the fact that spiritual law underlies all reality, and that when this is understood it becomes possible to depend on the operation of such law, is unknown.

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