Article March 13, 1915 Issue

Efficiency

GEORGE SILAS HADDOCK

We hear much of the word efficiency, these days. Lectures are based upon it. Preachers use it for a text. Magazines utilize it to express all that is worth striving for, and then try to point the way to its attainment. Classes on the subject are given to their salesmen by enterprising business houses; while correspondence schools solicit patronage and promise much to those who desire to gain this marvelous thing. Efficiency may be said to be the slogan of the moment.

Now, efficiency in itself is a wonderful thing and well worth striving for. It means the ability to produce results; the competent and effective application of knowledge. It stands for capability, activity, accomplishment, summing up in one word all that stands for successful achievement. But the question arises, Is the teaching usually given on this subject correct; is it on the true basis? A close analysis of the methods in vogue and the lines mainly followed, reveals a dependence upon and utilization of the human will, until in many cases it could only be classified as hypnotism or mental suggestion. True efficiency was taught and demonstrated by Jesus of Nazareth, and his wonderfully effective work was not based upon the human will, for he distinctly said: "Not my will, but thine, be done." "The Father [Mind] that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." Neither did Paul depend upon the human will to force its way, whether or no, for he wrote in his epistle to the Corinthians, "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God."

Christian Science today is teaching true efficiency. Its Discoverer, Mrs. Eddy, discerned the secret of the power back of the mighty works of Jesus, and gave it to the world in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" and her other writings. The faithful student of Christian Science has every opportunity to become truly efficient. He knows, as did the Master and Paul, where real power lies, and that he must place full and complete dependence upon divine Principle, the one Mind. He also knows that he must strive earnestly to set aside the human or carnal mentality, well knowing it to be the seat or parent of all discord and failure. He understands that nothing from without a man can harm him, but that which cometh out of his own thought. He is not, therefore, a trembler before external conditions, but a zealous worker at the task of purifying his own thinking. He is a law unto himself, and is not subject to material conditions, but controls them: he is not in bondage to circumstances, but governs them. With the psalmist, his trust is in God, and he knows God not as a far-away ruler but as ever-present good, infinite Love.

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