Article March 20, 1915 Issue

Potency of Truth

ARTHUR OSBORNE

The protection assured in the words of the psalmist: "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty," and "He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways," was most clearly demonstrated by me, and the twenty-first day of February, 1914, will ever remain a red-letter day in my life. In retrospection, I realize how beautifully divine Love was protecting me, and I am indeed thankful, as well as grateful for the understanding which Christian Science has revealed to me of the omnipresence and omnipotence of good. Early that Saturday morning, I was reading Mrs. Eddy's address on "Obedience" in "Miscellaneous Writings," and it impressed me so forcibly that I took the book to my office that I might specially study these words: "Honesty in every condition, under every circumstance, is the indispensable rule of obedience" (p. 118).

Later on in the forenoon, our cashier having made up the bank deposit, I drew a check for two hundred and fifty dollars, which the secretary of the company endorsed. I put the check, together with the deposit, in the left-hand outside pocket of my overcoat, and it being a wet day, I took the car down to our bank. I went first of all to the receiving teller to make the deposit, and then searched for the check to cash it, but found it gone. For the moment I was surprised, but to make sure that I had taken the check with me, I telephoned to the office, requesting the cashier to look on my desk and see if the check had been left there. She did not find it, therefore I immediately took up the thought that God never made a thief, that nothing could possibly be lost in divine Mind, and that God's perfect man could not be made a channel for error. I did not feel any sense of alarm, but put implicit faith in almighty power. For protection I went to the paying teller and filled in a form for the stoppage of the check, and then went back to my office. On reaching there, the secretary of the company met me and said the paying teller had just telephoned to say that the check had been paid. I said, "We can do nothing," and he replied, "You had better go down and find out if anything can be done." I did so, and saw the check, which had been cashed during the time I was telephoning to the office.

I had marked on the check how I wanted payment,—sixty dollars in silver and one hundred and ninety dollars in gold,—and the one who cashed the check received the money accordingly. I returned to the office, and on reaching there one of the salesmen said to me, "There's been a young fellow here looking for the secretary,—something about a check,—and he's gone out with Mr.—to try to find him." In a short time a young man appeared. He was very pale, and trembling all over, and it came to me instantly that he was the person who had cashed the check. I went up to him and asked if he wanted to see the secretary, and he replied in the affirmative. I told him that the secretary was not in, but the president of the company was, and he had better see him. I went with him to the president's office, where he told the latter that he had found a check that morning and cashed it. When the president asked why he cashed the check, he answered, "It looked so good to me, sir!" Then I inquired why he did not keep the money, and he replied that he could not. He produced the whole of the money, just as he had received it from the teller, and said, "Thank God, this is over!" I told him that he had done the next best thing to returning the check, and after a few words of encouragement, gave him the lines that I had copied from "Miscellaneous Writings" that morning, as they went to show that through his obedience to the demand of Truth my brother had become honest.

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