There is perhaps nothing the world dislikes more than...

The Christian Science Monitor

There is perhaps nothing the world dislikes more than minding its own business. This is, of course, largely because it has, so frequently, no business of its own that amounts to anything. That is to say, its business is not to do that which falls to it, so nearly as it may in accordance with Principle; it is rather to get through certain duties, which it quite frankly proclaims are against the grain, by reason of the very fact that they are duties, in order that it may engage in the more serious duty of amusing itself, and so in hastening the weariness and disillusionment that ultimately accrue from that also. "Blessed," Carlyle once declared, "is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness." The danger is that even those who have found their work do not always surrender themselves whole-heartedly to it. "Good," writes Mrs. Eddy, on page 261 of Science and Health, "demands of man every hour, in which to work out the problem of being." But, as Mrs. Eddy is careful to point out, on page 2 of her Message to The Mother Church for 1900, an obedience to this demand is the attitude only of the right worker. The idler is, of course, quite hopeless; whilst the intermediary compromises with evil suggestion. "He says: 'It is my duty to take some time for myself; however, I believe in working when it is convenient.'"

Now working when it is convenient is not working. It is either making work a phase of amusement or using it as the milch cow of necessity. The man really at work has neither time, nor, what is much more to the point, inclination, to trouble himself about his neighbor's business. Being engaged all the day in his Father's business, the business of Principle, the opportunity for bothering about that which is outside Principle is not presented to him, nor does he seek it. Besides this he is learning joyfully and scientifically that Principle governs, and that it is no part of his work to do his neighbor's work or mind his neighbor's business. As, indeed, Mrs. Eddy admirably says on page 8 of the Message already quoted from, "We lose a percentage due to our activity when doing the work that belongs to another." It is always ignorance of Principle or vanity that leads a man to attempt to do his neighbor's work, which is only another form of minding his neighbor's business.

Jesus himself stated this with that tremendous directness with which he literally withered up all argument. It was on the occasion of that last meeting by the Sea of Galilee with his disciples, when, after having been warned by his Master of the struggle which was before him, Peter, with his accustomed impetuosity and lack of reticence, suddenly turned toward John, and blurted out the question in perhaps both their minds, "What shall this man do?" Or to adhere to the terse incisiveness of the Greek text, "Lord, and this man, what?" Jesus' reply, with its terrific rebuke and warning to human curiosity and interference to mind its own business, has come all down the centuries: "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me." The full signification of the Greek, as has been pointed out by a certain famous scholar, is lost in the translation. The words "tarry till I come" should rather be "tarry while I am coming." It is as if Jesus had said: I have told you what is before you; that is your affair; but supposing this man goes on learning more of the true me, of the Christ, Truth, until that Truth is fully manifested to him as to me, what business is that of yours?

Enjoy 1 free Sentinel article or audio program each month, including content from 1898 to today.

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit