Article February 8, 1919 Issue

Scientific Dominion

BEATRICE CLAYTON

In the twenty-ninth chapter of I Chronicles it is related that both princes and people "offered willingly" toward the building of the temple, and we are told that David, lifting his heart to God, spoke before all the congregation, saying, "But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee." If we could rise fully to the sublime truth of these words, the problem of supply, whether personal or that of our church, would of course disappear, because that would be to realize infinite supply. In endeavoring to reach this altitude, however, we have to take human footsteps, and the upward climb sometimes seems slow.

A statement of Christian Science which is most readily grasped, or rather grasped at, by the beginner, is that which claims dominion for man. We can very readily see this—or we think we can. Why, yes, we say, it is my right to have this or that; dominion is my birthright. Hugging this thought, we sometimes meet with disappointment because we fail to distinguish with sufficient clearness between the false human selfhood with its myriad carnal desires and the image or likeness of God. We may not realize for a time that dominion over the earth and all therein belongs alone to the Christ-consciousness. Just in proportion to our reflection of the one Mind, described by Mrs. Eddy (Science and Health, p. 588) as the true Ego: "Divine Principle; Spirit; Soul; incorporeal, unerring, immortal, and eternal Mind," just in proportion as we realize that the perfect reflection of God is the true man, can we claim dominion; and we find our myriad wants and desires resolved into one, namely, that we may know and glorify our heavenly Father.

One of the human footsteps leading up to the realization which enables us to say understandingly, "Of thine own have we given thee," may be sacrifice. The question arises from time to time as to whether it is scientific to deprive one's self, to sacrifice, in order to give. If it is our right to manifest abundance, if supply is infinite, if God's work is already perfect, why need we sacrifice? Would not self-deprivation in some direction, the giving up of some legitimate accession to our material possessions, imply a lack of faith in good, a fatal sense of limitation? Mrs. Eddy appears to have answered this on page 288 of "Miscellaneous Writings," with these inspired words: "Wisdom in human action begins with what is nearest right under the circumstances, and thence achieves the absolute." She also says on page 15 of Science and Health: "Without a fitness for holiness, we cannot receive holiness. A great sacrifice of material things must precede this advanced spiritual understanding."

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