Editorial April 26, 1919 Issue

"Labour not for the meat which perisheth"

William D. McCrackan

The labor problem is the problem of understanding substance. As long as substance is conceived of as matter, so long will material means, physical force, and war seem necessary for the acquisition of substance, and discord and decay brand such efforts as worse than fruitless. When the teaching of Christian Science is applied that substance is spiritual, then it will be seen that substance must be sought "in spirit and in truth." All must learn this lesson in order that men and women may become "workers together with him" and love's labor be not lost.

The laborer needs to know that his riches lie in God, not in his employer. The tendency to divide human beings into rich and poor, laborers and capitalists, proceeds from materialistic reasoning. There is no divinding line between God's children, and there will be none between mortals when the yardstick of matter ceases to be used as a measure. Viewed from the standpoint of spiritual attainment, what can mere matter declare concerning man? All need healing, forgiveness, security, salvation, and substance, and Spirit alone can supply these needs. Therefore all are on a basis of equality before God. The man of much money has no security for his riches except in God. Without divine protection no investments are worth the paper they are written on. The word of an honest man and the steel walls of a bank safe are no protection against loss and poverty, unless these riches are turned over to God to keep. Belgium and France illustrate how riches can be lost in a night.

Jesus once said to the crowd which followed him, "Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed." True labor concerns itself with the spiritual meat which is invisible. Physical labor has its right place, but it should be an effect of spiritual activity, and so understood would always be highly productive. In an address read before The World's Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893 Mrs. Eddy had the following to say: "To the sore question 'What are the working men's rights?' Science answers, justice and mercy, wherein the financial, civil, social, moral and religious aspect of all questions reflect the face of the Father. And this question will not rest till both employer and employe are actuated by the spirit of this saying of the meek and mighty Son of God: 'Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them' " (The World's Parliament of Religions, Vol. II, p. 1423).

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