Article January 3, 1920 ISSUE

"Occupy"

HUGH STUART CAMPBELL

Probably no one has ever placed a higher valuation on work than did Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. Her own life of ceaseless toil and attainment is a monument of inspiration to her followers. Fortunate, indeed, is anyone who would emulate her consecrated ideal. That Mrs. Eddy attached great importance to Paul's familiar admonition, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," is evident when it is considered that in three separate chapters of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she quotes this sentence in its entirety, and upon five different occasions, in the same volume, the passage is in part incorporated in her own statements, when with forceful argument she endeavors to impress humanity with the vital necessity of individual activity as the only way by which man may acquire the saving grace.

In the story known as the parable of the ten pieces of money, as recorded in the nineteenth chapter of Luke, Jesus illustrated the reward of diligence and the punishment of apathy. From this parable we learn that the nobleman's servants who were obedient to their master's command, "Occupy till I come,"—who manifested alertness, judgment, and fidelity,—not only increased their material substance, but were rewarded with positions of trust; while, on the other hand, the slothful servant, through exhibiting suspicion, indolence, and criticism, must lose "even that he hath."

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