Editorial July 10, 1920 Issue

Enriching the Affections

Gustavus S. Paine

Since God is already infinitely rich, real man in His image, reflecting His every quality, must manifest true wealth. The richness of the one true God, divine Principle, is necessarily like its source in every respect. Thus it is wholly the intelligent activity of Principle, ordered in perfect, inexhaustible harmony. The more of Principle one uses, the more one is proving that it is infinite. The eternal unfoldment of right doing demonstrates the boundless richness of spiritual living. In true living, the only actuality is simply the emanation from the one complete cause, which is ever producing the entirety of effect. The knowing of this is throughly practical and efficient, because it is in itself the manifestation of divine intelligence. What a wealth there is, indeed, to the very knowing that God is good, that the divine Mind is always producing divinely right doing, with all that it involves and requires.

Genuine affection must, of course, be affection for God, for Principle, and not for materiality. Turning wholly to Mind for satisfaction, one finds the whole sufficiency of spiritual wisdom. This is all one could ever really need or want. Even though one should believe himself desirous of something else, there is, in the last analysis, nothing else to desire. The divine Mind carrying on its activity in joyous order is all there is, has been, or will be. So there positively must be every satisfying quality and manifestation of this Mind, altogether apart from any sense of mortality. What is known as affection is a disposition in a certain direction, a tendency, or attachment. The true tendency, disposition, or attachment, finds its fulfillment as divine Mind manifest, never as anything material. Affection for Principle, activity in accord with Principle, this alone is rich with freedom from all limitation and freedom to do good.

When Mrs. Eddy wrote the "Daily Prayer" in Article VIII, Section 4, of the Manual, stating: "It shall be the duty of every member of this Church to pray each day: 'Thy kingdom come;' let the reign of divine Truth, Life, and Love be established in me, and rule out of me all sin; and may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them!" she pointed out clearly what enrichment is. The belief in merely mortal affections is replaced with the enduring affection for Principle in proportion as each one is determined for himself to rely wholly on God. Any human sense of things, being but counterfeit of the reality, is at the best but a poor makeshift. The melting of its worst features into their native nothingness, however, improves it, just as a dark day is improved through the dissolving of some of its obscurity when gleams of light are shot through the clouds. The true light is never any part of the dark day. In fact the dark day is improved only in proportion as it ceases to be a dark day. Likewise, poor human experience is bettered exactly in proportion as it ceases to exist and is replaced by the divinely rich.

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