Article April 9, 1921 Issue

Pay Day

ADA THOMPSON REYNOLDS

PAY day is practically a universal belief. Few escape its phases. The employer must reckon with it, the employee expects it, and beyond him there is almost certain to be some one anticipating it, either as a so-called dependent or some one from whom he will buy. Pay day is not peculiar to industrialized nations; some peoples meet at regular intervals to barter, others not so advanced have an aspect of pay day in their dependence on seasonal returns of food. Thus pay day persists among all people.

The beliefs of mortal mind about conduct following pay day hold among all races. The Eskimo pays his gambling debts, the miner his rent, or the high salaried person may write out checks, but through it all the belief survives that at one time man is freer to act than at another. This outlined conduct points to the finite character of a pay day resting on a lapse of time for its occurrence. This sort of pay day is a finite arrangement because it is based on a belief in material activity. Some one works in a way that can be measured and is paid by something that can be seen by mortal eyes: this is indeed a part of the Adam-dream wherein a man sleeps in the erroneous thought that he earns his living materially, ofttimes by much sweat of his brow. Furthermore, the human belief about pay day is finite because it may be here this week but taken away next week, or a general scarcity of pay days may seem prevalent, as during a period of economic adjustment.

Moreover, mortals have another pay day than that which involves compensation by a medium of exchange, that is, the time for the collection of sin's wages, payment in terms of discord for wrong thought. The world has granted that punishment for a criminal is his rightful reward, that is if he has committed against society an offense that can be seen by mortal eyes; but it is not so ready to admit that there are wages for all phases of sin. A man may earn a calamity, his pay for untrue thinking, and he is commiserated. Yet the calamity is but the concomitant of error. Every thought of ungodly character brings its pay. Through seeking Truth one learns that, as Mrs. Eddy says on page 240 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "In trying to undo the errors of sense one must pay fully and fairly the utmost farthing, until all error is finally brought into subjection to Truth."

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