Editorial February 9, 1924 Issue

True Contentment

Ella W. Hoag

Most men acknowledge that true contentment is a virtue they would like to possess, but how to attain it has not always been plain to them. While they have known it is accompanied with peace and a corresponding freedom from vexation, they have been apparently fearful that they might be wrongly content, becoming thereby satisfied with something less than the truly desirable. The command of the writer of Hebrews is, "Be content with such things as ye have." And Paul declares yet more comprehensively, "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content;" and then he adds, "I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound." He, however, presents the only foundation for true contentment when he says, "Godliness with contentment is great gain."

To the Christian Scientist the true contentment which is based on godliness should be easy of attainment. With the teaching which Christian Science presents of the nothingness of matter and the allness of Spirit, God, it should not take any earnest, faithful student long to decide on which side true contentment belongs. For him to imagine he can ever win the understanding of what it means to be really content so long as he allows his desires to rest in any form of materiality, is for him to go from disappointment to disappointment.

The world has presented examples without number of the futility of seeking true satisfaction and its attendant contentment in matter. Mankind has almost come to accept as a truism the statement of a certain writer, who declared, "He who is not contented with what he has would not be contented with what he would like to have." The fact is that contentment is always a mental state, and can never be found in material things. If one continually entertains the desire for more matter, in just that degree he is shutting out the possibility of attaining true content. He is simply indulging discontent; and if he takes a sense of discontent along with him, he can never enjoy content, whatever may be the apparent conditions surrounding him; he will always believe there is reason for complaint.

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