Article April 11, 1925 Issue

Profit

ZOLA M. JONES

IN days of strife and turmoil in the business world, when the business-man who sees only the material side of things often finds it difficult so to conduct his business that it returns even a reasonable profit, the Christian Scientist has great cause to be thankful in that he has that knowledge which enables him to turn from material evidence and know what true profit is.

Metaphysically considered, profit is not an amount of money which may be put in the bank or invested in stocks and bonds. Such is the kind to which the Master referred when he said, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal." In the twentieth verse of the same chapter, however, he explains what true profit is by saying, "But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal." This, the earnest student of Christian Science may do by a daily and hourly endeavor to bring himself and his business into truer expression of the divine Mind. And even though this daily and hourly investment of honest endeavor, good-will, and loving-kindness may not seem to bring a return in material wealth, he is nevertheless building up a treasure that no material circumstance can ever take away.

The honest business-man who sells his goods with the desire to benefit his customers cannot be denied recompense, for that loving desire contains within itself its recompense; his consciousness of good has been enlarged by just that much. He is laying in a stock in trade which never can deteriorate; the demand for which will never lessen; the value of which never fluctuates, but is always the same. He need not fear competition, unscrupulous or otherwise; for what observer of present-day conditions can think that there could be too much of such commodities as the honesty, kindness, and good-will in which he deals? Nor can he be troubled by the false concept of business which would affirm that profit is to be made only by dishonest means or by taking business or money that belongs to some one else. Jesus denied this fallacy by his clear statement, "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" What shall it advantage one to gain a great accumulation of what the world calls wealth, if he do so at the expense of his sense of right-doing, losing in the process his love for humanity and his belief in the power of good? From the point of view of permanent value, the one who acquires business, money, or any other material possession in a dishonest manner does not gain but lose; for he harms himself more than those from whom he steals.

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