Article June 27, 1925 Issue

Liquidating Debts

HAZEL HARPER HARRIS

A Story is told of one who went to a friend and said: "This five-dollar bill is all the money I have in the world, except a small amount of money that is owing to me. What shall I do?" The friend replied, "Break your five-dollar bill and get it into circulation." "Well," continued the interrogator, "I owe my printer a small bill, but I had thought to pay him when I collected the money owing me." His friend unhesitatingly responded, "You owe a printer's bill. You have the funds in hand to pay this bill; then cancel the debt at once." He followed his friend's advice. The printer thereupon was better able to pay his grocer, as in turn was the grocer to pay his landlord; and so on, until the one who owed the first person came and paid that which he owed.

Does not this illustrate the circles of interchange that are continually going on about us? We are told in Ecclesiastes, "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days." We do not receive again the exact dollar bill, any more than when we cast actual bread upon the waters we receive again the identical bread; but we do receive the result of right thinking and right acting. In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 310), Mrs. Eddy says, "So Science reveals Soul as God, untouched by sin and death,—as the central Life and intelligence around which circle harmoniously all things in the systems of Mind." A dictionary defines "circulation" thus: "The act of moving round or in a circle, or in a course which brings, or tends to bring, the moving body to a point where its motion began; the act of going and returning." The one who believed in lack was told to put his money into circulation.—to put what he had realized of substance into intelligent activity, in order that he might not become clogged with the thought of withholding in the circle of operative good. The putting of a bill into circulation means not only its going out, but its returning also. Thus in paying a debt one is doing his part in breaking the universal beliefs of limitation, dishonesty, greed, and procrastination, as well as helping to evidence the truth that supply and demand are equal in God's spiritual universe.

Sometimes we misappropriate funds. A woman once owed her church dues as well as several other personal debts, and had no visible funds with which to pay any of them. She was called in the night to go to a sick child, and gladly gave of her time and spiritual thinking to help this little one, without expectation of monetary reward. She merely poured out the oil she already had in her house (consciousness), as did the woman who was in debt and went to Elisha for advice. The following Sunday as she went into church some bills were given to her,—enough to pay one debt. Error argued that she should first pay a certain bill, but right thought at once replied: No, this is Sunday; I am here at church, where my dues are payable to-day. I shall give this amount as my debt of gratitude to God, and trust Him for to-morrow. Not long afterwards she received three times that amount of money.

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