Article February 16, 1929 Issue

True Income

GEORGE J. SCHANTZ

Everyone is familiar with the development of a beautiful rose. The plant when embedded in rich soil, warmed by the sun and watered by the rain, spirings forth with its wonderful colored blossoms, sending forth sweet fragrance. Small and unattractive in its beginning, through nourishment and cultivation it soon develops the beauty which it is expected to express. But the same plant, if placed in a dark cellar, would wither and decay. Deprived of sunshine and rain and rich soil, the rose with its beauty and perfume would soon cease to exist. The blossoms which normally unfold would remain unseen.

Is there not in this example of the flower a valuable lesson for every individual? Suppose the rose could say, I will not accept the freshening of the rain or the warmth of the sun; would not the result be the same as though it had been placed in a dark cellar, away from sun and shower? But, instead, it reaches out for its proper nourishment, turning its leaves toward the light in further preparation for unfoldment.

Mortals who are puzzled with the problem of income, who are struggling with difficulty to make ends meet, will do well to heed the lesson of the rose. Blessings are flowing eternally from God to man. These are not material, but spiritual—love, intelligence, honesty, gratitude, joy, usefulness, and so on, without limit; and these in turn meet our every need. In "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 307) Mrs. Eddy writes: "God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies. Never ask for to-morrow: it is enough that divine Love is an ever-present help; and ifyou wait, never doubting, you will have all you need every moment. What a glorious inheritance is given to us through the understanding of omnipresent Love! More we cannot ask: more we do not want: more we cannot have."

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