Article March 11, 1933 ISSUE

God's Coin and Currency

CLARA SCHRADER STREETER

It is related in the Gospels that Jesus, upon a certain occasion, took a Roman coin and asked, "Whose is this image and superscription?" When he was told that it was Caesar's, Jesus replied, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." At that time Palestine was a Roman province, and the circulation of Roman coin or money indicated Roman power. To the Jews tribute money, or tax payment, was a sign of servitude, a price paid for peace and security. Jesus indicated to those who sought to insnare him, by asking whether or not it was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar, that the use of the coin of a land, its currency, should represent to them loyalty, trust, obedience, and interchange of confidence under the governing power, and that this might be taken to typify a like obligation to God under the government of the divine Mind.

In June, 1903, in an address given at Pleasant View, Concord, New Hampshire, then her home, Mrs. Eddy spoke of a "gift" which God had given to all mankind, and said (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 170): "It is His coin, His currency; it has His image and superscription. This gift is a passage of Scripture; it is my sacred motto." From the thirty-seventh Psalm, called "A Psalm of David," she then quoted the words: "Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass. And He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday."

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