Article May 27, 1933 Issue

Giving versus Withholding

CAROLINE V. LANGWORTHY

"BECAUSE the demands for help today are numerous and insistent, and seem frequently out of proportion to the average income, many Christian Scientists are finding it increasingly necessary to make their giving in behalf of our beloved Cause a subject of scientific demonstration. It is comforting and reassuring to know that this can be done. To learn how to give scientifically is no less necessary than to learn how to heal scientifically. Both are included in progress. Generally speaking, Christian Scientists stand in need of much spiritual enlightenment regarding giving.

Thanks to our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, we have in our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," a great axiom which, if we bind it on our hearts and establish it in our thinking, will free us from many of the limitations and restrictions that formerly fettered our giving, and enable us to give with a sense of liberality and love hitherto considered impossible. The statement reads (p. 79), "Giving does not impoverish us in the service of our Maker, neither does withholding enrich us."

A young student of Christian Science once eagerly desired to contribute generously towards a special collection which was to be taken the following Sunday in a branch church of which she had recently become a member. In order to ascertain how much might be given, an accounting was made of the amount available for living expenses for the next fortnight and of the amount available to meet these expenses. In the balancing of the two amounts it became unhappily apparent that the whole sum likely to be on hand would be required for the purpose of maintaining herself and that, consequently, there would be nothing left which could be contributed to this worthy object; and the student felt sorry indeed. To give what could be conveniently spared after all current expenses had been paid had thus far been the method of her giving, and so fully accepted as right was this custom that it did not occur to her that there might be another and even higher method of giving. Honesty, she knew, indicated meeting one's obligations promptly, and she felt herself intrinsically honest.

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