Article October 20, 1934 Issue

"Wherewithal shall we be clothed?"

CORINNE M. MC CONNICO

Mrs. Eddy speaks of the Lord's Prayer, embraced in the Sermon on the Mount, as "that prayer which covers all human needs" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 16). In the light which Christian Science sheds on this prayer it is interesting to consider what constituted the human need of Jesus' time. And it is impressive to find that during the interim of two thousand years there has been no essential change in human need. "What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?" was the cry of mortals then as it has been ever since. Then, as now, there seemed to be a lack of the "wherewithal" by which men believed they were to be fed, housed, and clothed. If it were possible for materiality to meet the need, surely it would long ago have devised some way to answer this cry of mankind. That it has not done so would seem to be sufficient evidence that materiality has not the power to satisfy the need. But Jesus, in a few simple words, gave mortals the recipe for the healing of lack. Discerning the great need for spiritual knowing, he said: "Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness." And then, with characteristic compassion for their human sense of lack, he assured them, "All these things shall be added unto you."

Illustrating the practicality of her teaching, our Leader writes (ibid., p. 254), "To stop eating, drinking, or being clothed materially before the spiritual facts of existence are gained step by step, is not legitimate." And she adds: "But the human self must be evangelized. This task God demands us to accept lovingly to-day, and to abandon so fast as practical the material, and to work out the spiritual which determines the outward and actual."

The illustration in Jesus' parable of the rich man, who had accumulated great wealth but who was lacking in a sense of spiritual values, is well known. Just as he felt fully prepared for and fortified against future needs, and was talking in a boastful manner of his great possessions, in a single night his soul was required of him; that is, an exigency arose in which only a knowledge of God could save him, but this he had not, and then was his utter poverty revealed.

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