Article September 28, 1935 Issue

Assets and Possibilities

[Written Especially for Young People]

ELOISE L. PATTILLO

The belief that certain material advantages are essential to one's success, and that the lack of them is a serious handicap, may hinder many young people. Error may whisper how unfair it is that someone who seems less worthy should be richly endowed with all the good things—an academic education, opportunity to travel, and other cultural assets—while they have been denied to him. If one gives audience to that argument, it may result in a resentful attitude, and with such a negative thought the desired positive result cannot be realized. One must first understand that material distribution, with its surplus on one hand and deprivation on the other, is a false condition due to the belief that substance is material. Mrs. Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 325, 326), "A false sense of life, substance, and mind hides the divine possibilities, and conceals scientific demonstration."

This wrong view must be exchanged for the truth that substance is spiritual and universal, and that each one of God's ideas shares equally and ceaselessly in the Father's abundance. Man manifests every good gift of God, and is amply provided with everything necessary to fulfill his part successfully in God's plan. Even the most lavish array of material favors and advantages is a poor counterfeit of the spiritual benefits that God bestows constantly and without measure on every one of His children. There is no partiality or injustice in divine Love's continuous outpouring of good, and therefore no monopoly of Love's blessings. To look with envious eyes on another's possessions is to admit the belief that good is not infinite. Limited abilities, lack of opportunities, sickness, and deformity cannot find expression in the experience of those who understand and truly strive to express good and good only.

Poise, understanding, wisdom, grace, capability—divine qualities inherent in God's children—are not dependent upon material educational processes, but rather upon divine Principle. Their manifestation is in proportion to the individual's grasp of God's nature and his own reflection of it. Throughout history, these qualities have shone forth in the lives of grand men and women, many of whom did not have so-called material advantages. "For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it."

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