Article February 1, 1936 Issue

On Contributing

AUDREY M. DAVIES

Certainly our possessions bless neither ourselves nor others except as we use them. Even little children can readily understand that a miser, no matter how great his reputed wealth, is to be pitied rather than envied. The use we make of all our endowments, spiritual and material, natural and acquired, is our means of self-expression. So one, freely financing constructive human enterprises, may be said to express a philanthropic spirit. The true religionist imparts to others the fruits of high and holy thinking. The musician and the painter unfold to receptive ears and eyes the untold glories of harmony and beauty of sound and sight. And so on. This urge toward expression is natural and inevitable, for man is nothing less than the expression of God's nature and being. The author of Hebrews wrote of Christ Jesus as "the express image of his person," thus as reflecting God's power of self-expression. "Unfathomable Mind is expressed," says Mrs. Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 520); and (p. 331), "Everything in God's universe expresses Him."

So, the use we make of the possessions entrusted to us, whether in the form of money or worldly goods, or of talents, in the more modern sense of aptitude and ability, is an index to our characters, and of the degree in which we are expressing our real selfhood. Do we lay them on the shelf or in a safety vault, or bury them in a visionary dreamland, or do we use them to express our rich desires to help and bless mankind?

How did Jesus evaluate the judgment of the rich man who could think of nothing better than to pull down his barns and build greater, saying, "There will I bestow all my fruits and my goods"? Some may think, Surely the man used foresight in thus providing against the years to come, during which he could take his ease, eat, drink, and be merry, freed of anxiety for the future. But Jesus' parable ends with the words, "But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?" And for our guidance the Master added, "So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."

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