Article April 4, 1936 Issue

The Purpose of Economy

[Written Especially for Young People]

GRACE R. WHITE

THOSE of us who have begun to think for ourselves at a time when the world as a whole has been going through a great change in its sense of values, sometimes find it a little difficult to gain and retain a right understanding of the purpose of economy. When tempted to use our small earnings or allowances to gratify a passing whim, most of us have been admonished by parents, "Save your money for a rainy day." Yet, when we see how many of our own older friends have had the savings of a lifetime swept away during the recent financial crisis, it is natural for us to inquire of ourselves whether or not the practice of economy really pays.

How many of our acquaintances in school, or college, or in our clubs, or of the younger people with whom we are associated in business, insist to us that saving is a mistake! Many of them seem to confuse "saving" with "hoarding." Having witnessed the uncertainty and hazard accompanying the accumulation of money, and seen that the mere possession of a bank balance in itself offers no promise of security, they yet fail to cultivate that right sense of economy which becomes to its possessor a wealth which bank or stock failures can never take from him.

It requires alert spiritual thinking for a young person to learn to distinguish between saving that is merely hoarding, "laying up treasures in matter," as Mrs. Eddy calls it in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 593), and that right sense of economy contained in her statement in the Church Manual (Art. XXIV, Sect. 5), where she says, "God requires wisdom, economy, and brotherly love to characterize all the proceedings of the members of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist." The miserly hoarding of material goods, anticipating old age or a period of want, or else preparing for a period of ease in matter, should be rebuked. But, even in their first contact with the world of business, young Christian Scientists should be greatly helped by the ability to discern and apply a right sense of the use of money, including a right understanding of economy.

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