Editorial October 4, 1941 Issue

Making Use of Talents

George Shaw Cook

The parable of the talents, which is recorded in the Gospel of Matthew (25:14–30), was evidently made use of by Jesus to rebuke the inclination of human beings to postpone or neglect the utilization of such talents as they may possess. Frequently, the tendency of mortals is to bury, in the field of apathy and inertia, the talents they have been given, rather than to make use of them for the benefit of themselves and others. Sometimes this failure is due to fear, as in the case of one of the servants in the parable to which reference has been made; sometimes it is due to lack of recognition that the talent exists, and sometimes to a sense of self-depreciation. On page 323 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy says: "In order to apprehend more, we must put into practice what we already know. We must recollect that Truth is demonstrable when understood, and that good is not understood until demonstrated. If 'faithful over a few things,' we shall be made rulers over many; but the one unused talent decays and is lost."

One dictionary definition of the word "talent" is "special gift," and the Apostle Paul evidently entertained this sense of God's giving when he wrote to the Corinthians: "Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord," and continued, "but all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will," or at least so it would appear from the translation given in the King James Version of the New Testament. It is obvious, however, that such a sense of giving does not fairly represent the universal and impartial nature of divine Love, which Christian Science reveals God to be. (See Science and Health, page 13, lines 2–4.)

It should be plain that since spiritual man is the exact likeness, the perfect and complete image or idea of God, divine Mind, there is no quality of that Mind which man cannot or does not reflect. Therefore, there is no basis, in absolute Truth, for belief in a restricted or limited ability to express God's nature. Mrs. Eddy says on page 258 of Science and Health, "Man reflects infinity, and this reflection is the true idea of God."

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