Editorial November 22, 1941 Issue

Usefulness

Evelyn F. Heywood

The measure of the individual's usefulness depends upon whether he sees himself as servant or as Son. If the former, then his task may give evidence of Herculean dutifulness and industry, but the genius of initiative and spontaneity will be lacking; his work will be circumscribed with hesitations and inhibitions. If the latter, then it will express heirship to those qualities of Mind which are eternally manifest in inspiration, joy, and dominion. "And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever," said Jesus to those Jews who believed on him.

"Unless what we do is useful, our glory is vain," wrote the Latin poet. But he who links usefulness with material service alone, he who drives himself through necessity or conscience to accomplish his allotted tasks, robs himself and the world of that which does not merely obey, but shows forth in conscious oneness with divine Principle the perfection of all things real. Whatever men's avocations, whatever the demands upon them in the world, private, national, or international, their usefulness depends primarily not upon how much they can or will do, not upon the extent or efficiency of their labors. It depends upon what they are and therefore continually express in those qualities which constitute true service.

"Usefulness is doing rightly by yourself and others," writes Mary Baker Eddy on page 8 of her Message to The Mother Church for 1900. And what selfhood is she referring to but the one which has been so amply revealed to us in her writings, the selfhood which, because it is identified with the Son, abideth ever?

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Among the Churches