Article June 30, 1951 Issue

ARE WE KEEPING OUR PART OF THE EARNEST?

ANNIE M. BARTHOLOMEW

It has been a custom in some parts of the British Isles, on the day appointed for hiring farm and other workers, for the prospective employer to offer a small sum of money which, if accepted by the worker, is an earnest, or pledge, that each party will keep his promise: one to give employment, the other to serve in his household.

This use of the word earnest has come down to us from early Roman days. In his second epistle to the Corinthians Paul writes (1:21, 22), "Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." Might we not interpret this to signify that with our first glimpse and acceptance of the Christ, Truth, as revealed by Mary Baker Eddy in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," we have begun our journey Spiritward, and so are anointed as workers for God and sealed by Him with a seal that can never be broken?

What a difference between the token that is given to and accepted by the temporarily hired worker and the covenant between God and His idea, man, ratified by this gift of "the earnest of the Spirit"! The latter not only confers a place in the divinely royal household, but leads to the understanding of man's eternal relationship with his creator, to the joyful discovery that man is now and always has been a son of the divine Father, who is his only employer. No temporary worker he! For him no time limit, no menial task, no seasonal occupation. Man is in his Father's business for all eternity, and this business is to express divine Love freely.

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