Article April 12, 1952 Issue

THY CLOAK ALSO

CONSTANCE F. BURNHAM

Everyone who would practice the ethics of Christianity in his business will have to seek out its code and practice therefrom. To the Christian Scientist, partnership with God is native to his business, and this partnership is revealed by his code of ethics.

Christ Jesus, whose business was the exemplification of this divine partnership, was so effortlessly successful that the mechanics of his business were entirely unnoticeable. He imparted to us his code of ethics, by which he expressed the divine partnership in what has been called the Sermon on the Mount. That it is completely practical and effective is borne out by the fact that Jesus never lacked for the finest clothing, the refreshment for a wedding feast, abundant food, transportation, or any other human need. So one may assume that his code of ethics permitted the affluence of divine Love to appear, unobstructed by self-justification, self-will, temperamental likes and dislikes, or human partialities. However transcendental and impractical Jesus' instructions may seem to erroneous thinking, they are nonetheless practical in every department of human experience.

One of the verses in the sermon mentioned above which seems to be most impractical to the business man or woman is found in Matthew (5:40): "If any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also." This statement pondered from the standpoint of materiality appears to be utterly spineless and lacking in virility; but seen from the point of view of limitless good and spiritual actuality, it becomes for us imperative business practice. A coat in the Master's time was just a partial covering, but a cloak completely enveloped and sheltered. It is not sufficient to give our fellow man merely a coat of spiritual understanding; but we must cloak him in it entirely. We must not content ourselves with loving him if he loves us, but we must enfold him naturally, continually, and entirely in the knowledge of his spiritual selfhood, which cannot, and does not, know anything but infinite perfection. This is the cloak of Love.

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