Most of us would agree that great wealth does not necessarily bring happiness. For life to be positive, progressive, successful, and harmonious our need lies deeper. We have to find the source of spiritual good, which is not subject to fluctuation, diminution, or decay.

"Godliness with contentment is great gain,"^{I Tim. 6:6;} the Bible tells us. Christian Science explains that godliness is not an impossible ideal. In fact it evidences the real status of man as God's reflection. God is divine Mind, and Mind is Love, and man is the idea of Mind, divine Love. As Mind's idea, man is inseparable from God; the recipient of all good, man reflects God's wholeness, and so is always in harmony with the great governing Principle of the universe. Reflecting God, man is Godlike.

To gain an understanding of Spirit as the only true substance is of highest importance to our well-being, for this understanding reveals spiritual good—present, imperishable, limitless. This is our true capital. "Spirit, the synonym of Mind, Soul, or God, is the only real substance,"^{Science and Health, p. 468;} Mrs. Eddy writes.

To recognize Spirit's substantiality is to deny substantiality to matter and the limitations that go with it. Spirit is infinite good, manifested in spiritual qualities and ideas. Such qualities as intelligence, wisdom, love, are always present. God is their source and constantly imparts them in man. Utilizing this supply, we find our needs met in practical, harmonious ways. Our real need is to silence the clamor of the material senses to the effect that our want is material or physical and to turn our thought to the inexhaustible spiritual bounty flowing out to us and all mankind continually.

The spiritual nature of good makes it available to each one individually, whether man or woman, and whether in business, in the home, or in the arts. Good is independent of material definitions. No matter how bleak the outlook or how unpropitious the human conditions, Soul and its attributes always have their own harmonious mode of expression.

True substance is governed by the divine Principle, Love. Love governs impartially, wisely; it is loving and universal in its laws. Our real work lies in letting Love and Love's qualities govern our thoughts and lives. As we do so, the strain of material effort and the fear of unfair competition fade from our experience. Genuine love never competes with love: it rejoices in love's presence, wherever found. God's qualities remain undivided, whole. God's good flows out freely to all, and conscious reflection of good spiritualizes our actions.

Reflecting the qualities of Love, we enjoy the affluence of Love. Where genuine love is, there is always gain: happiness gained, cooperation gained, a just profit gained, harmony and health and the wealth of goodness gained. These are some of the effects of our understanding Love's supply of its own infinite ideas. There is always enough for all.

Thought appears to rest on a dual basis of matter and Spirit. Which is influencing us? We should watch what we are accumulating in thought. Resting on a material sense of substance, thought accumulates belief in matter and its dissatisfactions, whereas when our thought rests on Spirit, we gain the spiritual realities of harmonious being. Mrs. Eddy writes, "Christian Science presents unfoldment, not accretion; it manifests no material growth from molecule to mind, but an impartation of the divine Mind to man and the universe." ^{ibid., p. 68;}

Understanding Mind's impartation, we always have enough: enough love, patience, moral courage, wisdom, obedience. These and similar qualities, constitute health and the wealth of good. They belong to each of us and are our indestructible inheritance, empowering us to be active in constructive ways.

How practical are these truths? we may ask. Do they really stand up in the exchanges and needs of daily living? The Bible story of Elijah and the woman of Zarephath points up the answer. There was famine in the land, and Elijah, sent by God to the woman, asked her for food. She replied that she had only a small handful of meal and a little oil that she was going to prepare for herself and her son to eat before they died. Elijah replied: "Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth." ^{I Kings 17:13, 14.}

The woman went and did as Elijah told her. Elijah was a man of God, a spiritual seer. It was as if, in asking the woman to make him a little cake first, he drew her fearful thought away from her own and her son's predicament to a larger realization of Love's ever-present provision and expression. This proved more than adequate to the demand. Christ Jesus proved the same law when he fed multitudes. Glimpsing all good as in and of God and not as a personal possession, we, too, can see proof of the spiritual fact that God supports and sustains His children.

A student of Christian Science proved this when she was made a director of a small family business. She set to work to improve her understanding of the spiritual significance behind basic business concepts such as capital, staff, promotion, liquidity. As she studied, her grasp of the impersonal nature of all spiritual ideas deepened; moreover, a personal sense of responsibility was gradually replaced by a more universal and impartial outlook. At times she felt herself precariously floating on a sea of uncontrollable events, but spiritually this period was a turning point in her life. At the end of three years the business was established and under new management, and the student was relieved of responsibility for it. Her deepened understanding of spiritual good resulted in new forms of goodness: a new home, a new income, and a still wider opportunity for the practice of Christian Science.

Godlike qualities of gratitude, humility, and obedience indicate recognition of the substance of Love. All can draw on this infinite source and express it in practical ways. Love is never absent, abstract, meager. It is present, practical, and here to be enjoyed. No matter what material sense claims, Love's law of reflection is always operating, and our access to its giving is always open.