JESUS' suggestive words, "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!" have been supposed to appeal especially to those who, like the rich young man, have large wealth; but when these words are considered in the light of the Master's other saying, "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth;" they come to have a meaning which is of much broader application.

It is not the number of things, but our thought of the end they will subserve, that gives the true estimate of our belongings. Our beliefs respecting the causal relation of materiality to the comfort and satisfaction of life, these furnish us the correct inventory of our worldly estate, and these beliefs, if not wholly subordinated to the Christ ideal, will certainly exclude us from the heaven of spiritual attainment.

The presence or absence of material things, may have little or nothing to do with the presence and dominion of these material beliefs. The so-called poor may be far more burdened and hampered by them than are the rich, and for the reason that their unsatisfied longings remain in full force and accumulate, while those who through experience have come to know the inability of material gratifications to bring happiness and content of heart, are undeceived, and so find, through experience or illumination, escape from the fetters of false sense.

We do not truly possess anything concerning which we entertain a wrong idea. The false sense in every such instance possesses us, and we are its duped and degraded servitors. The Christian possession of material things is possible only when the possessor is absolutely free from the domination and control of the thing possessed, and only in so far as this spiritual supremacy abides in consciousness may we hope to realize the meaning and fulfilment of Paul's words, "All things are yours." "Pity 'tis true" that the disabling riches of false sense are piled high upon the back of every son of Adam, and this fact appears in full relief when we see that error, through the belief in heredity, first brings to us all a very large inheritance of these baneful beliefs, and then gives us a finished education in the art of compounding our patrimony.

The inherent and downright meanness of mortal mind is well illustrated in the familiar contrast between its pledges and its performance in this field. Impelled by the alluring lies of false and seemingly malicious sense, how humanity is led to continue its persistent, brother-forgetting struggle for worldly wealth, seeking here, there, and everywhere for that which can yield, as the writer of Job has abundantly testified, only "itching and ashes."

As we awaken to the understanding in Christian Science of that which is true and that which is false, we are emancipated from the bondage of this material sense of things, and come into a possession which is real because right minded. We are then prepared to receive, to use, and to enjoy the all spiritual provision of Love's bounty. Wrested from their material enswathement in mortal thought, the lesser ideas of God appear, and behold they are, all and only, good. They now serve to enlarge and enrich the ministry and the effectiveness of the spiritual life, and to give fuller, more beneficent expression to the instincts of love. Objects which, when embraced in material consciousness, when thought of as constituting a material good, nourish selfishness and sensual gratification, and thus create and maintain the pride and social caste that render men unbrotherly and un-Christian, these assume their right place in mind, their true and wholesome relation to individual life, and thus serve to embody and disburse spiritual enrichment and affection.

It has been well said that "the sense of unburdened abundance and liberality is as much an integral part of man's nature as a sense of health," and Jesus certainly gave assurance of "an hundred-fold now in this time" before his promise of "in the world to come eternal life," but it is important that we remember the hopelessness of any endeavor to be "rich toward God" so long as the garners of thought are filled with the glittering and deceptive accretions of material sense. W.

IN a late lecture before an association in London Professor Benslow is reported to have said with regard to the origin of life, that science neither affirmed nor denied the creative power. To this Lord Kelvin demurred, declaring that, on the contrary, science positively affirms the creative power, and that science made every one feel that he is a miracle in himself. A vital principle, he said, is now accepted by modern biologists. They had been absolutely forced to believe in a directive power.

"Was there anything so absurd," he added, "as to believe that a number of atoms falling together of their own accord could make a crystal, a sprig of moss, or a living animal? Nobody could think that anything like that, even in millions and millions of years, could, unaided, give us a beautiful world like ours. Let nobody be afraid of true freedom of thought. Let us be free in thought and criticism; but with freedom we are bound to come to the conclusion that science is not antagonistic, but is a help, to religion."

This statement from a scientist so eminent and so authoritative throughout the world, indicates the marvelous change which is taking place in that realm of thought which has been dominated for many years by assertive materialism.

The special significance of the matter, however, lies in this, that with the passing of faith in the sufficiency of matter, and the recognition of force as the ultimate fact of the universe, the scientific world is brought to the very threshold of theistic idealism. The physicist must concede that force is everywhere manifest, and that it acts as though it were infinitely intelligent, and from this recognition to the acceptance of the declaration of Christian Science that "all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation" is but a logical step.

The day will come when all true science will be recognized as belonging to the realm of Spirit, and spiritual.