Giving and Receiving

REV. WILLIAM P. MC KENZIE.

WHEN Paul was at Miletus on his way to Jerusalem, he found that he could not spare the time to go Ephesus and and return again, so he sent for the elders of the church to come and counsel with him. He earnestly besought them to watch, like faithful shepherds who protect the flock from prowling wolves. He reminded them how he had been earnest in his warnings night and day, and how he had wrought with his hands as a tent-maker at Corinth to minister to his own necessities and to provide for those with him. "I have shewed you all things," he said; "how that so laboring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive."

The teaching of Jesus to which he refers is probably that found in Luke, 14:12, 14. where Jesus advises his audience to learn the joy of hospitality by offering it to those whom it will bless, rather than to those who will be expected to return it and so make a recompense. Hospitality should be a form of ministry; whereas in its formal expression it may lose all joy because looked upon as part of a bargain. It must be clear that a sense of love, a recognition of good, a realization of abundance must first be gained before the expression of love and liberality will be natural and not forced. It is dreary work to give without having received. Christ Jesus first set forth in his teaching the scientific method for giving by showing how men could be blessed; and later he indicated that receiving must precede giving when he sent out his disciples to preach and to heal, saying, "Freely ye have received, freely give."

Suppose that a man found it expedient to make his home beside the trail that wound across a desert, and in the springtime dug a reservoir for water. So long as the pool showed water in abundance he could give a welcome to the passing traveler, and refresh his thirsty animals. But when the long silent days of shimmering heat began; when the plains grew gray like ashes, and the sage brush like the ghosts of trees that had perished by fire; when the water began to shrink in the pool, and the bordering mud began to crack till its crevices seemed like thirsty mouths whence the waters disappeared, would it then be easy to welcome the coming of travelers? Would not every dust cloud in the distance, marking the weary progress of heat-parched animals, bring a questioning to the erewhile hospitable man as to how much longer he could give from the failing pool without endangering his own life?

Now suppose that this man, in view of the need of others, should plan to enlarge the supply of water rather than lessen his giving, and should bore to the depths whence the living waters are found, he would not only be comforted by knowing that his own need had certain supply, but he could also rejoice in his continued hospitality to others. Having received more abundantly, he could yet more freely give.

Christian Scientists recognize how their sense of giving has been changed from the reluctant and timorous doling of drops from a guarded cistern, to the joyful sense of lifting water in abundance from an unfailing spring. The new sense of giving without fear expresses itself in every form of liberality, "The liberal deviseth things; and by liberal things shall he stand." In business matters, as well as in all the affairs of life, how true is the proverb: "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul [or, soul of blessing] shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself."

By the teachings of Christian Science the knowledge of salvation is brought to men on earth, so they are able to join in that song of victory given in Isaiah,—

God who saved me—I trust You, and no more will dread!
For You, Lord, are my vigour and song, EVER-LIVING!
And You are a Saviour to me!
So draw water with joy from the Wells of Salvation.

We give Ferrar Fenton's translation, and his rendition of Jeremiah, 2:13, is also worthy of quotation, "For My people twice did evil to Me. They forsook the Spring of Living Water, to dig for themselves wells, broken wells which contain no water." Through the revelation of Christian Science, and under the leadership of that one through whom the revelation came, a great host have been brought from the desert into a place of water springs and of abundant good. It is not strange, therefore, that they "freely give." They look back to the days when they tried to "raise money" by appeals to every motive but the right one, as to a time of captivity. Then the dire needs of the case were set before the word's sympathy: the chance to win the praise of men was offered to its pride; comparison with others was made, so that one might have occasion to fear their criticism if he came behind their standard; and hence the giving was seldom spontaneous, a giving that was prompted by a sense of richness in good which had to overflow. This spontaneity will always characterize true giving; and even if the right hand know not how much the left is doing, the giving which expresses a realization of abundance will send a glow through the whole being, causing every member of the body to prosper.

Scientific giving, then, presupposes a right sense of the source of supply. It is, of course, impelled by gratitude, since the grateful heart counts its mercies daily; but its basis is the understanding that the supply of good is unfailing, that Love is substance, hence substance is inexhaustible, and all fear of diminishment or loss in giving is thus removed.

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