The One Talent

Editor

There is no Christian who does not hope and expect sometime to merit the "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord." To the Christian world at large, the how and the when of the way this is to be brought about has, however, always seemed to be more or less uncertain and problematical.

On the contrary, those who accept the teachings of Christian Science, and start out on their demonstration of them, often expect that rewards will be quickly and easily won. With the new vision of the availability of good, dawning so gloriously upon their mental horizon, the "well done" often seems very close at hand. Some of them confidently believe that they have had many times five talents given them and that it will be a comparatively simple thing to use them so industriously and well that they will be able to have them multiply rapidly to more than a hundredfold.

While this mental attitude may quickly meet with disappointment,—since talents are not used and multiplied without effort,—still the fact remains that the earnest, honest worker does find a reward more than commensurate with his faithful endeavor. To be sure, this may not appear to him immediately or in just the manner he may have hoped and expected. Before he has labored long he is, therefore, very apt to humbly pray that he may receive and use even one talent properly.

Our beloved Leader presents very plainly the right approach to the question of talents when she writes on page 195 of Miscellany: "To do good to all because we love all, and to use in God's service the one talent that we all have, is our only means of adding to that talent and the best way to silence a deep discontent with our shortcomings." Here is a panacea for all discouragement, for all doubt, for all fear. Here are the steps which must be taken in order finally to win the "well done." "To do good to all because we love all"! Could anything be stated more plainly or more simply?

Human belief is inclined to make doing good to others appear a very complicated and difficult process. To unite to this the necessity of loving all would from the ordinary human standpoint add difficulty to difficulty. But Christian Science speedily resolves the whole problem into the self-forgetfulness which reflects love because it is the image and likeness of divine Love itself. We often hear it said: But I do not know how to know how to love. I, too, would like to love if I only knew the way! Yet how strange this is when Jesus put it all in such simple phrase: "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." There is no doubt that every one knows how he would like others to do to him; then why should it seem difficult to understand what to do to others? To love in the best way we understand to-day; to do the kind deeds we see to do to-day; to think the true thoughts we understand to-day; to persevere steadily, having faith in the present good and using it until it becomes a larger realization of good; this is surely "to use in God's service the one talent that we all have."

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 323), Mrs. Eddy also tells us that "the one unused talent decays and is lost." Then unless we continually use the one talent which we all possess,—doing good to all because we love all,—it will be lost. But by using it perpetually it must continue to grow and grow. Loving makes it easy to love more; doing good opens the door to the ability to do more and more good. Every kind word spoken, every kind thought held, every kind deed performed, causes them to multiply. It is the seed within itself bearing fruit after its kind.

There is no place where the use of the one talent is more needed than in the healing of the sick and the sinner. To be willing to do our work there humbly, patiently, steadfastly, never faltering in the endeavor to use whatever of truth and love we comprehend to-day, is finally to find the talent of service multiplying and bringing forth fruit in proportionate measure. The student in his apparent failure to heal instantaneously should see that his discontent over his own shortcomings can only be silenced by obeying our Leader's wise counsel to use the one talent he already possesses. As he thus obediently keeps active the understanding of good he is conscious of to-day, he is sure to have entered upon the road which, pursued, will inevitably lead to the desired goal of "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: . . enter thou into the joy of thy lord," which Mrs. Eddy defines in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 207), as "the satisfaction of meeting and mastering evil and defending good, thus predicating man upon divine Science." What an unspeakably glorious reward! How truly simple is the beautiful method of its attainment!

Ella W. Hoag.

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Among the Churches

September 1, 1923

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