"Faith ," declared the writer to the Hebrews (11:1), "is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Now, as then, people look to matter for substance and thereby lose it. The need is not for more matter, but for a higher sense of substance and an understanding that it is spiritual and indestructible. Looking to God for substance, one finds it, and finds also the outward manifestation of "things hoped for." Mary Baker Eddy proclaims this fact in these words from her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 494): "Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need."

In the midst of poverty there can be wealth; likewise, in the midst of wealth there can be poverty. The evidence depends upon the state of consciousness.

Some time ago an individual suffering from an acute belief of lack entered the office of a Christian Science practitioner. He had no position, no money, no food; he was a stranger in town, and his rent for the past week was overdue. His outlook was blank. He had accepted lack. He told the practitioner that he had seen deplorable lack in the bombed-out areas after the war and that they had made such an impression on his thought that he unconsciously carried this picture with him.

The practitioner awakened him to the importance of expecting good, of replacing a mistaken sense of self with the recognition of his true selfhood as the child of God, and of yielding his human outlining to divine wisdom. The demonstration unfolded gradually as the individual relinquished, a little at a time, the negative thoughts which had bound him. At first, money was received which enabled him to pay his rent. He was grateful for this, but he had nothing left with which to buy food. He saw that he needed to open his thought more unreservedly to divine Love. The immediate need for food was supplied.

Still he had no money in his pocket and no position. It was pointed out to him then that he needed to replace a false sense of intellectuality with true humility. When this was done a position in a distant city was offered to him and funds for the journey were made available. This fruitage was simply a manifestation of the improved state of his consciousness.

The practitioner was able to help him by turning away from the discordant manifestation and lifting her thought to divine Mind for guidance. She clearly saw that the need was not really for matter. Instead, the need was for a better understanding of true substance as Spirit and of man's unity with God, for there can be no lack in the presence of the all-sufficiency of infinite Love.

In working out problems of this sort one is often helped by considering the story of the prodigal son, who took his inheritance into a far country and wasted it in riotous living. When he returned, his father received him with love and joy. But his elder brother complained that he had stayed with his father all the while, yet no rejoicing had been made over him. Then the father answered with great tenderness (Luke 15:31), "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine."

Realizing the ever-availability of good which this parable illustrates, one is privileged to avail himself of the goodness of God by recognizing his divine sonship and his inseparability from the true substance, which is God. In order to demonstrate his true selfhood, the individual needs to overcome a false sense of self, exchanging pride and self-justification for humility and teachableness. Doubt and discouragement need to be replaced with faith in God and confidence in His loving care and provision. A false sense of intellectuality and human outlining must give place to the meek acknowledgment that God is the only Mind and that man reflects divine wisdom and direction. On the other hand, a sense of inadequacy or self-depreciation must give place to the recognition that man as the reflection of God possesses infinite capabilities.

Man has no selfhood apart from God. He is not an individual mortal mind confined within a physical body. Instead, he is a spiritual idea, unlimited and free. Man does not have a mind of his own; he is the expression of the infinite, all-knowing Mind that is God.

On page 242 of the textbook Mrs. Eddy declares:"In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error,—self-will, self-justification, and self-love,—which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death." When this unlovely triad seems to have a hold upon individual consciousness, the need is to relinquish the mistaken sense of self. In humility one can pray as Jesus did (Luke 22:42), "Not my will, but thine, be done." Such a one will see that of himself he is nothing, has nothing, and can do nothing, but that all things are possible to him as the expression of infinite Mind. Whenever one is willing to look away from matter for substance, he will find his supply in Spirit, God.

Great liberation comes when thought is elevated above a material, limited sense of selfhood to the recognition of man's selfhood as the infinite manifestation of infinite Mind. Replacing faith in error with faith in Truth, certainty of failure with certainty of success, dependence upon materiality with dependence upon Spirit, always brings freedom and dominion.

Pointing out the disadvantages of entertaining a false concept of selfhood, Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 91), "Absorbed in material selfhood we discern and reflect but faintly the substance of Life or Mind." But she continues: "The denial of material selfhood aids the discernment of man's spiritual and eternal individuality, and destroys the erroneous knowledge gained from matter or through what are termed the material senses."

How important it is, then, to cast out the belief of material selfhood and to begin to demonstrate man's spiritual, eternal selfhood, which reflects the substance of limitless Mind. As one understands that man is ever with the Father and inherits all the vast treasure store of divine Love, he will find lack disappearing from his experience and spiritual abundance appearing.