The moment one looks to God, Soul, for his resources, his limitations begin to lessen, for the resources of Soul are boundless, being spiritual, and they are equal to every contingency. Too often mankind do not think of this, but look only to persons or to matter for security and satisfaction. Even if all matter were available to us, our resources would be limited, because matter is a finity, having only the value that mortal belief assigns to it. God alone can actually meet a need or bestow genuine happiness. Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 60), "Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind, and happiness would be more readily attained and would be more secure in our keeping, if sought in Soul."

This truth corrects the belief that one's resources are limited to a personal sense of affection for happiness, to monetary holdings for supply, or to matter for intelligence. It teaches one to turn away from so-called material treasures and take stock of the riches of Spirit. The resources of Soul are the energies and ideas of Spirit. Demonstrating them as the natural inheritance of man, God's image, we find them transforming our present seeming human experience. There is no limit to the unselfed love one may express, the integrity of motive one is free to exercise, the purity one may manifest. These are the inward resources to which Christ Jesus alluded when he said (Matt. 12:35), "A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things."

Furthermore, Christian Science reveals the unlimited spiritual concept of everything in the universe. It sets forth the true idea of home, associates, environment, supply, occupation; and once these concepts are understood and loved for the very perfection they manifest, the human sense of them is uplifted and improved. This is because spiritual understanding gradually dispels the mortal sense that views all things in a meager and false light. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 255), "In league with material sense, mortals take limited views of all things." This leads us to see that it is the physical senses—the seeming mortal perceptive faculties—that need to be understood as unreal; for all things in God's kingdom are perfect and unlimited, and it is only material perception that makes them appear otherwise. Knowing that God's ideas are ever present, we see that our task is not to create abundance, but to recognize through spiritual sense the tangible spiritual perfection of God's creation, which is never limited or conditioned in any way by our ignorance of it. Then spiritual sense demonstrates the rich resources of Soul and we drop our beliefs of limitation.

If one feels impoverished or cramped, frustrated by lack of happiness or supply, let him examine his present expression of Soul's riches, find how much of consecration to good he is manifesting. Then, if it is little, let him withdraw from the belief that he is a limited mortal and become conscious of his true selfhood—God's image— whose nature is rich in giving, in expressing the qualities of generosity and love, of justice, purity, reverence, truthfulness.

In Soul we find resources available not only for the overcoming of want, but for the healing of discordant relationships, of sickness and sin, even of death. To Soul humanity must look for the means of ending wars, of comforting the race, and of waking mankind fully from the deep sleep and dream of life in matter. Always these means involve active participation in good, the necessity of living the scientific truths professed. And they require such faith as that of the prophet who declared to God (Jer. 32:17), "There is nothing too hard for thee."

The Master's parable of "a certain rich man," found in the twelfth chapter of Luke, teaches the necessity of continued activity in expressing the resources of spiritual good and the fatal results of becoming spiritually static through considering an abundance of matter to be resource and supply. Here Jesus describes the state of mind which builds greater barns for its goods and then takes its ease, but which soon receives the rebuke of Deity for one who "layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." The Master went on to counsel, "Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning."

As long as the mortal dream claims to persist in thought, one may not relax his spiritual efforts to dispel human limitation by demonstrating the vast resources of Soul. Each day should expand one's understanding of God's creation; each hour should show forth more of the man whose all is included in Spirit. The Scientist never retires from his occupation of demonstrating man's reflection of God, of proving that man's unfoldment of his divine Principle is perpetual and eternal.

Mrs. Eddy says in "Pulpit and Press" (p. 9): "Christians rejoice in secret, they have a bounty hidden from the world. Self-forgetfulness, purity, and love are treasures untold—constant prayers, prophecies, and anointings. Practice, not profession,—goodness, not doctrines,—spiritual understanding, not mere belief, gain the ear and right hand of omnipotence, and call down blessings infinite." Let us accept the bounty of Spirit and come into the realization of Soul's infinitude through the active reflection of all the good our loving Father provides.

Helen Wood Bauman