Side by side with the demand for physical relief the problem of supply continually presents itself to the Christian Science practitioner, and surely no healing can be a greater to boon to the world than the healing of poverty. Our Leader says, "Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts"(Science and Health, p. 261). Could we fill our consciousness with the thought that every individual idea of God is as fixed in its place in divine Mind as the "steadfast stars" in their orbits, it would help to dispel the illusion that any one of God's children is out of a position, displaced, out of line with the Source of all supply. No one in that universe which is "unseen and eternal" is ever out of place, for God is without variableness or shadow of turning, and His ideas reflect His stability. No skepticism seems quite so deep-seated as that which concerns money. We are more willing to trust God with our bodies even, than with our pocket-books. The perfect Love which casts out fear must be poured in double measure upon this quivering surface of mortal thought, and for this a sovereign balm will be found in our Leader's words: "Divine Love always has met, and always will meet, every human need"(Science and Health, p. 494). The same phase of impersonal evil that binds thought to a sense of life in structure and organism, holds us also to limitation in resource; to antidote which let us remember that "Soul hath infinite resources wherewith to bless mankind" (Science and Health, p. 60), and that "Spirit duly feeds and clothes every object, as it appears in the line of creation, so that it may express the fatherhood and motherhood of God" (Science and Health, p. 507). Anxiety as to material ways and means promotes unguarded use of the human will, and it is wise, under such stress, to abide by the Bible injunctions :"In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength," and, "It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." This does not mean stagnation or inertia, but the holding in leash the human will, in order that "the unlabored motion of the divine energy" (Science and Health, p. 445) may be manifested. We know that the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him in truth. Surely to seek Him "in truth" means to hold thought in that clear spiritual attitude where "there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known." Greed, avarice, covetousness, "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" must be cast out as "morbid secretions," mental poisons, which obstruct the free and harmonious circulation of that spiritual thought which creates, feeds, clothes, and shelters all God's ideas. The mortal law of heredity must be denied, for it usurps the authority of the one Law-giver whose ruling has made us "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." He "giveth us richly all things to enjoy" is our warrant for claiming our birthright boldly, and "God is no respecter of persons" is equally our warrant for insisting upon the impartiality of divine Love. There is no law of reversal in God's, universe. "He spake, and it was done; He commanded and it stood fast," and the "dominion over all the earth, which was given man "in the beginning," has never been modified or revoked.
To those in the world of commerce the thought of the perfect balance forever maintained between supply and demand, in a perfect universe, is a basic rest and assurance. Mind being "the source of all movement," as our text-book says (Science and Health, p. 283), it follows that Mind must move buyer and seller together to their mutual benefit. Justice, Truth, and Love must govern the relations of employer and employee, that there may be "no stoppage of harmonious action" (Science and Health, p. 420), no paralyzing strikes. When greed, avarice, and covetousness are eliminated from human belief,— envy, jealousy, malice, hate, and revenge will the sooner loosen their grasp, the Golden Rule of Love will have full sway, and the curse of poverty return to its "native nothingness."
