Those who seek help in Christian Science will find the 21st chapter of I Chronicles of deep interest; in fact, its opening statement is enough to arrest the attention of any but the most superficial Bible student. "And Satan . . . provoked David to number Israel." If we understand "Satan" to mean merely a wrong thought, the question naturally arises, Why was it a wrong thought? Moses had numbered Israel at God's command; why, then, in this case, was it Satan that tempted or "provoked" David to do likewise? As the narrative unfolds, however, we perceive the difference,—that it lies in the motive back of the act. Moses, in time of peace, numbered Israel as a mere matter of statistical record, while it is clear that David, in time of war, intended to find out just what he had to depend upon in the shape of chariots and horsemen. And we read that because he did this God was "displeased" and "smote Israel," and that David was obliged to admit that he had done "very foolishly." Repentance, however, is not in itself enough to exempt mortals from the results of their own folly; and while Christian Science does not teach that God is ever "displeased," in the sense in which some theologians would construe the term, nor that He who is Love ever "smote" in anger any of His children, yet it does teach in terms most unmistakable that sin brings its own punishment; and upon this basis David had to pay the penalty. He was given his choice between famine, defeat in battle, or three days of pestilence; and, choosing the latter, "there fell of Israel seventy thousand men."
Unconsciously we enter a mental protest at what seems like a punishment so terrible as to be out of all proportion to the mistake, but, upon reflection, do we find the mistake so small as it at first appears? Just what was David doing? Was not he (and most likely his people) looking to "chariots and horsemen" for his resources, when he should have known that his real resources—his only ones—were not in material things at all, but in the limitless realm of Mind? Was he not looking to matter for his source of supply, when "Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind" (Science and Health, p. 60)? If he had stopped to realize that his strength lay, not in "things temporal," but in that conscious unity with God which gives man dominion over all the earth, it would never have occurred to him to number Israel. It does not occur to any one to number the amount of figures he has at his command when starting to solve a problem in mathematics. He does not say, for instance, "I must be careful not to use the figure five too many times, for fear it might give out. Perhaps I had better begin by counting all the fives, so I will know just how many I have to depend upon." No one would think of doing anything so absurd, for the veriest schoolboy knows that there is no limit to the supply which the basic law of mathematics affords. He knows that every one can have all the figures he needs; that he cannot deprive any other pupil of a single figure, nor can any other deprive him.
Nor does it ever occur to the boy to look upon the one in the next seat in the light of a competitor, because he happens to be working at the same sum at the same time. Is there not enough for everybody? There certainly was enough for everybody until the Adam-dream crept in, with its belief of life, substance, and intelligence in matter; but as soon as matter came to be regarded as substance, the first thought of "thine" and "mine" arose, and Cain and Abel lost their sense of brotherhood to become competitors. Of course the schoolboy does not reason this all out, as we are doing, and would only stare blankly at us if we told him that the reason his "five" is inexhaustible is because it stands not for a thing at all, but for a mathematical idea. Nevertheless he proves his faith in it by continuing to use it, with never a fear that it can give out. Why? Because no one has ever taught him to think that it can. And, in the same way, were it not for a false system of education, as old as the serpent's first lie in the garden of Eden, we would have the same simple, unquestioning faith in divine Principle that the boy has in the basis of mathematics. What wonder that Jesus rebuked the educated thought of his times by setting a little child in the midst of the disciples, when they were disputing as to who should be greatest, and saying, "Except ye . . . become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven"!
