This is the ninth month, though by its name it is numbered the seventh. It marks the time when harvests are gathered, and fruit glows on the orchard trees, rich and glorious compared with the pallid blossoms of spring. It is the time of garnered sheaves and quiet, meditative days, wherein we do well to think gratefully over the goodness and richness of life which God makes us inherit. The promises in Scripture are continually reaching to universality. They include mankind as such, and express the certainty that at some time the nations shall be glad because they shall understand the righteous judgment of God and be governed by Principle. This thought is brought out in the sixty-seventh psalm: "Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee. Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us."
When Paul made his famous address to the people of Lystra, at the time when their priest brought oxen and garlands, intending to do sacrifice to him and to Barnabas on the theory that they were gods walking among men, because they had been able to heal a congenital cripple, the apostle earnestly turned their attention to Principle, described by him as "the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein." Then he went on to show the connection between this source of good and the regular flow of blessings which came to them, proving thus that though God was unseen, He nevertheless was not "without witness." He then called their attention to the universality of divine good will, "in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness."
Why then does it happen, with this universality of production, with earth's fertility proven in such varieties of fruit and cereal characteristic of different climes, that people should be destitute and hungry? One can easily see that this would not be so if men were more generally guided by Principle, and sought their own happiness in the right way. Men are not swine to find satisfaction in thrusting others aside from the food supply that they may gorge themselves; yet when food is translated into terms of money there is a tendency on the part of many to feel that anything will justify their selfish grasping of that which represents food for thousands. The animal which must concentrate its whole attention upon its own things is not a model for man. The real model is of course Christ Jesus, in whose demonstration and teaching we find uplifted humanity meeting and being glorified by divinity.
What then of those who, having begun with the swinish ideal in the small way of their own lives, carry on under the guidance of this ideal into larger opportunity and greater influence? These are they of whom the prophet Amos spoke when he said they were impatient of the religious feasts, and even of the Sabbath, that for a period restrained them from their trading, which he describes as "making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit." And the end of this scheming is what? So to gain control of the necessities of life that they may "buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat." It is because the prophet was discussing what is ordinarily called human nature that we find the problem similar in his time to those of our own times. The great lack seems always to be the lack of imagination. Greediness is always stupid.
A malign argument prevails in the minds of those who have to deal with the distribution of food. The theory is that this distribution is a necessity, and that the lessening of distribution by narrowing the supply will be the occasion for larger profits; or else that the necessities of the case will enable those who are engaged in the transportation to lay a tax upon both producer and consumer, which tax has been frequently estimated as "all that the traffic will bear." Hence we find fruit rotting in orchards, fields of grain unreaped, tubers undigged, vineyards ungathered, while at the other end of the line the people of the cities are suffering because of the narrowness of their supply of these things. Of course the basic trouble is materialism.
Mrs. Eddy warns us against a certain element in human consciousness which forever tends to destroy the growing up within of that which will bless and comfort. She says in Science and Health, "In the soil of an 'honest and good heart' the seed must be sown; else it beareth not much fruit, for the swinish element in human nature uproots it" (p. 272). Is it not proper then that warning should be given and appeal made to all men that they should keep out of their garden plot,—that is, their consciousness,—where the flowers and fruits of paradise may grow, those destroying beliefs and theories which, with the callousness and stupidity of swine that have broken into the home garden, may root up and destroy what is calculated to bless many? When we come to inquire of metaphysics how to become blessed ourselves, we find that any real blessing is inseparable from blessing universal. This is perfectly stated by Mrs. Eddy when she says: "In the scientific relation of God to man, we find that whatever blesses one blesses all, as Jesus showed with the loaves and the fishes,—Spirit, not matter, being the source of supply" (Science and Health, p. 206).
The understanding of these things will bring a most gratifying release from burdens and cares. There is so much vexation and anxiety in the continual night and day scheming which aims at the exploitation of other men or groups of men. From this heartless exploitation the materially-minded man may make what he calls gain, but words can hardly describe the inward barrenness and disappointment when he finds how inadequate his material possessions are to yield him the slightest comfort. He may gorge himself upon expensive food and drink, but penalties soon come; he may accumulate uncountable dollars, but what value is there in a mountain of dollars if each separate dollar represents a curse? He may load his relatives with gifts and jewels, but these things ultimate in discontent. It is inevitable that every man shall some time see one ideal and one only for the government of his life. When that one ideal prevails,—and it inevitably will conquer, because in this respect right is might,—this ideal will harmonize the actions of all mankind in such a way that their well ordered activities will express, "a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."
