Through countless ages mortal man has been praying in some sort of way to God to provide his daily supplies, to meet his daily needs. All through the centuries he has said, O Father, send me food, clothes, the four walls of a house, heat, light, a bank account upon which to draw. And has God answered? Yes; sometimes the clouds of selfishness, pride, doubt, false ambition, and so on, have been cleared away for a moment through an instinctive though blind turning to the light, and the spiritual ideas of humility, unselfishness, trust, gratitude, love, have appeared in sufficient degree to meet the need. But because this has been only a blind application of a basic law, a momentary stumbling upon the energizing Principle of being and the universe, it has not brought the constant, positive, joy-giving solution to all our problems. Now if some one would make known to such people the Principle of all that is good, the law which only needs to be understood and applied in order to bring accurate, scientific results, would they not call this discovery even greater than the discovery of the law of gravitation which Newton saw in the falling apple? And yet at every new discovery the seat of the scornful has been crowded and the cry of "Away with him" has sought to stifle the message of Truth.
In the year 1866 Mrs. Eddy discovered this basic spiritual law, the very Principle of all being, which was applied so scientifically and intelligently by the Nazarene two thousand years ago, and the world is gradually awakening to the joyous fact that the loud cries of the persecutors did not succeed in drowning the still, small voice of Truth which was so positively and patiently uttering itself. On page 307 of "Miscellaneous Writings" she states the spiritual law, which when understood and correctly applied cannot fail to meet our daily needs. She writes, "God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies." She does not say, we notice, that if we pray long enough and loud enough God will send us food for our table, money to meet some pressing demand, or a house in which to live; for Christian Science teaches that God, being Spirit, does not work materially but spiritually. And right here is where mortal man rebels, for mortal sense would have God, infinite Spirit, know all about matter, and give out a few dollar bills, as it were. But surely, says mortal mind, we should trust our heavenly Father to give us all that we need. Yes; but even the schoolboy, learning the multiplication table, does not beg the principle of mathematics to give him the result of two times two hundred. He knows that if he carefully follows the rule of multiplication the correct result must appear.
If then God, Spirit, Mind, does not know about material conditions, how can we expect Him to help us? If God does not give us these daily supplies, what does He give His beloved child? That is just what Mrs. Eddy so plainly tells us in the sentence quoted,—"God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies." Why, of course, God being Spirit, Mind, infinite intelligence, His gifts must be ideas, and those ideas necessarily spiritual. And then what happens? What can a man do with an idea, a spiritual idea? What does the inventor do when an idea comes to his thought? He expresses it humanly in the only manner he knows. In other words, that idea, or thought, becomes externalized and he sees before him what he calls a material object expressing his original concept. These "daily supplies" are, then, nothing more or less than the outward manifestation of a man's thought of supply, and in so far as these thoughts are spiritualized. perfection will be manifested. As material beliefs are replaced by spiritual ideas, a purer, holier expression of these ideas must appear as a witness to the goodness of God.
