CHRISTIAN SCIENCE is teaching all who will listen the lesson of true giving and receiving. Regardless of his religious belief, anyone who has learned to sacrifice his sense of ease in matter, and to face the arguments and fears of a materially-minded world, in order to bring greater freedom to all, has touched Christ's robe and is thereby proving his usefulness to God and his fellow men.
When an individual first discerns the light of Truth, he may ask: "What can Christian Science give me? Shall I find in it health, peace, life eternal?" Truly, if we ask bread of our Father, He will not give us a stone. But the wise seeker learns that his venture will be successful when he comes serving, and asking, "What more can I give?" When the rich young ruler came to Jesus with the question, "What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" the Master told him to go and sell all that he had and give to the poor; and he said also, "Come, take up the cross, and follow me." Though the young ruler had obeyed the Commandments from his youth, yet he lacked the very necessary quality of giving—giving up a false sense of substance. More than that, he must follow Christ, which meant taking up the cross, subordinating his human will whenever it crossed with God's will.
The only reason for our withholding is a fear of loss of something dear to us—money, friends, position. Paul said, "But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ ... for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ." Paul's conversion made a giver of him. He was a man of education and ability, but he gladly forfeited the good will of his friends, his social position, and all his worldly prospects in order to promote the cause of the Christ. This made him a good teacher, a good preacher, and a good healer.
The Christian Science practitioner of to-day is sometimes faced with the same problem that confronted Paul, and the seeker with the same question the rich young ruler asked of Jesus. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul said: "He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver." This is wise counsel for the Christian Science practitioner. He must first be willing to give patiently and unstintingly of his time and efforts to the seeker for Truth. He must never be "weary in well doing." Impatience and irritability should never find place in his thought if he would give of the bread of heaven. Nor should he listen to the various suggestions which would rob him not only of his usefulness, but possibly of the very opportunity to be useful.
In her Message to The Mother Church for 1900 our Leader writes (p. 3): "Now, what saith Christian Science? 'When a man is right, his thoughts are right, active, and they are fruitful; he loses self in love, and cannot hear himself, unless he loses the chord.'" Let us watch that we lose not the chord. The right thinker and worker is quick to detect self-centered thinking, and he does not indulge it. God is not seen with the material eye; therefore it is not possible to see His image and likeness, man, through the material sense of vision. With the question, "What went ye out for to see?" Jesus may have been rebuking the attempt to pursue a person. Any attempt to personalize good leaves one as "a reed shaken with the wind." It is Principle, divine Love, not person, which blesses, heals, and saves.
The practitioner cannot arouse in the seeker a desire to give, nor can he expect to receive, unless he is himself demonstrating by both word and act his willingness to give. Through his patient, selfless work the seeker's thought will be turned away from personality, and he will see that his first obligation is to God.
The relationship between practitioner and patient, between teacher and student, and between the church and its members is a sacred one. It is safe when it is based on an understanding of Principle. Those earnestly seeking healing, teaching, or church membership are not seeking person or personal worship, but spiritual food, activity, and refreshment.
Jesus' life was one of constant bestowal. He gave unstintingly; and his final gift was his human sense of life; his reward, spiritual victory. With his disciples he partook of the Passover, "a wonderful passage over a tear-filled sea of repentance" (ibid., p. 15). How many of his disciples who partook of that evening meal were ready to lay down fear, pride, ease in matter, their earthly all? Let us to-day sit with the Christ, humbly and with tears of repentance, cheerfully giving up whatever is unlike God, knowing full well that victory cometh with the morn. And what of the morning meal? It was celebrated by his disciples only when they had awakened to the glorious privilege of serving and giving. Truly it is a joyous feast that comes to the awakened consciousness. There is no gift so great as a life dedicated to service for God and man. Then—
"Follow, with reverent steps, the great example
Of him whose holy work was doing good;
So shall the wide earth seem our Father's
temple,
Each loving life a psalm of gratitude."
Do not only contend with evil thoughts or inclinations of the will but get thyself earnestly engaged with a good thought or purpose, until those evil thoughts vanish.—
