FROM the Bible account of the building of the tower of Babel it may be inferred that the people were in a state of carnal-minded self-sufficiency and pride of personal accomplishment. They believed their fancied order firmly established on the basis of a supposititious mortal law of order, and thought that on that basis they could build a structure which should reach to heaven. Are not the apparent economic cycles of the modern business world, figuratively speaking, but recurring towers of Babel?
Moses cautioned the children of Israel lest, when they should possess the promised land, they should forget that it was the gift of God and fall into the belief of self-sufficiency. In times of trial and stress we turn to God, divine Mind, for help and succor. In proportion to our sincerity are our prayers answered, and we enter, in a degree, into the promised land of spiritual, harmonious being. But too often we have then forgotten that our prosperity was the gift of God, and, thinking of ourselves as sufficient unto ourselves, have reared higher and higher in human consciousness new towers of Babel. The outcome is inevitable. The farther we turn from the attitude of sincere prayer and gratitude to God, divine Mind, as the Giver of "every good gift and every perfect gift;" the more we hold to ourselves as sufficient unto ourselves; the higher we raise our towers of Babel, the more inevitable are the fall, depression, and resultant disorder and confusion.
Disorder or confusion is a characteristic of mortal mind, the "carnal mind," which, Paul says, "is enmity against God," infinite divine Mind. Order, self-evidently, is a property of intelligence; and intelligence is "the primal and eternal quality of infinite Mind, of the triune Principle,—Life, Truth, and Love,— named God" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 469). In short, order belongs to divine Mind, God. All of order that is ever found in human consciousness is an expression of the divine Mind, God—is the divine order come to human consciousness to eliminate from human thinking and experience the disorder and confusion of the carnal mind. Mortal mind's supposititious law touching order is not a law of order, but a sense of disorder.
