IN times of financial stress and strain it is indeed comforting to learn, through the study and application of Christian Science, that there is only one real business, the Father's business. As we turn to the earnest contemplation of this business and resolutely refuse to accept as real the suppositional evidence of the material senses, we are abundantly blessed.
The meaning of business, through widespread misapplication in practice, has been distorted, so that men have largely lost sight of the underlying purpose of legitimate business enterprise. Through desire for the satisfaction or security supposed to be derived from the possession of great material wealth, the false sense of business has prompted people to amass or endeavor to amass large sums of money and property until financial independence has been reached.
It is well to analyze the phrase "financial independence," for it is supposed to envisage a state of peace and security, a freedom from care and worry. That such a concept is misleading has been proved beyond question by recent events. What is called financial independence is, manifestly, dependence on finance, dependence on so-called material substance. The fact that finances can dwindle and even disappear, proves them to be insubstantial, devoid of real substance; for "substance," Mrs. Eddy tells us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 468), "is that which is eternal and incapable of discord and decay." Thus it can readily be seen that when finances vanish, financial independence vanishes. This reasoning leads us to the inevitable conclusion that there has been no real independence, no security, no assurance, and this fact prompts us to look above and beyond material things for the dependence and independence which are enduring because spiritual.
