TRUE prosperity is spiritual. This statement may seem illogical, even visionary, to one who regards spiritual things as distinct from daily experience. A dictionary defines "prosperity" in part as "advance or gain in anything good or desirable." A cross section of human thought would probably reveal a divergence of opinion as to what constitutes "anything good or desirable." From this difference of human opinion proceed the varying views as to how prosperity may be attained. Obviously, no one can intelligently seek anything unless he is aware of the nature of the thing sought. The fundamental task, then, is to establish in individual and collective thinking a correct concept of that which is good and desirable. According to one dictionary definition, "good" is that which is "sound, reliable, serviceable, and promotes one's happiness and welfare."
In Ecclesiastes we read of one who, having expended much effort toward the attainment of material things, sums up his experience thus: "Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." Here, it would seem, is ample evidence that materiality does not fulfill mankind's longing for the good and desirable. But if these words of 'wisdom were obliterated, there still is, even to the casual observer, convincing proof of the fleeting, disappointing nature of material things.
Who, for instance, can behold the ebb and flow of business as materially conceived—the so-called cycles of plenty and famine, the anxiety and dissatisfaction, the stress and strife, the transitory nature of material things—and still believe that materiality constitutes soundness, reliability, and permanency? In view of the conspicuous failure of men to establish enduring prosperity upon a material basis, should we not conclude that mankind has erred in its concept of what is good and desirable, and thus has mistaken the true nature of prosperity?
