The clamor of mankind today is largely for proper and sufficient food, clothing, and shelter; yet there was never a time when these were any more available than today. This statement will not seem startling, if one observes the abundant crops of recent years, the plentiful supply of materials, and the untenanted houses. Those who are troubled with insufficiency in their own experience, or are disturbed by seeing the struggles of others to meet even necessary demands, will ask where the lack originates and why it is so prevalent. Lack is a condition of the human mind, as the thinker will admit, and many, at different times, have found themselves short of daily sustenance, proper clothing, right housing. Then, when looking for the explanation of such difficult circumstances as those with which thousands are confronted today, we must begin with human consciousness.
In the thirty-seventh Psalm is this comprehensive statement written by one who evidently had proved the truth of his words: "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." And Christian Science is demonstrating this truth to mankind in this very age.
It appears that salvation from the woes of lack is contingent on righteousness, and that the continued unhappy, limited state of humanity as a whole is due to its refusal to ally itself to righteous living, purposes, pursuits. One of the subtle arguments of error is that one cannot be good, rich, and happy at the same time. That which promotes this gross ignorance is an erroneous sense of what constitutes goodness, riches, and happiness. Christian Science teaches that God is all-inclusive good, substance, and that man is His expression. Then man expresses abundant spiritual goodness, and this goodness is present here and now to meet the human need, for Mary Baker Eddy tells us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 442), what the world must begin to understand, that "Christ, Truth, gives mortals temporary food and clothing until the material, transformed with the ideal, disappears, and man is clothed and fed spiritually."
