TODAY the general presence of monetary inflation is causing concern to many persons. A serious problem is presented whenever the money of a country is depressed in value so as to make it difficult for its people to purchase the necessities of human life.
All material values are relative—as relative as is the merchandise they govern. For true worth one must look away from matter and material things to God and His idea, the sum of all substance. The priceless worth, as well as the availability of divine substance, was expressed by Isaiah when he said (Isa. 55:1,2): "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness."
Should one be faced with inflation, he can in this, as in any phase of human discord, turn from the false testimony of the material senses to the spiritual facts of being for help, comfort, and guidance. He can virtually "buy wine and milk without money and without price" by engaging in the exchange of a false concept of substance as material for the true concept of substance as God, Spirit, a spiritually mental activity through which the human need is supplied. The spiritual fact is that God is divine Principle, and that He governs His creation, man and the universe, in perfect order. There is nothing in His divine government which can adversely affect the harmony of man's being. Perfect balance between demand and supply is the forever fact under God's government.
Besides being divine, God, Principle, is also infinite. That which is infinite is never subject to diminution, nor does it fluctuate or vacillate between good and evil, abundance and lack, inflation and deflation, expansion and contraction. God, being eternally complete within and of Himself, includes no opposing element. This one infinite and omnipotent God is the Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love of man, and man, reflecting all of God's qualities, is firmly established in Principle. His ability to be well, happy, and successful is indestructible because it is God-bestowed and God-preserved.
The fleshly sense of man is a misrepresentation of true manhood and expresses instability and limitation. This finite sense of man is the result of the false belief that matter is intelligent and substantial. Under the mesmeric influence of this mistake, mortals submit to the suggestions of sin, sickness, and death, often without protest, believing that matter is a lawgiver to men. If matter or material conditions had the power to destroy true health, harmony, and success, as so-called mortal mind claims, man would be in a hopeless state. The fact that countless thousands still believe in this fallacy does not alter the invariable truth, as revealed and demonstrated by Christ Jesus, that there is but one perfect God, Spirit, who governs His creation, man and the universe, through Love, Principle. The fallacious belief in a power or presence opposed to God cannot enter, alter, or stop the continuous and harmonious functioning of divine Principle.
Elijah the prophet, as he camped near the brook Cherith, overcame the problem at the root of inflation, namely, subsistence. He was fed by the ravens which "brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook" (I Kings 17:6). Later on, when because of the continued drought the brook dried up, he demonstrated further dominion over the apparent shortage. Under God's direction he called upon the widow of Zarephath, who also was experiencing a shortage. However, even though she had but "an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse" for herself and son, she was obedient to Elijah's request and supplied him with food. She must have recognized that Elijah was divinely inspired when he said, "The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth," for after complying with the prophet's unusual request, she found dominion over the belief of lack in the fact that "the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah."
The truth about God and man is expansive in its effect upon human affairs, but it is not inflationary. The distinction between expansion and inflation in this connection lies in the difference between truth and error. Truth, forever expressing itself, enlarges our borders, as Mary Baker Eddy makes plain in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 265): "This scientific sense of being, forsaking matter for Spirit, by no means suggests man's absorption into Deity and the loss of his identity, but confers upon man enlarged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action, a more expansive love, a higher and more permanent peace." Among the blessings humanly experienced through the activity of this expansive consciousness are mental and physical normality, an adequate supply of needed commodities, and an increased sense of usefulness.
Error, or mortal mind, claims to increase and expand its evil influence by means of aggressive mental suggestion. Every such claim is inflationary because it involves the attempted expansion of a lie about God and man, a lie which is without substance, reality, or Principle. The Psalmist describes the utter futility of evil's boast to supplant divine substance in individual experience when he says (Ps. 37:32, 35, 36): "The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him. ... I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found."
Inflation, a characteristic of error, is not confined to money matters. Like a toy balloon distended by the gas used to inflate it and subject to quick deflation by too much pressure from within or by being punctured from without, error is limited and unstable. Being godless, it has no basis for its false claims. It represents an impossible negative condition, namely, nothingness, a wouldbe absence or shortage of truth. Mortal mind, which claims to make men sick, sinful, and dying, would fool them into believing that God creates these errors.
Mrs. Eddy deals scientifically with the inflationary tendencies of error, or mortal mind, in Science and Health (p. 252) under the marginal heading "Testimony of sense." Here material sense is supposed to say: "The world is my kingdom. I am enthroned in the gorgeousness of matter. But a touch, an accident, the law of God, may at any moment annihilate my peace, for all my fancied joys are fatal. Like bursting lava, I expand but to my own despair, and shine with the resplendency of consuming fire."
Man is not a balloon floating about in the atmosphere of mortal mind, bouncing back and forth between good and evil, life and death, sickness and health, or lack and abundance. He is firmly fixed as the spiritual expression of divine Principle, God, in whom is no shortage or absence of substance, health, harmony, or ability. Our reflected capacity to demonstrate scientific expansion is substantive and enduring. Mrs. Eddy shows us how to apply the truth of being to human affairs where she says (ibid., p. 264): "As mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before were invisible, will become visible. When we realize that Life is Spirit, never in nor of matter, this understanding will expand into self-completeness, finding all in God, good, and needing no other consciousness."
