Everyone has a talent. It is important that this fact be realized. It brings to each individual self-appreciation, and it serves as an effective rebuke to false mortal sense, which may sometimes suggest that someone is totally without a "pre-eminent and special aptitude," as one dictionary defines the word talent. Each one not only has a talent, but each can, by correct use of his talent, add to it.
Authority for these assertions is found in many statements in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. One remarkable pronouncement by her on this subject appears in her book "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany." There she says (p. 195), "To do good to all because we love all, and to use in God's service the one talent that we all have, is our only means of adding to that talent and the best way to silence a deep discontent with our shortcomings."
The first thing to know about a talent is that it is God-given. It is therefore a spiritual endowment, and not a material one. It is, to apply the dictionary's phrase again, one's "pre-eminent and special aptitude" for knowing infinite Truth, in other words, the specific mode whereby a specific individual most clearly sees God, his divine source. Each individual is endowed with such aptitude, and each must employ his own aptitude, his own insight into his own unlimited usefulness as God's expression of Himself.
