It is significant that the word wealth originally signified welfare, well-being, and even happiness. Through the discovery of Christian Science by Mary Baker Eddy a wholly spiritual approach has been found to the question of how to demonstrate true wealth. It is true that the answer to this question was given long ago by Christ Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount when he said (Matt. 6:33), "Seek e first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." It was not, however, until Christian Science revealed the true meaning of the Master's theology and interpreted the Scriptures spiritually that the higher import of this saying began to be understood. The key to the passage is now found in Mrs. Eddy's spiritual definition of the word substance as given on page 468 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." There she says that "Truth, Life, and Love are substance, as the Scriptures use this word in Hebrews: The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.'"
In the light of this definition we now see that the mistaken tendency to regard temporal and material things as substance has inevitably resulted in a human sense of limitation and insufficiency. We now understand that material things are merely the finite thoughts of mortals externalized and that human concepts of both material wealth and poverty are merely phases of mortal mind. On the other hand, the title to all real wealth is shown in Christian Science to reside permanently in the divine Mind, for, as the Scriptures declare (Ps. 24:1), "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein."'
The world or earth, as the phrase is here used, is of course the new earth which is spoken of by St. John in the book of Revelation, and which is not a material creation at all, but a divine revelation. Dwellers in the suppositional world, often called "this wicked world." are mainly engaged in the vain attempt to survive under the so-called mortal law of self-preservation, believing all the time that their life span is limited to a certain period of time.
