Recession Is Unnecessary

CAROLYN B. SWAN

Even in the midst of unprecedented economic expansion, many fear that reversal is inevitable. But Christian Science teaches men to look beyond matter to Spirit and find that in the divine economy there is no recession of good.

God, who is infinite good, all-inclusively plans and perpetually imparts boundless blessings. Infinite good is not subject to inflation or deflation. Unchanging Mind, God, never increases, decreases, withholds, or withdraws the ineffable love with which He sustains His universe of spiritual ideas. Mrs. Eddy writes: "All real being represents God, and is in Him. In this Science of being, man can no more relapse or collapse from perfection, than his divine Principle, or Father, can fall out of Himself into something below infinitude.” 1

Only good is inevitable. In fact, infinite good is the eternal reality. Unstable or endangered economy is a mistaken and mortal sense of the economy. We can pray to understand the divine economy. Then we can prove that no claim of selfhood or system separable from God has ever replaced or can ever exclude the creative, unfolding activity of spiritual substance. Nor can evil disturb or destroy the even balance of supply and demand, which indicates the one all-controlling divine source.

Throughout the ages God-loving individuals have demonstrated that obedience to spiritual law unites men with the divine Principle, Love, which meets all human needs. Even one individual's conviction that all things are possible to God has prevented national calamity. In answer to Moses' prayer, and in the midst of a barren desert and without material process, Deity provided food and water for the Israelites as long as they needed them. Moreover, the unvarying equality of demand and supply of manna so impressed the Scriptural re

Through the Christ, Truth, which Jesus presented, the spiritual fact of universal plenitude must and will become obvious to all earnest seekers for pure spirituality, for the promised land of Truth, Love, and Life. Divine law guides mankind, protecting and preserving every step of progress. No spiritual gain can ever be lost.

Mrs. Eddy writes, "Wholly apart from this mortal dream, this illusion and delusion of sense, Christian Science comes to reveal man as God's image, His idea, coexistent with Him-God giving all and man having all that God gives." 4

God, the source of divine substance, equitably, timelessly, impartially, and universally demands and supplies perfection. Today's economic problems present no complexities too difficult for those who understand their solution by omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God. No mortal has ever had or will ever have more or less to overcome than his belief in the Adamdream of materialism, the sum total of composite, vacuous beliefs in something apart from God, infinite Spirit, and His spiritual creation. Through Christian Science all can demonstrate the unreality, the nothingness, of every unholy belief-be it apparently favorable or adverse-that presupposes life, truth, intelligence, or substance to abide in matter or in any of its

ramifications, including fluctuating economic conditions.

Should decline appear imminent, or even if loss should appear actual, restoration ever resides in spiritual sense. Neither a million dollars in the bank nor a bare cupboard can unite us with or separate us from God. The grand fact that humanity has access to continuous, purposeful employment in expressing Godlikeness and to bountiful supply of divine approval and appreciation for every righteous endeavor is ! still intact. The testimony of the deceitful material senses, whether pro or con, must be denied and replaced with the truths of Christian Science so that we may be prepared to view the unchanging spiritual evidence. Right where material sense presents its lies, ranging from complacency to panic, right there spiritual sense fills all space with the comforting, all-encompassing consciousness that the only real human need is the reflection of divine Love.

To keep our economic affairs in balance, we require a constant acceptance of Love's spiritual ideas. We need spiritualization of thought that translates these ideas into action, because spiritualized living demonstrates the Christ. We must rouse ourselves from either supinely awaiting a turn of fortune or from giddily chasing rainbows. The only lasting answer to the search for stability lies in establishing the dignity and contentment of accomplishment through Christian Science demonstration.

Indeed, the only remedy for believing in the absence of infinite good lies in improving one's estimate of reality through study and practice of this Science. When we have brought every thought, word, and deed into spiritual employment, constancy will reign in all that concerns us. Love's season for giving never ends. The capacity of true selfhood to receive is boundless. Whoever employs all his resources to express Godlikeness receives the rewards of achievement.

Stressing this vital point to her followers, Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health:

"To the physical senses, the strict demands of Christian Science seem peremptory; but mortals are hastening to learn that Life is God, good, and that evil has in reality neither place nor power in the human or the divine economy." 35

God's spiritual ideas, cherished humbly and faithfully, overflow into a full manifestation of practical commodities—all we can use each moment. Each individual's real selfhood is eternally complete, perfect, and satisfied. Therefore your joy and worth do not proceed from resources outside your own identity. Infinite progression lies within and precludes any epicycle of retrogression.

A better understanding of divine Love and its loving, lovable, and loved spiritual creation will unite you with the particular demand and supply of spiritual ideas you need. After all, the spiritual idea of what the material senses perceive is actually the reality.

In spiritual rebirth all eventually discover that the efficacy of divine law to produce perfection does not fluctuate with the rise and fall of popular moral standards, monetary trends, diseases, corporate empires, or nations. There is no climactic peak or rock bottom to be reached, no accretion or depletion, no reevaluation or devaluation that must precede the balancing of divine economy. To God, there is no imbalance. Mrs. Eddy encouraged the members of her household to refrain from saying there is too much or too little of anything. (See Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy by Irving C. Tomlinson, p. 74.)

The law that God gives all and man has all that God gives rules the economy of God and His people, on earth as in heaven, governing the infinitesimal as well as the infinite. That loving law exempts you and me and all creation from recession, loss, failure, collapse, and ruin. It offers perpetual progress, spiritual gain, enduring success, expanding opportunity, and unceasing prosperity. Mounting proofs of

Christian Science healing support the fact that recession and its devastating effects are correctable and avoidable. Proportionably as the Science of being is understood and demonstrated, mankind will exercise their

God-given dominion over recession as not only unnecessary but impossible.

1 No and Yes, p. 26; 2 Ex. 16:18; 3 John 6:37; 4 The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 5; 5 Science and Health, p. 327.

The Correct View

CHARLES HOLLIS GREEN

How important it is in every department of human experience to reject the false and gain the correct view! One of the reasons given for Abraham Lincoln's greatness was his readiness to abandon views proved false and accept new and truer views without loss of dignity.

Christian Science is revolutionary as well as revelational in its clear presentation of the facts of true being. It bids us drop our false views of life and intelligence in matter and replace them with true views of Life as Spirit and intelligence as spiritual. It opens our eyes to a very present God who is both Father and Mother to His universe and His man, and whose tender love and perfect care extend without limit to His entire creation.

Many years ago I used to ride to and from my place of business in company with a friend I had met on the streetcar. A point was reached where I used to watch for this man and board the same car. He was gracious and friendly, but what appealed to me most was that no matter what subject was introduced in our conversation, his viewpoint was balanced, intelligent, charitable to my sense, correct. This deeply impressed the earnest young seeker for Truth that I was in those days. Later, when I became a guest in my friend's home and picked up a copy of The Christian Science Monitor, he told me that he and his wife were Christian Scientists.

"What exactly makes a Christian Scien

tist?" was my first question. Their reply was a wise one: "Go and read the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, from beginning to end, as its author, Mary Baker Eddy, advises. There you will learn the true view of God and man and creation. This constitutes the mental and spiritual equipment of every earnest, practicing Christian Scientist."

I followed the counsel my friends had given, and it was not long before I received my first healing, aided by the prayers of one of them, of an acute condition of strain and depression brought on through overwork. Today, after many fruitful years of study and practice, it is still a mental voy. age of joyous discovery to learn more and more of the teachings of Christian Science regarding the nature of God and His man and His universe.

I soon learned that a Christian Scientist, in common with all other Christians, is a follower of the Master, Christ Jesus, the great difference being that he does not stop halfway. He is learning to follow all the way, even to the point of healing the sick, sinning, and dying through spiritual means alone. This is borne out by Christ Jesus' great promise: "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; be cause I go unto my Father.'

The next question that arises with one newly acquainted with Christian Science is how Christ Jesus accomplished his great

healing works, and how Christian Scientists proceed to follow his example. Mrs. Eddy gives the answer very cogently in the textbook: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick." 2

Here, then, is the secret, if there is a secret; and yet how simple it really is! When confronted with the spectacle of the ten lepers was Christ Jesus dismayed? Not at all! Where everyone else saw ten diseased mortals, right there the Master saw the perfect man, God's image and likeness. The result was decisive-not just one, but all ten were healed. How? Through "this correct view of man" from which Jesus never deviated.

I remember my first effort to prove the truth of this in those early days. Two of my business associates started to quarrel violently, almost to the point of blows. The thought came: Right where material evidence points to two conflicting mortals, right there is only "God's own likeness.' To my great joy I saw the two combatants suddenly break into smiles and shake hands, and the whole difference was forgotten.

was a Christian Scientist, who needed no discovery of the Science of being in order to rebuke the evidence. To one 'born of the flesh,' however, divine Science must be a discovery. Woman must give it birth." 3

How grateful we can be that this is actually what has taken place! Mrs. Eddy has given Christian Science to the whole human family to acquaint them with the eternal laws of God and His government of the universe, including His highest expression, man. The more steadfastly we seek to gain the correct view of God as Father-Mother, as Life, Love, Truth, as Principle, Soul, Spirit, Mind, the more clearly and correctly we view His reflection, His image and likeness-His man—and the more harmony we see expressed.

The distorting shadows that false views cast upon God's universe and man have not the reality or substance human education erroneously assigns to them. Indeed, more and more we learn to deny and refute the evidence of the material senses as to imperfection of every name and nature. Mrs. Eddy puts this question on page 9 of her book Unity of Good: "What is the cardinal point of the difference in my metaphysical system?" And she answers: "This: that by knowing the unreality of disease, sin, and death, you demonstrate the allness of God. This difference wholly separates my system from all others. The reality of these so-called existences I deny, because they are not to be found in God, and this system is built on Him as the sole cause. It would be difficult to name any previous teachers, save Jesus and his apostles, who have thus taught.'

Whoever takes the name of Christian Scientist and strives constantly to align his thought with true views, correct spiritual views of God, divine Mind, and His unfolding creation of ideas, is on safe ground. No longer does he think of himself as looking up to God but rather as looking with God-given perception upon a universe of law, order, light, and everlasting harmony, which exists in Him. As he does so, his human experience takes on a brighter