The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1916-11-17
Business

/
things spiritual as the, word science.
cal understanding of Christian Science
to convince, even portion of humani-
ty, that Science is only Science when
it is spiritual, and business only bus
mess when it is conducted metaphy-
sically. Curiously enough, the origin
of the word business is a pathological
mystery. 1t is derived, of course,
from the old English "besignis" busy
plus ness, but how, exactly, it came
to obtain its present precise meaning
no man knoweth. This is less i'm
portant, however, inasmuch as there is
no absolute equivalent for it in the
Greek Testament, different words or
phrases being so rendered, by the ar
| bitrary decision of the translators.
Still all these Greek terms mean very
much the same thing, and the key to
them all may be found in that first
recorded saying Of Jesus the Christ,
"Wist we not that l must be about
my Fathers business?" or, literally,
about the things of my Father. Real
business, scientific business, then, is
the things of God, Of Principle, and
mans business in this world becomes,
consequently, legitimate in the exact
proportion in which he brings it into
accord with Principle.
Mrs. Eddy, who realized fully the
| spiritual significance of the Bible text,
has made all this admirably clear, in
well-known passage on page 81 on
| Science and Health, when, consrast-
ing Jesus spiritual perception of bus
mess with that of the heterogeneous
crowd Of materialists about him, she
wrote, "From early boyhood He was
about his Fathers business. His
pursuits lay far apart from theirs.
His master was Spirit; their master
was matter. He served God; they
| served mammon." But Mrs. Eddy was
! far too wise and too scientific to inn
agine that the human mind turns,
completely and in a moment, from the
things or business of the flesh to the
! things or business of the Spirit. She
knew that when the disciples turned
from their nets to become fishers Of
men, the exchange was not made in a
day, and so, on page 1G6 of "Miscel-
| laneOus Writings" she said of Christ
: IllnSGll, lildL IL -Lue SUIlSI--
| made him an honest man, a good car
penter, and good man, before it
could make him the glorifed." And
so, no doubt, clear perception of the
Christ, Truth, made better tent
maker of Paul, before he raised up
| Eutychus in the street at Troas, and
of John before he overcame death on
Patmos. A mans real business, then,
is with the things of God, and he can
attend to them, just as easily and eff
ficaciously, in the workshop or count
ing house of today as Paul did eigh-
teen centuries ago, amidst his tent
makers tools, in his hired house at
Corinth, on Lake Gennesaret.
The simple fact is that Paul was as
much about his Fathers business,
sewing his tents in his Corinthian
house, as John was in casting his nets,
under stars in the Syrian sky over
Gennesaret, because each of them was
doing what he believed he had to, as
well as ever he knew how, and so
bringing himself into obedience to
Principle. The business man of today,
like the merchant of the first century,
in Capernaum or Corinth, is apt to
embark on the unscientific course of
imagining that his business is TO make
money, whereas it is to be obedient to
Principle. What he fails to under
stand is that obedience to Principle
necessitates a condition of mental and
so of material harmony, which, in
turn, necessitates the possession Of
all those material Accomplishments
which go to make up scientifically
harmonious environment. A mans
| business, in short, is precisely as much
the result of his mentality as is his
body. If it is truly healthy, it is be-
cause his thinking is in accord with
Principle. If it is sick it is for the
same reason that his body is sick,
because he is, consciously or uncon-
| sciously, disobedient TO Principle, and
it must be healed in the same way
that his body must be healed. "Je-
sus," Mrs. Eddy writes, on page 210
of Science and Health, "healed sick
ness by one and the same metaphysi-
cal process"
The ordinary tent-maker of today,
like the ordinary fisherman, if he will
only attend to his business, that is to
say, if he will devote his attention to
/ sewing his tents or mending his nets
in rigid adherence to Principle, will
soon find that his mental outlook is
changing, and that he is building tab
ernacles for the worship of Principle,
or becoming fisher of men. In other
words, whilst engaged in an apparent
ly purely material occupation, he will
discover that, if he stands porter at
the door of thought, and does his ma
terial work thoroughly and con-
scientiously, whilst endeavoring to
conduct it in accordance with Princi-
pie, he is changing his whole mental
outlook, and is being busy not merely
with material phenomena but with the
things of God, the things of Princi-
pie. What applies to the tent-maker
or fisherman applies to every other
man who is doing business on this
earth. If he will only conduct that
business in accordance with Principle
it can never fail and it must prosper.
In order to conduct it, however, in
accordance with Principle, he must do
that which is right because it is right,
and not because he thinks that it is
going to pay him materially to do