It should be borne in mind that there is a vast difference between what is commonly termed love, and what is Scientifically so denominated. Fallible human love is not an emanation from God. That sickly sympathy which is ready to shed copious floods of tears over a wounded sparrow, but forthwith turns and wounds a fellow being with a thrust of uncharitableness, is not Love. It is a misused term, a "Desecration of the eternal God-Word."
"Are ye not worth more than many sparrows." When this word falls from the lips of a Christian Scientist, bearing its divine import, let it be understood in its essential quality as the highest expression of the Highest. Take off your shoes in its presence, for you stand on holy ground. Were Love aught but this, what meaning or force would have the words: "Love is the fulfilling of the Law"? What a widening circle of comprehensiveness! Drop a pebble in a pool, and instantly from the center, circle after circle radiates out into the surrounding water. Each overlaps the other's course. Each goes farther out into the widening sphere. So Love, radiating from its own center, spreads farther and farther, each wave overlapping the other's track as it spreads over the illimitable sea of life.
St. Augustine once said, "God is like a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere." The circle is a symbol of Life. Its center and circumference clasp hands in joining the Infinite and the Now. This divine element is the fulfilling of the Law, for it keeps the law, makes the law, is the law. This divine element manifested in man constitutes his highest Being for it is the idea of God (Good). Beyond the false and material consciousness is the immutable and perfect idea of God. The commandments are the natural state of man's real existence. They imply to him no forced obedience, for they but express in negative terms his character. There is no need to tell him not to steal; he has all things. Jesus said: "All things that the Father hath are mine." The infinite riches of Truth are the inheritance of His idea. He knows not what it is to commit murder, for to his consciousness Life is the everpresent reality. He loves his neighbor as himself, for he recognizes in him the same self-hood. This is, and must be, the standard of true Life, and man as the true idea or "son of God."
