That oft repeated message of John that we "love one another," which has echoed down the centuries, became the motive call of every step in Mrs. Eddy's great demonstration of founding and binding together The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, with all its worldwide branches. Christian Scientists need often to whisper the message to one another in fair weather and in storm. They need also to seek the inspired understanding of what that message means.
On page 250 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy tells us, "Love cannot be a mere abstraction, or goodness without activity and power." This statement, coupled with the study of "A Rule for Motives and Acts," in the Manual of The Mother Church (Art. VIII, Sect. 1), opens our spiritual vision to the practical import of John's revelation when he saw "the human and divine coincidence, shown in the man Jesus, as divinity embracing humanity in Life and its demonstration,—reducing to human perception and understanding the Life which is God," to quote from page 561 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. It is surely this "human and divine coincidence" which we shall bring into our experience in proportion as we are able to interpret the spirit of this important rule of the Manual. It is the white garment of righteousness for a Christian Scientist. It bases an individual's understanding of and loyalty to the teachings and works of Jesus, as scientifically explained by Mrs. Eddy through her discovery of Christian Science. By putting this By-law into constant practice, the meaning of the other By-laws will slowly but surely be revealed to those who are watching and praying, giving them a clear vision of the protective power and scope of the government proclaimed by our Manual.
Our grateful human affection for Jesus and for our Leader can be proved only by following in their footsteps; and this By-law, with its three distinct parts, enables us to start rightly on the path of individual demonstration. It begins at the outset by lifting thought above the discordant atmosphere of personal likes and dislikes into the understanding of the universal, unchanging love of God, expressed in the harmonious activity of spiritual law. It is by dwelling with this spiritual law, impelled by the spiritual ideas with which our heavenly Father feeds all His children, that a Christian Scientist can truly say with Jesus, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." This expresses the activity of its healing power. This is the welcome to the weary and heavy-laden, —the willing recognition, rebuke, and rejection of sick and sinful thoughts; the true brotherliness which encourages and supports our neighbor while this process is going on; the Christlike charity which can see a brother's need and supply it; the forgiveness which blots out unreality, and discerns the white radiance of the spiritual idea. Those who are seeking honestly will never be turned away by the heart which is thus filled with good.
