MARY BAKER EDDY, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has much to say in her writings of unselfed love. Again and again she speaks of its desirability and beauty, and links richest blessings with its possession. Her estimate of its value is unquestionably far above all that is earthly, and she often reiterates its association with that which is pure and divine. Her frequent employment of this phrase helps to place her writings in a class by themselves, since few if any authors have used it with the deep significance she invariably gives it. Her opening sentence in the first chapter of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" places these words in the holiest of company. There she says, "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love."
Men have talked and written much of unselfishness; they have exalted its virtues and have called upon mankind to embrace its beautiful possibilities; they have been quick to descant upon the rewards it would bring to those practicing it, although such advantages were supposed to accrue largely in a future heaven. Unselfishness has without doubt been preached acceptably, and with great good resulting, for long ages, and will continue to be extolled until embraced by all mankind.
To the world at large unselfishness, however, has been considered from many and varied standpoints. While in general it has implied a sacrificing of much personal pleasure and gratification for the good of others, it has nevertheless sometimes been misconceived, and men have been tempted to try to use unselfishness in a selfish way. Because they have not understood how to purify their own thinking from the selfishness which human belief is so largely made up of, it has not been strange that even their desire to advance the interests of others rather than their own has been more or less a mixed product.
