THE tender love and blessedness which Christian Science ushers into the faithful heart proves its fundamental and foundational strength. Our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, in the first line of her poem "Mother's Evening Prayer" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 389; Poems, pp. 4, 5), has thus pointed to spiritual strength and its eternal nearness: "O gentle presence, peace and joy and power." Here she sets forth the unity of true compassion and divine potency, the Christly qualities which Christ Jesus reflected in quiet spiritual strength, and in calm dominion over all phases of materiality.
It was largely through his keen perception of the might of true humility that our Master accomplished his mission. The four Gospels are filled with examples of this. The compassion with which he so tenderly urged the widow of Nain to cease from weeping was the outcome of the understanding of God's nearness and power through which in that same instant he raised her son to life. The power of Love which enabled Jesus to rend the tomb on the resurrection morning was expressed also in the solicitude with which, when on the cross, he gave his mother into the care of his beloved disciple John. His loving consideration of the penitent thief and his prayer for the forgiveness of his persecutors also proved his ability to reflect the power and the love of God.
"Love is the liberator," says Mrs. Eddy (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 225). Indeed, the almighty power of omnipresent Love and Truth is expressed in love; and without the sweet touch of genuine tenderness and gentleness; without forgiveness, solicitude, and compassion, there could be no resurrection from the belief of mortality. Peace and joy forever pervade the Christlike thought, and these attributes of Love are associated with gentleness and power, as Mrs. Eddy indicates in her poem previously mentioned.
