As Christian Scientists, we are valuable to our church to the extent that we humbly and sincerely strive to overcome a false sense of self, purify consciousness, and exercise spiritual love. Every Christian Science church should be as a rainbow to the community, a bow of promise spanning the dark clouds of materialism. The unselfed spiritual love in the thought of each individual church member is the element which makes this promise vital and active for the community, healing the sick, enriching the poor, and raising the dormant desire for good to true spirituality. "The vital part, the heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love. Without this, the letter is but the dead body of Science,—pulseless, cold, inanimate." Thus speaks our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, on page 113 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures."
Upon all who have named the name of Christian Scientist rests the glorious responsibility of loving unselfishly and impersonally. Whom should they love? All mankind! All is an inclusive word. But love to be really love must be expansive, universal, infinite. How imperative it is to realize that we reflect infinite Love only as universal love becomes to us something more than a mere abstraction, a theoretical affection. It is genuinely ours only in so far as it appears as something warm and tender, drawing us ever nearer to those with whom we associate day by day, week by week, and year by year. "For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" How much love have we for those with whom we may differ in opinion, those who are convinced that our way of doing things is wrong; for those we consider mistaken in their way of doing things? These conditions test our ability to love.
Jesus recognized the basis upon which Christianity was to be erected, in the First Commandment, and the second commandment, to love thy neighbor as thyself. According to his statement in Mark 12:31 the second commandment is like unto the First Commandment. To love, in accord with this divine behest, is to recognize, respect, and love the true self, man, the perfect image and likeness of God, the very expression of His being. Spiritual love is thus the opposite of egotistical self-love, and to love one's neighbor in this manner is the greatest gift one can bestow upon him. It is the highest exemplification of the Golden Rule. All must and can cultivate spiritual love. Thus, as the truth is lifted up in our lives we shall draw all men— the sick and poor, the weak and weary—within the doors of our churches, there to learn that their true home is heaven here and now.
