Only a brief perusal of the writings of Mary Baker Eddy usually is requisite to convince the earnest reader that Christian Science is based on divine Principle, which is perfect Love. Perfect Love is not represented by that human sense of love revolving around material belief in persons, places, and things, and involving numerous personal likes and dislikes. Perfect Love is universal divine Principle, untouched by the limitations of so-called material sense.
Even a partial grasp of what Christian Science means by divine Love brings to investigators a quickened sense of their own lack of the love which reflects Love, since Christian Science rebukes every mental trait that is unlike God. If one's reading of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, is not uncovering the great need of casting out all that is unlike God, Love, then one is perhaps looking too much to the letter and not sufficiently to divine Spirit, which inspired Mrs. Eddy to elucidate her discovery.
Perhaps an investigator may formerly have been aware of his need of overcoming certain errors, including lack of love for his neighbor. His failure to live up to his higher desires may have been charged to the supposed influence of some evil power, which he believed was operating against his attempts to be good. The Apostle Paul describes this sense of failure as follows: "For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do." Christian Science shows that this supposed wrong influence is not a power, but is a false belief resulting from material thinking. It is a materially mental state to which the real or spiritual does not appear.
