Not long ago, after race riots had broken out in a great metropolitan city, a group of public-spirited citizens banded together and, in the interests of greater racial and religious harmony, planned a "Tolerance Week." The writer could not help but wish, however, that it had been called "Love Your Neighbor Week." What a glorious opportunity there is for students of Christian Science to bring to their own communities that spiritual understanding which differentiates between tolerance and love!
The writer had always accepted the thought of tolerance toward one's fellow man as something rather noble until it was pointed out to him that tolerance, in so far as establishing religious and racial harmony is concerned, leaves much to be desired. In the course of his work he had occasion to donate a poster to a religious organization. The recipient's letter of acknowledgment expressed appreciation for the "spirit of tolerance" which had prompted the donation. In a subsequent conversation between the writer and a clergyman this letter was read by the latter, who, after commenting that it was very nice, added: "But there is one word in it that makes me boil over—that's the word tolerance. My dear man, you don't want just to tolerate your brother, you want to love him!"
The clergyman's statement was carefully pondered. A fruitful search of the dictionary disclosed that one definition of the word "tolerate" is "to put up with." In Christian Science we learn that the real man, God's idea or reflection, is the image and likeness of God, divine Love, possessing all of His attributes. Therefore the realization came that no student of Christian Science could be worthy of the name "Christian Scientist" while merely putting up with his fellow man. Further analyzing this thought, he saw that if we were merely tolerating or putting up with our neighbor, we certainly were not seeing him truly—as spiritual idea, as the reflection of Love, the image and likeness of the one Father-Mother God—but were measuring him by the material sense testimony of mortal mind, which, as Jesus said, is "a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44).
