One of the best-known and most dearly loved statements by Mary Baker Eddy is in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where she writes (p. 494), "Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need." This is no veiled promise with hidden innuendoes. It means just what it says and includes "every human need" of home, food, companionship, strength, and the like. But let us not presume this promise to be one suggesting Love's knowledge or sustenance of matter. God most assuredly provides all good for mankind through His inexhaustible supply of divine ideas, which, Christian Science explains, in turn objectify their blessings in such things as progress, health, abundance, activity, love, accomplishment, and good deeds.
Mrs. Eddy significantly points to Love's way of meeting the human need in these words in the next paragraph: "Jesus demonstrated the inability of corporeality, as well as the infinite ability of Spirit, thus helping erring human sense to flee from its own convictions and seek safety in divine Science." Thus Love meets mortals' needs through the Christly understanding of man's spiritual being and his at-one-mcnt with God, Spirit, which was demonstrated by Jesus and is revealed in Christian Science.
Are food, clothing, shelter, health, employment, the important needs of mankind? No, the real need of men is to love! Paul sets forth the importance of loving each other, obediently following the spiritual theme of Christ Jesus' teaching, in the words (Rom. 13:8), "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another." How to love one another may be a perplexing problem for those who believe man to be a changeable, sinning, suffering, and dying mortal. But through the revelation of man's spiritual being as the reflection of God, Christian Scientists recognize their need to love, and at the same time they learn to let divine Love meet that need. Our Leader states the primary need of each one of us very simply in Science and Health (p. 4): "What we most need is the prayer of fervent desire for growth in grace, expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds."
