Maturity in any line of development comes with experience, and in no field of activity is this more true than in that of metaphysical understanding. Paul described the situation to the church in Corinth in this way: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." l Cor.13:11; Paul had been writing about the need of charity, or love, as the word has been translated. He had been directing his friends to find in perfection what they then knew only slightly.
One's understanding of love needs testing before one can be sure that it is approaching or has attained maturity. Love includes more, far more, than an untried feeling of goodwill for all men. However, goodwill of this kind provides a first step in progress toward demonstrating the perfect nature of God's man, Love's image. Christ Jesus spelled out the real test of love as the ability to love enemies as well as friends.
It is true that spiritual man, revealed by Christian Science, exists eternally at a point of maturity in his reflection of the divine character. But this perfection is attained by the human self only by degrees and in the spirit of candid self-knowledge, of genuine humility, and of repentance.
