One's attitude toward those who are to receive the ministrations of the healing practice of Christian Science or of the church largely determines the success of both practice and church. If the would be practitioner thinks of prospective patients as mortals with lesser understanding coming to be benefited by someone with a greater understanding, he or she can expect a limited practice with uncertain results. And if the members of a Church of Christ, Scientist, see their church's role in the community as that of a high place to which those in need are invited to come when they are ready to receive the higher ministrations, that church will attract few, if any, who have not already committed themselves to Christian Science.
If, on the other hand, the practitioner sees in man, wherever man appears to him, the wonderful idea that is the image and likeness of the divine Principle, Love—of God—he will find his days filled with opportunities to behold in individuals the wholeness, purity, beauty, grandeur, of the Christ-idea. And he will heal. Similarly, if the members of a Church of Christ, Scientist, see in their community the many actual expressions of God's qualities and cherish them, encourage them, love them, recognize them as God's own, and look up to them, that church will find coming through its doors those who are beginning to recognize in themselves the cherished, loved qualities and want to know something of the Science that reveals their source.
The Bible gives the rule in simple but demanding terms. It tells us, "For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" John 4:20; Christ Jesus' whole life was a demonstration of love—and not for himself as one enjoying his superiority over others. He said, "I am among you as he that serveth."Luke 22:27;
