THE STABILITY OF LOVE

"The fashion of this world passeth away." So wrote Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians. And how many today have a sense of the instability of material things, whether of individual possessions or in relation to world conditions! There is perhaps an almost reluctant acknowledgment that security, happiness, and substance are not to be found through dependence upon what are daily seen to be subject to change, destruction, confiscation. Long ago Paul learned, through revelation and experience, wherein he might find stability, and whereon he might build a safe and sure foundation. In the beautiful thirteenth chapter of the same epistle he Wrote, "Charity never faileth"; for he had learned the great truth that Love is God.

Centuries later the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, in her poem "Love," declared (Poems, p. 7),

She too had proved the truth of her statement; and so she taught that Love does not change and cannot fail, because the infinite is unchangeable; because God—Love, Truth, Life—is All. In this spiritual state, insecurity, change, chance, fluctuation have no place. Why? Because God is Love, and infinite, omnipresent, and omnipotent.

We read in Genesis that God made man "in his own image;" that is, as the image or reflection of Love. Man, then, must be constantly expressing Love, living in oneness with his creator and divinely controlled and maintained. He necessarily manifests stability in supply, happiness, and health because of his unity with God. In accepting this spiritual fact, we see that the so-called mortal man, the counterfeit of God's creation, subject to sin, sorrow, disease, death, is not the spiritual man of God's creation, whose being is perfect. These false beliefs are unknown to the child of God.

How willingly would each one of us experience the blessings of peace and harmony seemingly so difficult or impossible of attainment! Yet those who seek the assurance of such stability may find it today in the study of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," wherein Mary Baker Eddy has given mankind a "key" to the precious promises contained in the Bible. Through the understanding of Christian Science all are enabled to appropriate practically and to experience those promises of safety, joy, and comfort.

But one might ask: "How can the reading of this book bring harmony into my life? How can it teach me to prove the availability of divine blessing, to prove that I live in oneness with God, Love? How can I know that Love is Life, and governs my life and supplies all my needs?" Humanity, groping in ignorance of the loving Father, seeks Him not in vain. The answer to these queries may be found in the Christian Science textbook. In the chapter "Fruitage" may be read authenticated testimonies of the healing of disease, injuries, sorrow, limitation, and other problems. These healings came through an earnest turning to God, a realization of man's relationship to Him and of his perfect spiritual being, which was found by each one in the study of this divinely inspired textbook.

Our Leader, with tender understanding, gives us these words of encouragement (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 127): "When a hungry heart petitions the divine Father-Mother God for bread, it is not given a stone, —but more grace, obedience, and love. If this heart, humble and trustful, faithfully asks divine Love to feed it with the bread of heaven, health, holiness, it will be conformed to a fitness to receive the answer to its desire; then will flow into it the 'river of His pleasure,' the tributary of divine Love, and great growth in Christian Science will follow,—even that joy which finds one's own in another's good."

The desire to learn of God is true prayer; and such prayer is never unanswered. We can begin now, here, just where we are, as simply and naturally as a child turning to his beloved and loving parent for comfort, safety, and guidance. And this fervent desire must be shown in humility, obedience, and self-abnegation, the truest evidence of our love for Him. We prove best our love for God in the kindly affection and service we give to our fellow men. Christ Jesus, the Way-shower, said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." In other words, if we lack kindness and compassion toward those with whom we come in contact daily, we are not living the truth we know, not demonstrating our oneness with the Father as our Master taught us to do. It is by such effort we prove the present stability, the unchangeable equality, the unselfed expression of the love which it is our part to live and to manifest. Thus only shall we become more consistently conscious of, and rejoice in, our oneness with the Father and the blessings which attend such striving.

To think loving, selfless thoughts for others is to entertain angels. It is to carry out into the world of business, to bring into college or home, wherever we may be, the expression of divine Love. To be ever conscious of God as Love is to dwell in "the secret place of the most High," safe in the strength of divine protection, rich in the magnitude of divine goodness. And it brings spiritual assurance which enables us to heal whatever discordant evidence may be trying to assail and trouble us, whether of sickness, or sorrow, or pain, or even "the last enemy," death; for Love is Life.

All that our Leader has taught, proved, and explained in her life and her writings may be proved by each one, according to the measure of his understanding, consecration, and perseverance. But the first step is to acknowledge God as All, as Love, the only power, presence, intelligence; and Christ, as manifested by Jesus, through whose life and work mankind is enabled to comprehend the Father's infinite love for His children. Aspiring to "the mind of Christ," we shall endeavor to follow in the footsteps of the Way-shower. Gratefully we shall acknowledge and follow, according to our understanding, the wonderful revelation and example of our Leader, appreciating the wisdom of her admonition (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 107): "More love is the great need of mankind. A pure affection, concentric, forgetting self, forgiving wrongs and forestalling them, should swell the lyre of human love."

The world today greatly needs the loving-kindness which gives generously in understanding and honest friendship; the helpful, constructive thought and spiritual vision; the compassion which is ready to share burdens, and the brotherliness which sees all as children of God; the purity which condemns error, but separates it from the individual. Thus only will be healed the sense of enmity and misunderstanding, hatred and injustice, so evident amongst men and nations. Poverty and unemployment will be healed, for where Love is continuously and abundantly active, there can be no place for resentment, fear, lack, or self-pity. Sickness will be healed; for the infinite perfection of divine Love knows—because it has created— only that which is eternally perfect.

So, then, all imperfection, disease, discord will be found to be a pretense, a misconception, untrue, and existing only in false belief. No error has power to harm, to control, or to disrupt; it has no place or authority in the kingdom of God, where the only law is the law of Spirit, the only government the control of divine Love.