Article November 7, 1925 Issue

On Loving Our Neighbor

PEARL L. QUICK

"To love one's neighbor as one's self, is a divine idea," says our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, on page 88 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." To grasp this divine idea we must silence the material senses; we must do as Jesus told us to do, "judge righteous judgment," according to the pattern shown in the mount.

To love one's neighbor is to see man as God's image and likeness, to know him as the reflection of all the qualities of God, good, and to hold continually the perfect model brought to consciousness in this metaphysical work; to know that all the old human beliefs of hatred, malice, sin, and disease, which material sense declares to be part of man, are but counterfeits of true concepts, and no part of God's man. To love one's neighbor is to cover the "multitude of sins" with the mantle of charity, forgiveness, and tenderness, to be humble enough to seek one's own in another's good, and yet to be courageous enough to refuse to accept any false concept as a part of man, and thus to tear the mask from the face of error, causing it to be recognized as such and destroyed.

Practically considered, to love one's neighbor as one's self often means to refuse to argue a point even though one feels sure he is right. It often means to keep silent when tempted to answer error's accusations; to put up the sword even though one feels sure it has been drawn in a righteous cause. And quite often it means great patience, patience which is willing to "wait on the Lord."

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