Article July 1, 1911 Issue

THE LAW OF LOVING

SAMUEL GREENWOOD.

Law is a necessity, not an alternative. It is Truth's maintenance of the order, harmony, and continuity of being, and its attempted infraction by mortals carries with it the forfeiture of these essentials to liberty and happiness. In his reply to the lawyer Jesus epitomized all law as wholehearted love for God and for one's neighbor, and elsewhere in his teachings showed that this love for others must not be limited to one's friends, but should include one's enemies, even those who attempt to do us harm, as well as those who may be distasteful or repellant. Mortals have sought to evade the spirit of this law by giving it a negative interpretation, declaring it to be sufficient if they inflict no outward injury, and believing they have the right to be counted among Christians if they refrain from any overt retaliation, even though they may cherish hatred in their hearts or rejoice in secret over another's failure or misfortune.

But the Master did not so teach. According to his rule, God's law is broken by sinful thought or desire, nor is it necessary to strike one materially to be guilty of his murder. Hatred, envy, all sin, have their root in mortal thought, and it is in this thought that the law of love must be recognized and obeyed. We must worship the Father in secret and fulfil God's law in our hearts if we would be rewarded openly. If we are not thinking love for others, if we are not kind, gentle, patient, forgiving, and considerate in our thought of them, we are not loving them at all. Even indifference transgresses this divine law, for indifference is a form of contempt and nourishes the germs of hatred. All who cross our mental threshold, all who claim our attention, should be kindly and lovingly regarded, and they will be without special effort if we are reflecting love impersonally, as the natural, spontaneous activity of recognizing God as our Life. Consciousness is not a negative condition, but implies ceaseless activity, and unless love is a positive and constant factor therein, hatred in some of its many guises will surely assert its evil influence in shaping our experience.

Christian Scientists should be the most loving and lovable people on earth, because they know that Love is God, the divine and only Principle of man's being, and in their daily study are brought face to face with this truth in its practical application to their relations with each other and with all mankind. In each day's prayer they earnestly declare that "Love is reflected in love" (Science and Health, p. 17), and as church-members they have subscribed to the sacred promise "to do unto others as we would have them do unto us" (Ibid., p. 497). Therefore it is imperative that we lose not sight of the Master's command to love one another, for mankind must see that our religion is more than a name if we would convince them of its vitality and power. We owe it to God, to our cause, and to those needing our example and help, that this brotherly love be "without dissimulation," for the bane of Christendom is the profession of love without its practice. Notwithstanding one's effusive talk about Christian Science, if he does not honestly love his own brethren, those who are working with him in this great movement, he has nothing whereby to reflect love to those outside his church fold. Love must begin at home; and if the fountain there be empty, it is in vain that one's thirsty neighbors come hither to draw.

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