Article November 6, 1915 Issue

Love and Patience

RUTH INGRAHAM

There are probably few of us who would not own that from the time we left childhood until in the providence of God we came into some understanding of Christian Science, we little knew the real meaning of love, the only love, that which is without passion or prejudice, described in our text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy (p. 13), as "impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals."

Love is wonderfully portrayed in the thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians under the name of "charity;" but for one of us to claim now that we comprehend the fulness of this divine idea, would be for a bird on the wing to attempt to compass the unfathomable reaches of infinite space—his farthest flight could only convince him the more of its infinity. It has been said that while we cannot know all of God, we can at least know something of God's allness. The Lesson-Sermons are a continuous revelation to us of this allness, of the fulness of Love divine. In one for which the writer was especially grateful, the qualities inseparable from love—patience, humility, unselfishness, justice, steadfastness—were dwelt upon, and the emphasis laid on certain of these gave occasion for serious thought as to the significance of the statement: "Love suffereth long, and is kind" (Rev. Ver.).

In looking back over past experiences, perhaps we would again agree that those who have helped us most, who have influenced us most for good, have been those who loved us most. A sense of duty, untempered by love, has the negative value of an otherwise perfectly appointed home in which no fire burns on the hearth and no lamp glows in the window. The warmth and light of love must inspire to make one's thought welcomed and his service acceptable. Those were most our friends who showed forth most the patient selflessness of the one Love; those who pointed the way as best they could, urging the right from motives devoid of self-interest, but with the warm wish to see us happy; those who were too large-minded to watch for failure when we essayed another course from the one they counseled; who waited, always loving, to rejoice in our success or to receive and comfort us in our want of success, helping us to see the mistake, but never by so much as a look expressing the self-satisfied self-righteousness of mortal sense in "I told you so!"

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