Article January 19, 1924 Issue

The First Commandment

LILIAN ALICE GREENING

CHRIST JESUS, the greatest ethical teacher of all time, in answer to the question, "Which is the great commandment in the law?" said: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment." In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 340) Mrs. Eddy has said: "The First Commandment is my favorite text. It demonstrates Christian Science. It inculcates the triunity of God, Spirit, Mind; it signifies that man shall have no other spirit or mind but God, eternal good, and that all men shall have one Mind. The divine Principle of the First Commandment bases the Science of being, by which man demonstrates health, holiness, and life eternal."

Only careful, honest, and grateful study can reveal to us something of the scope, something of the sustaining, controlling, and unerring guiding power of this wonderful commandment; and it may be some time before even the first faint dawnings of what it will ultimately mean to him come to the student who is beginning the study of the truth of God as revealed in Christian Science. As quoted above, Mrs. Eddy has said that this is her favorite commandment: and who can wonder; for it is the very foundation of Christian Science. It is like unto the great, strong roots of the mighty forest tree, from which trunk, branches, leaves, blossoms, all spring and flourish.

Mrs. Eddy's words of explanation are a great help. She points out that God is good. Just pause a moment and consider what a light this sheds on the work of God. Nothing is too small, nothing too great for His kind care. One can trace the working of divine Principle, God, from the first impulse of the infant offering its cake to mother or nurse, to the supreme sacrifice of him who, in belief, yields his earthly all for cause or friend. When one vows to love good first, one surrenders self-interest; and as God sends His rain alike on the evil and on the good, we also, working not for human gratitude, have, in consequence, no grievance or cause of complaint or reason to feel unhappy, if we do not receive any expression of gratitude for service rendered. Our purpose is to keep our solemn vow to God, good; for "him only" will we serve.

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