Article November 29, 1924 Issue

The Healing Power of Love

WARWICK A. TYLER

Of all that Mrs. Eddy has written, probably no sentence is quoted more frequently than the one which appears in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," on page 494, "Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need." We are taught in Christian Science that God is expressed through man, and that unless the attributes of Deity are apparent we have no evidence of the existence of their divine Principle. Can we, then, expect divine Love to solve our problems and meet our needs if we are neglecting to express the divine qualities?

One familiar with the letter of Christian Science once went to a practitioner for help. After reciting a long tale of woe, with much grumbling about the hardness of her lot and the injustice of it, she quoted the above-mentioned passage, and said, "I should like to know what divine Love has ever done for me; it doesn't meet my needs." Without a moment's hesitation, the practitioner replied, "I should like to know how much divine love you have in your heart; how much sympathy, tenderness, and forgiveness you have there for others." Continuing, the practitioner pointed out that if we want Love to solve our problems, we must fill our hearts with love for our fellows, and learn, through a growing understanding of God, as infinite Love universally expressed, to unsee faults and to realize that the children of God at all times manifest towards each other only kindness and tenderness, justice and mercy; that we are dependent upon God for our very existence; and that as we lift our thought to the contemplation of His unfailing love for us, earnestly and patiently endeavoring to reflect that love and to share it with our fellows, our burdens are lightened and our problems are solved. Needless to say, the one asking for help went away enlightened and comforted.

A heart absorbed in materiality cannot be responsive to divine Love. Spirituality partakes of the very nature and essence of Love. In order to experience the healing influence of this Love, our thoughts must grow spiritual. It is not reasonable, then, to expect spiritual blessings while thought is centered on what is selfish, sensuous, and material. Belief in the existence and reality of material selfhood, with its pains and pleasures, loves and hates, hopes and fears, has brought to mortals every ill to which flesh is heir. The human need is to be freed from this belief and its effects,—sorrow and lack, want and woe, sin, sickness, and death. And this need is met, these effects or errors are overcome, as mortals turn away from matter and evil, and seek to know and to express that tender spiritual love which marks the alighting of the sparrow, feeds the raven, and clothes the lily.

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