Recently, while walking in the busy section of a city, a student of Christian Science overheard one person saying to another, "Of course, the boy is bad-tempered and greedy, just like his father; it's a family affair!"

How good it is to know, when an unscientific statement such as this falls on our ears, that we need not, like the priest and Levite, pass hurriedly by on the other side, but can, instead, even in the midst of a crowded city, figuratively hold out a hand to these strangers by realizing that no son of God has for an instant fallen from his original purity and perfection.

In his daily intercourse, the student of Christian Science needs to be very watchful, lest he, too, should be drawn into discussing the failings of his brother, attaching to him the foibles of his human progenitors, or unduly commenting on his personal affairs. A mother once entered the room where her little daughters were busily engaged in discussing other people. Seeing the turn the conversation was taking, she quietly rebuked them with the remark, "Well-bred people are not as a rule interested in gossip!"

How valuable in the light of Christian Science becomes that rebuke! If ordinary good breeding prohibits undue discussion of personalities, how much more should those who through the prayerful study of the works of Mary Baker Eddy are daily waking to the fact that in their real being they are immortals, endowed with all the beauty, grace, goodness, and wisdom of the one universal Father, cease from such utterances! Surely in this age, when, in consequence of the teachings of Christian Science permeating all sections of society, every avenue of human endeavor is being touched with new beauty, freshness, and intelligence, we can find something more interesting to talk about than the passing idiosyncrasies of human beings!

Who has not listened to some piece of gossip—and in this connection we might all cry, Mea culpa!—and afterwards wondered why he had not been more on guard, and obedient to the distinct instructions of our beloved Leader given us in our Church Manual (Art. XXIV, Sect.5), "God requires wisdom, economy, and brotherly love to characterize all the proceedings of the members of The Mother Church. The First Church of Christ, Scientist." A sentence on page 17 of "Unity of Good" may help to enlighten us. There we read, "A lie has only one chance of successful deception,—to be accounted true." If animal magnetism deceives the students of Christian Science into believing in and repeating a lie, that is all that error requires for the temporary, suppositional propagation of that lie. Pondering the above quotation, we might well stand aghast and repentant, remembering how often we have given error its "one chance."

Is it not then high time that students of Christian Science stopped idly repeating error, for such repetition is always mischievous, and actually detrimental to our progress. If we listen to or repeat error, either we have not properly protected our thinking against animal magnetism, or else we do not sufficiently love God, good. For who could truly love God, and at the same time habitually look through the glasses of material sense at the distorted picture of His fair and holy creation, discuss the false images depicted therein, or worse still, hand round those lying impressions for other mortals to think on!

On page 577 of Science and Health we read that as the human sense of Deity is relinquished, "God and man" will be finally understood "as one Father with His universal family, held in the gospel of Love." Through studying Christian Science many of us have changed our concept of God, and now recognize Him as the one perfect creator, incapable of producing discord or distress. But the precious co-ordinated fact, that all God's children are brethren, bound together as members of one universal family, seems less readily admitted. We should understand and stand by this fact, and let it be a determining factor in our lives and actions.

How we should cherish all those with whom we come in contact in our daily round and occupation, if we really understood that, notwithstanding our present limited vision, all, in reality, are God's children, infinitely lovable and beloved! If, as the Bible tells us, man is so dear to God, man must be correspondingly dear to us! To think of anyone as mortal, imperfect, and unworthy of our affection is sheer false theology, and should be discarded as such. If tempted to deny the glory of God's creation, we should instantly know that, as God's children, we have been endowed from the beginning with perfect love and intelligence, and are therefore ever rejoicingly aware of our own and our brother's spiritual perfection and loveliness.

Thinking on these things can we not all from this moment strive to become more merciful, more courteous, and cease from discussing even with our closest friends the unreal failings of others? We know so little of other people's struggles, their fears, their victories. Through much prayer and fasting the brother who appeared proud and aggressive a year ago may long since have gained dominion over these errors. The character that appeared to us cold and unjust may long ere this have melted before the earnest desire to become more humble, more loving, more childlike. To hand round past impressions of others is always wrong, and breaks the Golden Rule, "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets."

We should recollect that in the "Scientific Translation Of Mortal Mind," given on page 115 of the Christian Science textbook, the first four qualities mentioned as transitional, enabling the traveler to pierce the gloom and darkness of mortality, are "humanity, honesty, affection, compassion." It may be that we could give no higher proof of our love for the Cause of Christian Science than to put these tender, God-given qualities more habitually into practice.

Who could doubt the growth in understanding and usefulness of anyone who from this time forward should refuse to talk of, or himself mentally ponder on, the arguments that may be temporarily assailing his brother; who, with the knowledge gained from his study of Christian Science, should declare that man, as the son of the one perfect, universal Father, is upright, loving, just, and pure! "It's a family affair."