Article February 9, 1935 Issue

Love Individually Reflected

GLENN E. DOUGLAS

St. John states in his first epistle: "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. ... Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us." Christian Science, based on the fact that God is Love, teaches that divine Love is Mind, Life, Principle, and is reflected individually by each one of God's spiritual ideas.

We can, perhaps, better understand the nature of divine Love by considering what is termed mother-love, which is often regarded as the highest type of human love. A mother of several children does not need to divide her love, giving a certain amount to each child. On the contrary, she can give her love to each child without depriving any one of the children of any portion of it. Using another illustration, we see that the mathematical truth that two times five is ten belongs to everyone and can be utilized by anyone without depriving others of it. Inasmuch as the spiritual real man is a complete expression of his Father-Mother God, should we not, then, in our endeavor to demonstrate man's divine sonship, individually claim and strive to reflect our entire heritage of divine Love instead of a limited portion of it?

Jesus urged us to do so when he said, "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you." In this commandment he cites the love he manifested as an example for our guidance. What was this example? Was there any limit to his love? Was he afraid of exhausting his supply when he gave of it without reservation? No! He claimed and demonstrated his divine sonship and urged us to do likewise. As expressed by him, love was not a cold, intellectual abstraction to be talked but not lived or felt; nor was it personal, dependent upon human characteristics and inclinations. It was an inexhaustible, vital, divine, irresistible, regenerating force. He actively loved; and those with whom he came in contact in his ministry felt his love. He loved; and not only did his love rest upon John, the beloved disciple, but also upon Judas, who betrayed him, and upon the woman taken in adultery whom the hypocrites wished to stone. He loved with such tender compassion that he could reach out his hand to the leper, shunned by mortals, and touch him, and through spiritual understanding cleanse the sufferer's consciousness from the unclean belief of leprosy.

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Divine Sonship
February 9, 1935
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