Article January 14, 1939 Issue

"As I have loved you"

LOUISE RAVENS

Christ Jesus ' "new commandment . . . That ye love one another," is probably one of the first admonitions brought to the attention of the student of Christian Science. Indeed, he can hardly hope to make much progress in the apprehension of Truth unless he perceives in a measure the significance of this command; for as the Apostle John declared, "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." And a knowledge of God is the foundation of Christian Science. It may even be said that an exact understanding of the nature of infinite Being is the all of divine Science, since "there is none else beside him."

But how shall we proceed in the attempt to love those apparently imperfect mortals with whom we are associated day by day? How shall we overlook their faults, how condone their shortcomings, which are so like our own? This is, to be sure, a toilsome task. Fortunately, it is not the path our love must take, if it is to compare with the pure affection of him who was master of this divine art.

In his last hours of counsel and loving exhortation to his disciples, having first exemplified the beauty of humility in washing his disciples' feet, Jesus gave them "a new commandment . . . as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." He also said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." We know, of course, that in this statement he referred to the relinquishing of a material sense of existence. Throughout the years of his ministry, in preaching and in practice, he was lifting thought above the mortal sense of life for himself and for others, and now in his final entreaty to his students he bade them love as he had loved.

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