Article October 9, 1943 Issue

Learning to Love

LILY E. KERSHAW

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says in her book, "No and Yes" (p. 39): "True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and to include all mankind in one affection. Prayer is the utilization of the love wherewith He loves us." The teachings of Christian Science lead its students to gain an evergrowing sense of God as divine Principle, Love, and of what it means to love as Jesus loved—to love one's neighbor as oneself, and to know all as the loved of Love.

This spiritual sense of Love is gained step by step, and even as each step is gained there is revealed to the earnest student the necessity for still higher attainment in this line of spiritual progress. The understanding of universal Love, impartial, infinite, in other words, the understanding of God's love for each of His children, comes gradually to thought, and the student glimpses some of the glorious possibilities which lie ahead as this higher understanding is gained.

Christian Science is demonstrable. But here, as in all other scientific studies, though the perfect goal may become suddenly and clearly visible, the human steps leading to the demonstration of that perfection must be taken; there must spring up in the heart of the student a willingness to learn and a zeal to obey the rules of scientific Christianity. If mistakes and failures seem many, once the desire to attain is awakened, every day provides opportunities for correcting those mistakes and for taking new steps. The more alert a student is to recognize and accept these opportunities, the clearer becomes his understanding of the provability of the rules and the more joyous the pathway leading to perfection.

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