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.

It may seem an effort to start along the pathway, and still greater effort may be required to continue applying the growing understanding of the divine Principle, Love, because the old sense of love, which was often limited to personal "likes," and which justified itself in having human "dislikes," has to be seen for what it is, a counterfeit of the real.

It is true that we cannot like characteristics which are utterly unlike God, but the understanding of God as divine Love, and of man as His image and likeness, loving and spiritual, helps us to detect these impostors claiming to attach themselves to manhood, whether to ourselves or to others. When detected, we can separate them from man, know their unreality, and realize that neither we nor our neighbor can desire to manifest traits so unlike God, good. We can mentally lift the unlovely mask that seems to disguise another, and, regarding him in our growing understanding of all-encompassing divine Love, we can realize that he is free.

A student of Christian Science had recently moved to a new house, and had to plan and lay out a new garden. One morning a hawker arrived with a load of evergreen shrubs for sale. The student, not having completed her plans for the garden, was willing to buy one or two shrubs, but felt uncertain about getting more. The hawker, however, began bargaining, reducing the price considerably for a dozen, two dozen, and so on. Quietly the woman told him that this was not her way of trading, that she would like the two shrubs, but no more just then. The man became rather troublesome, but she stood firm, and finally no business was done, and the man departed.

Immediately it was recognized that here was an opportunity to love as Jesus loved, and a few quiet moments followed in earnest contemplation of the spiritual interpretation of the Lord's Prayer, as given on pages 16 and 17 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. Vividly the "our" and "us" in the prayer stood out, and the student prayed humbly, "Enable us to know,—as in heaven, so on earth, —God is omnipotent, supreme." Soon a great sense of love flooded the student's thought and she was able to go on happily with her work. Mrs. Eddy writes (ibid., p. 588). "There is but one I, or Us, but one divine Principle, or Mind, governing all existence." And the Apostle John writes, "We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us."

The presence and unity of the "one I, or Us," "which knoweth God," was demonstrated, and the power of prayer was proved, for in about twenty minutes the man returned to say how sorry he was for his behavior. He told the woman that if all with whom he came in contact would stand firmly for the right as she had done, his lot would be easier, for he started off each day with a desire to do what was right, but before very long his customers were bargaining with him, and he did not know how to prevent them. He hoped that next time he called she might do business with him. Needless to say, the two shrubs were bought, and the man and the woman parted with something of the understanding of true brotherhood in their hearts. One incident like the foregoing proves, beyond doubt, what consecrated thought and prayer can do to bring out that "unity of the Spirit" of which Paul speaks.

The temptations to let one's opportunities slip by are so numerous, and so active are the arguments for delay, that it may take much patience and loving endeavor, in order constantly to be awake and alert. Here we may turn for comfort and encouragement to the compassionate words of James, who writes in his epistle: "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing."

Though we may not always see the result of our work, we should always be sure that it has been done in God's name, and that therefore it has blessed all mankind. And in this assurance we can rejoice.