Editorial December 24, 1949 Issue

GIVING IS THE MEASURE OF LOVE

George Channing

Giving is inseparable from loving. Withholding of what is needed is no part of true affection. Giving is a quality of infinite Love, God. In fact, God's relationship to man may be expressed in terms of divine Love's uninterrupted giving, which man reflects and thereby is conscious of receiving. This giving is spiritual and therefore practical. It is presently manifest in the awareness of all needs supplied, foremost among which is the need for love. God's love for man is the life of man, and God gives His Christ, the spiritual idea of Himself, whereby the life of man is provably immune from mortality. The Scripture declares (Rom. 6:23), "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Emphasis upon the reality of the spiritual sense of giving is found in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, which is the Comforter Christ Jesus promised to men. In her book "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," page 5, she explains, "Wholly apart from this mortal dream, this illusion and delusion of sense, Christian Science comes to reveal man as God's image, His idea, coexistent with Him—God giving all and man having all that God gives."

The last ten words, epitomizing the meaning of those which precede them in the above quotation, encompass the whole of reality. God, perfect Love, everlastingly and inexhaustibly gives all that He has and is; man, the object of perfect Love, forever has all that Love gives. Since man reflects God, he has by reflection the ability to give. Hence this reflected ability is describable in terms of giving and receiving. Giving is primary because it inheres only in the one divine origin, God, and receiving is the effect of giving.

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