To love our neighbor as ourselves is not transcendental idealism. It is a divine commandment, voiced through Moses (Lev. 19:18) and reiterated by Jesus (Matt. 22:39). The measure of our obedience to this commandment is the measure of our understanding of the allness of God, good, and of man as His spiritual, perfect reflection.

Is there really any erring mortal whom we must love? In Deuteronomy (4:35) we read, "The Lord he is God; there is none else beside him." Then, if "there is none else beside him," man is not an erring mortal personality with a mind separate from God; he must be the reflection or expression of the one I AM. As we thus rightly identify ourselves and others, we begin to know man as God knows him— spiritual, sinless, without spot or blemish, and hence forever lovable and lovely.

Mary Baker Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 302), "The Science of being reveals man as perfect, even as the Father is perfect, because the Soul, or Mind, of the spiritual man is God, the divine Principle of all being, and because this real man is governed by Soul instead of sense, by the law of Spirit, not by the so-called laws of matter."

The belief that there is a finite mind or soul is part of the dream of life apart from God, which has no origin in fact, no actuality. Hateful or even idle contemplation of mortal mind's idiosyncrasies, of its fears and hates, and of the distortions of personal sense which would claim to produce disobedience to the law of Love, occurs only in the mist of misconception in which mortal mind seems to behold the images of its own dream. Christian Science wakens mankind from the dream of human personalities, of false, material selfhood, to the reality of man's perfect spiritual selfhood, and so it enables us to love our neighbor as ourselves.

In Romans (2:1) we read, "Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things." The one who judges another is believing in the reality of the evil he condemns and identifies with individuals. Jesus' condemnation of sin was followed by the healing of the sinner, exemplifying the true forgiveness which Mrs. Eddy sets forth in the third tenet of Christian Science (Science and Health, p. 497), "We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal." So the love that "thinketh no evil" (I Cor. 13:5) sees the perfection of each one in the universe of God-created and God-constituted ideas and the consequent nothingness of the misconceptions of a myth mind, which has no real existence.

The following incident is a practical demonstration of how Christian Science heals when we obey the commandment to love one another by beholding the perfect man under all circumstances. Many years ago an active worker in a Christian Science branch church had occasion to confer with a fellow member upon some church business. When calling at the home of his friend and coworker, he was impelled to go around to a side entrance instead of presenting himself at the front door as was his custom. Here he found this supposedly loyal Scientist smoking. It was not the act so much as the deception and hypocrisy it manifested that was reprehensible. No word was spoken by either individual in reference to the matter, but the man never smoked again. Later, he asked the friend who had surprised him what he had thought on that occasion. The reply was in our beloved Leader's words (Science and Health, pp. 476, 477): "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy."

The perception of true individuality as the reflection of perfect Mind, God, opens the way to a spontaneous outpouring of love. One cannot fail to love man, whose nature expresses the goodness of God, the intelligence of Mind, the integrity of Truth, the beauty of Soul, and the holiness of Love; man, whose capacity to express God is limitless, who is so all-satisfying to his creator.

Acknowledging man's real nature as God's image and likeness, one no longer struggles to love something unlovely, to be tolerant of wrong, nor does he suffer from his failure to do so, for all obstacles to love are wiped out in the understanding of error's unreality and of man's perfection. The recognition of man's perfect being necessitates our own expression of Godlike qualities, such as gentleness, tenderness, warm compassion, the constancy of divine Love, and the integrity of Principle. True seeing and being are one.

What a vital admonition we have in Philippians (4:8), "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." In the abiding consciousness of Love, disobedience or sin can have no place; there can he no hate or fear, no sense of limitation or disaster. Within the haven of Love is surcease from all the woes of human existence, since the "I" that knows and the "I" that is known are included in the one perfect Mind, God, "of whom are all things, and we in him" (I Cor. 8:6).

Christian Science has come to reveal man's original identity, his primal and only selfhood, beloved of God through all eternity. Reflecting perfect Love, man can feel no pain, can experience no disease or death, can exhibit no failure to love, for he is conscious only of the fact of divine perfection.