Article April 1, 1950 Issue

HAVE WE LEARNED TO LOVE PRACTICALLY?

EDITH BAILEY

One of our Master's practical discourses on love is recorded in the fifteenth chapter of John's Gospel. John was called the beloved disciple. How well he earned that title! He was beloved by the Master and by his associates and friends because, having learned the great and valuable lesson of love which Jesus taught, he practiced it. All who truly understand love spontaneously share it by living it. That one is endowed with the capacity to express love is proof that the Principle of man's being is Love.

It was love that kept John faithful to his church, for he had proved that Love meets every human need. Tradition has it that he was found daily in attendance at the tabernacle. It was his custom to address the congregations, giving words of wisdom, counsel, and encouragement. As he sat there with love permeating his thought, it is related, he said over and over again. "Love one another." When asked why he continued to repeat, "Love one another," he answered, "Because it is the command of the Lord; and enough is done if this is done" (Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopaedia, Vol. II, p. 971).

It is evident to every student of Christian Science that the great need in the world today is love, which is always warm, tender, kind. One could not prove the rules of Christian Science if love to him were merely a cold abstraction. Love must be seen as a living presence, an omniscient, spiritual force. How grateful we should be for the beautiful description of love by Mary Baker Eddy in her "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 312): "Oh, may the love that is talked, be felt! and so lived, that when weighed in the scale of God we be not found wanting. Love is consistent, uniform, sympathetic, self-sacrificing, unutterably kind; even that which lays all upon the altar, and, speechless and alone, bears all burdens, suffers all inflictions, endures all piercing for the sake of others, and for the kingdom of heaven's sake."

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