It is for each one of us to decide whether he will accept the world suggestion of strife and division among men or resist and overcome it by individual demonstration. One's decision and victory do not depend on the other fellow, but on oneself.

The belief in matter is the element of disunity or separateness, for mortal mind would argue that men are material beings, including both good and evil. Human beings go through alternating phases of attraction and repulsion in their dealings with one another. Their supposed unit may give way to faithlessness, disloyalty, revenge, hatred, or any belief which is the antipode of the Christ.

The spiritual counterfact of disunity is the oneness of God. God cannot be divided. Neither can God's attributes be divided. The attraction of Godlike qualities is an unvarying law—the law of divine Love. The Christ reveals the true idea of man, best exemplified by Christ Jesus. The Christ-nature is the true nature of all of us. When an individual expresses such God-derived qualities as humility, love, unselfishness, joyousness, and devotion to Principle, he demonstrates the Christ. When human relationships are based on a recognition of the Christ, they are unvarying, loving, loyal, and progressive.

To love is to see man as he is, as God made him; and one who consistently sees the Christ-man where evil mortals seem to be, not only benefits himself, but helps free his brother from the sense of evil. If, on the other hand, one condemns those around him for their apparent lack of good, he has not learned the law of Love, the law of one Mind. He is giving false traits of a material personality identity and is arguing for error, helping perpetuate its evidence.

Steadfastly seeing the Christ, one is not impatient. He claims the existence of, and loves, the true man and is not turned from his course by any unloving evidence of the material senses. Mary Baker Eddy states in her article "Deification of Personality" (Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 308, 309), "I earnestly advise all Christian Scientists to remove from their observation or study the personal sense of any one, and not to dwell in thought upon their own or others' corporeality, either as good or evil."

Love is inclusive; it is exclusive only of evil. A material sense of personality would argue that good and evil belong to the same person. Such a belief leads to idolatry and possessiveness, which are elements of anti-Christ—the consciousness of man as material personality, separate from divine Love.

The parenthood of God sets aside the so-called laws of material heredity, which would argue that man— God's child—is superior or inferior, or has certain traits because a human relative had them. Unloving exclusiveness and flattery of its own members in a human family would destroy the very law of spiritual attraction, which is embraced in the one Mind, the one Parent.

When we think of people, looking on them as personally possessing good, and depending on them to supply us with good, we are usually sooner or later in some way disappointed and disillusioned. When we think of God, we find an invariable friend, and we find Godlike qualities expressed in our experience. Seeking first the kingdom of God and loving God most, we find the loyalty of man appearing. In other words, happy human relationships come when we turn away from the sense of persons to God, claim the Christ, the true selfhood of man, and thus find man, God's image. Only then are we in a clearsighted position to show a genuine compassion for those in bondage to error and to all those who, not knowing the real man, would despitefully use us.

The understanding of man's sole reliance on God makes particularly reasonable and practical the Biblical reminder that Love "seeketh not her own." A belief of corporeal sense is that a mortal is basically selfish. Satisfaction of his own desires is the law of his existence, and to seek not his own is to go against his natural inclinations. If we accept the premise of corporeal man and material, limited substance, the attempt to live up to the rule of seeking not one's own, might verge on the hypocritical.

Christian Science, however, unfolds the fact that we need not— must not—outline in human terms what we desire, and then seek it. God outlines His own creation. We recognize the goodness of God, but do not outline how good will appear in our human experience. Men desire friendship, desire to be loved. But friendship sought in order to obtain love in return is limited by a personal motive. One of the highest forms of happiness one can know is to give happiness where he can, with no motive other than to express God's love toward his brother. Such a motive is not hard to attain if one sees that it fulfills the law of Love and hence is the natural motive of man. It brings the realization of God close to one who practices it, and it brings bountiful and satisfying opportunity to express genuine love in his experience.

The practice of picking out certain persons to be our friends and bestowing our friendliness on them to gain their companionship is mortal mind's operation, which wars against impartial love. Mrs. Eddy states in her article "Love Your Enemies" (Miscellaneous Writings,p. 11), "We must love our enemies in all the manifestations wherein and whereby we love our friends; must even try not to expose their faults, but to do them good whenever opportunity occurs."

Jesus' humble plea on the cross (Luke 23:34), "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do," was a sublime example of the law of loving one's enemies. Spiritual sense uncovers and casts out what appears to human sense as evil. If hate attempts to deal with error, darkness is attempting to deal with darkness. A darkened room is made light by turning on the light. One does not overcome hatred by being resentful, but by recognizing its counterfact and pouring in love.

Having recognized and seen the Christ expressed, we are enabled to unsee un-Christlike suggestions. When we see ourselves surrounded by evidence of unlovingness, we fulfill our duty toward the one who seems to manifest it by denying in our own consciousness that man can be in bondage to error. This is what is required of us, and it often also frees the one who would call himself our enemy.

Matter would claim to be powerful enough today to enforce mass destruction. Which is power—matter or God? All is Spirit. There is no other substance. Evil has only the seeming power that we give it. To the consciousness filled with divine Love, and there is no other Love, a belief of error has no existence. Letting the law of divine Love operate in our own experience, we weigh mightily against the world suggestion of separateness, which has no foundation in fact. Love cannot be destroyed.