Article December 6, 1952 Issue

LIVE AND LET LIVE

WALTER BRENZIKOFER

In her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 Mary Baker Eddy says (p. 2), "To live and let live, without clamor for distinction or recognition; to wait on divine Love; to write truth first on the tablet of one's own heart,—this is the sanity and perfection of living, and my human ideal." We attain the perfection of living and our Leader's ideal by following the example of the Master, Christ Jesus, as she did.

To a rich young man who inquired how to gain eternal life, Jesus replied (Matt. 19:21), "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou bast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me." And we read that upon hearing these words, the young man "went away sorrowful." He had given himself to only a perfunctory observance of the Commandments. He was unwilling to learn truly to live by relinquishing his trust in matter as substance, and thus to come into an understanding of Life that would enable him to attain the perfection of living and contribute his share to the enrichment of the lives of his fellow men.

Christian Science makes it possible for us today to follow the Master's counsel by giving us a demonstrable understanding of his teachings. Science declares that Life is God, who is also divine Principle, Love, and that man is the reflection, or image, of Love. The divine Father is unceasingly imparting to man, His beloved son, the strength and intelligence, the joy and dominion, necessary to a rich and successful life. Man thus lives continually at the standpoint of abundance, opportunity, and success. He is incapable of knowing or experiencing lack, limitation, failure, or loss. One with the inexhaustible source of all good, as God's individualized idea he expresses the ability, progress, and fruitful activity of which the divine Mind has made him capable. Spiritual man is the true self of each one of us.

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