Article April 6, 1957 Issue

"IN LOVE FOR MAN"

LUCY G. BUSSEY

A True sense of Love is a need of every individual. Mary Baker Eddy tells us in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 234), "In love for man, we gain a true sense of Love as God; and in no other way can we reach this spiritual sense, and rise—and still rise—to things most essential and divine." The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science learned through experience and demonstration that love for man comes from God, divine Love, and that its practice leads back to its source.

In finding the source of love for man, Mrs. Eddy challenges the belief that such love is merely an individual personal attachment. She says with unsparing bluntness on the same page, "And Love is not learned of the material senses, nor gained by a culpable attempt to seem what we have not lifted ourselves to be, namely, a Christian." Then we need to turn away from material sense testimony and seek to learn through spiritual sense more of the infinitude of Love. It is by means of the spiritual sense of Love that we "rise—and still rise—"until we see that Love cannot be limited, weighed, measured, or fitted into any material classification or form. We begin to see happiness and the myriad expressions of Love as Love's unfoldment of its own joyous, tender ever-presence.

Jesus emphasized the importance of love for man when in his reply to the question, "Which is the first commandment of all?" (Mark 12: 28) he said: "The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

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