There is an infinitely higher way and one more effectual in the adjustment of human difficulties than personally devised corrective or disciplinary measures. It is the way which God, divine Love, provides, the way of the Christ.

There is no latent, evasive element of error that can resist the action of the Christ, the power of God, which is at work deep in human consciousness, disclosing, dislodging, and dissolving that which is erroneous and restoring the balanced action of normalcy to every situation. There is no resistant or elemental force that can defeat divine Love, for Love is supreme; its power cannot be overruled.

The Apostle Paul had a high and holy sense of responsibility toward the scattered Christian churches he shepherded. His was the unfailingly effective way of love, the means and end of Christianity. He knew that without the reduction of love to practice in everyday living, the church would not flourish. Although many of his letters are concerned with affairs of discipline, his endeavor was ever to turn the thought of the people to love as the effectual remedial agent, the way most in keeping with Christ Jesus' teachings and practice.

The opening chapters of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians concern the apostle's forceful and detailed correction of certain errors which threatened to disrupt and destroy the church. But gradually the humanly corrective tenor of his message approaches a higher standpoint wherein he seeks to awaken the members to the unselfed desire for spiritual attainments. He urges (I Cor. 12:31), "Covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way."

In the thirteenth chapter, he gives the magnificent and unequaled dissertation upon charity or love which still remains the gauge of the true Christian, the test of discipleship, the measure of individual worthiness to be called a follower of Christ Jesus.

Paul knew that "the best gifts" of generosity, knowledge, faith, and so on, indispensable though they be in the formation and growth of character, cannot be compared in eternal value with the wonders of Love lived and glorified. He had learned through active proof that without love nothing is accomplished, nothing is won, nothing is worthwhile. In thirteen brief verses he presents the case for love, and his summation is that unselfed love is the greatest state of being.

The "more excellent way" is the way of love, the purely Christly way of living and teaching and healing. Although Paul was aware of the apparent human inability to follow this high and holy way at all times, yet he was impelled to point it out, leaving its fuller demonstration to the advanced understanding of future generations.

Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded the Science of Christianity, recognized that only through divine modes and methods is humanity permanently benefited. Her desire was always to solve problems through Christlike compassion, understanding, humility, wisdom, and forgiveness: the "more excellent way" of love.

In "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," she writes (p. 247), "The little that I have accomplished has all been done through love,—self-forgetful, patient, unfaltering tenderness."

The Leader of the Christian Science movement had a clear recognition that Love is divine Principle, or God, and is never corporeal. It must have been this understanding that enabled her to make decisions which would protect and direct her Church for all time to come, establishing it on Love's everlasting foundations.

The members of this Church are held in the Christly way by Mrs. Eddy's writings and her example. They know that only through individual exemplification of "self-forgetful, patient, unfaltering tenderness" will the true concept of Church develop and expand in consciousness until it embraces all mankind.

The divine way demands dematerialization and spiritualization of thought in those who follow it. The first footstep planted on this heavenward path impels a forsaking of the old ways and means of thought, as well as a deep hunger for the fuller understanding of God and His perfect creation, man and the universe. The harsh, corrective ways of personal sense, with its oftentimes arbitrary standpoint, are dissolved in the radiance of Christly affection, in the transformation of motives and ambitions.

The Way-shower, Christ Jesus, fully understood and acknowledged the Christ as his spiritual selfhood. He knew that only through the Christ can mankind approach and demonstrate God, eternal Life, Truth, and Love—his Father. To his disciples he declared plainly (John 14:6), "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

When discordant situations arise, threatening the harmony of one's home, or business, or church, it is well to withdraw mentally for a moment from the clamor of personal sense and ask oneself: Shall I allow self-will, resentment, or pride to force me into the path of human opinions, or shall I hold steadfastly to the expanding way of love? Shall I correct this situation by the human way of anger or argument, or by the "more excellent way" of love?

There are times, of course, when it is wise and right to voice firmly words which may aid in the clarifying of a question and in the restoring of harmony. But unless the words are inspired by and permeated with such love as motivated the Master, they might better remain unsaid while one confines his efforts to a quiet knowing of the spiritual truths that will help to clear the mental atmosphere and prepare thought for the recognition of the ever-presence of Love, God.

Through the way of love alone do we find and experience the heavenly harmony of health and holiness. This way appears restrictive and unsatisfying only to the willful, the worldly, the unready. To those who walk in it, steadfastly and confidently, it continually expands in loveliness, opening up to human sight boundless vistas of divine possibilities and revealing man's perfection as the image and likeness of God.

In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 266): "Universal Love is the divine way in Christian Science." The signpost, then, by which we may ascertain whether or not we are truly in the "more excellent way" is Love—universal Love, not personal love; changeless Love, not variable love; boundless Love, not limited love.

Christian Science has come to present humanity with the full explanation of Love as God, and through Love's unfoldment of true being, we find the way of Life and hold steadfastly to that way, thus blessing all mankind.