"Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need,"  ^{Science and Health, p. 494;} writes Mrs. Eddy. These words, sometimes appearing on the wall of a Christian Science church, are often a newcomer's introduction to the teachings of Christian Science. He finds them comforting and full of promise, but questions may immediately come to his thought.

One question probably is, "How can this promise be true when history is a record of unmet human needs?" To understand the validity of Mrs. Eddy's statement, we need to note the premise upon which she bases her reasoning and understand how individuals may apply the truth of these words in human affairs.

First, "divine Love" is used in Christian Science as another name for God, the one creator. "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love,"  ^{I John 4:8;} the Bible tells us.

Christian Science also accepts as true the reasoning in the first chapter of Genesis, which tells of God's perfect creation of the universe and of man. To this man, made in His image and likeness, God gives dominion (see Gen. 1: 26). The man of God's creating possesses all good, all authority, and is subject to no lesser power than God. This perfect, God-created manhood is the actual identity of each one of us.

God's continuing provision of every good thing for His offspring, man, is not difficult to understand when we consider that even a human parent, under most circumstances, will not abandon a child. The parent continues to provide everything possible for the growing child, trying to meet its needs at every stage of its development. In like manner, God, the one Parent, provides everlasting good for His offspring, man. This continuing, orderly unfoldment of good is inherent in the spiritual identity of each individual. It is all that is really going on for him.

However, as the second and following chapters of Genesis record, the dust-created mortal, the counterfeit of man, puts in its claim to existence in a dream of separation from man's original birthright of perfection. This dream, which is metaphorically explained in the story of Adam and Eve, involves the individual who accepts it in disobeying God and believing in the reality of matter, toil, disease, and death. The individual victimized by these suppositions believes he has lost man's original sonship and dominion.

The teachings of Jesus, of the great Bible prophets, and, in this age, of Christian Science show us how to regain what we have never really lost—our sonship with God. We learn how to exercise our freedom to choose rightly—choose to understand and accept the present reality of God's creation. In the measure that we perceive the truth of God and of man's eternally unchanging relationship to Him, we also see that divine Love has provided everything good and necessary for each one of us. Understanding this divine fact causes whatever is needful to appear in our present experience.

How could Love's giving appear in presently understandable terms unless it supplied present human needs? We do not outline for infinite Love; we do not pray for specific, sometimes unnecessary, material supplies. Our daily task is to learn more of the nature of God as perfect Love. Then, inevitably, our present human needs are supplied.

Suppose the human need is for better health. Divine Love supplies perfect, unchanging, spiritual wholeness, or health, to every single one of its offspring. As we turn in prayer to understand this fact and accept it as the present reality of our being, we find God's, Love's, provision of health taking the place of what has seemed to be a lack of health. The same reasoning applies to every legitimate human need, whether it is for supply, companionship, home, business activity, or guidance. Understanding and accepting man's oneness with the unfolding goodness of God cause answers to appear, here and now, to what have seemed to be needs.

Thus the teachings of Christian Science are not more abstract than were the teachings of Jesus. Christ Jesus did not, for example, say to the hungry multitude, "I have fed you with spiritual Truth and that is all you need to satisfy your physical hunger before you start on your journey home." No, Jesus proved in a practical way that divine Love meets human needs; he multiplied the loaves and fishes so that the legitimate need for food was met.

If divine Love's goodness is always available to meet the human need in a practical way, why haven't more individuals seen and demonstrated this fact? The answer is, of course, that they have been ignorant of the reality of man's being; they have dreamed, as did Adam in the Old Testament allegory, that they were mortals subject to matter. All along, divine Love's provisions of good have been as near as their own thinking! But they have not known how to avail themselves of God's present goodness.

How comforting it is to realize that mankind is once again blessed with the prayer that makes God's power available in human affairs—prayer now explained in its scientific method! Through the teachings of Christian Science we are now able to prove our understanding of God in the same practical, everyday way as Jesus and other great Bible characters did.

Mrs. Eddy writes, "The mission of Jesus confirmed prophecy, and explained the so-called miracles of olden time as natural demonstrations of the divine power, demonstrations which were not understood."  ^{Science and Health, p. 131.} That the supremely natural way of divine Love meets present human needs can be demonstrated by every sincere seeker of Truth, God.