Editorial June 25, 1979 Issue

The citizen's potential to heal the world

Naomi Price

Neighborliness is an inevitable quality of a true Christian and, therefore, of a truly practicing Christian Scientist. We can see much evidence of it in the world today, but we could do with more—and we easily can have more if all professing Christians will follow the instructions and example of the Founder of their faith, and live up to their true nature as children of God, the expressions of divine Love.

Christ Jesus, the most public-spirited citizen of all time, said that the rule "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" is second only to "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God."^{Matt. 22:39, 37;} And his devoted follower, John, pointed out the inseparability of the two great laws of Christliness when he wrote in an epistle, "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God." And he warned, "He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?"^{I John 4:7, 20;}

Loving one's neighbor in a practical way—that is to say, in deed as well as word—will always demand a degree of self-sacrifice. We will need to sacrifice self-interest, self-indulgence, and self-absorption. But even from the human point of view, such sacrifice is not loss but gain. It opens the door to companionship and satisfaction beyond any we could enjoy in the closed circuit of our own selfish concern. We always find our own reward in seeking to further the interests of others.

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