God and His family of spiritual ideas dwell in total accord. There is no room in infinite Love for partiality or hatred. God's beloved likeness, man, expresses one infinite, invariable love.

Human affection, however, may seem far from impartial. Clinging attachment to those we care for tends to go with cool detachment toward those we don't. It's hard to see, sometimes, that moderation is needed. Yet in her book Miscellaneous Writings Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, strongly repudiates the mortal sense of love/hate. She writes, "Evil was, and is, the illusion of breaking the First Commandment, 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me:' it is either idolizing something and somebody, or hating them: it is the spirit of idolatry, envy, jealousy, covetousness, superstition, lust, hypocrisy, witchcraft." ^{Mis., p. 123.}

This emphatic denouncement of personal sense shouldn't surprise us. After all, when Christ Jesus was asked to name the great commandment in the law, he answered the question and went even further: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." ^{Matt. 22:37–39.}

Loving another spiritually, in harmony with the Master's counsel, coincides with loving God. Ideal manhood expresses perfect love. But for our benefit in demonstrating this, Miscellaneous Writings explains, "We should measure our love for God by our love for man...." ^{Mis., p. 12.}

God's commandments, in proportion that they are obeyed, help us prove that loving others goes hand in hand with loving God. Take a parent, for instance, whose beloved child refuses to obey moral and spiritual precepts. A sullen attitude on the part of either parent or child may imply a threat that if the other insists on a certain posture, the relationship may be seriously damaged. Should one's affections blow hot or cold according to changeable mortal feelings? Either party to a seeming stalemate can, through prayer, demonstrate the Christ Science, and wake up spiritually to the real man's inseparability from unvarying, holy love.

Anyone can prove that the law of Love reconciles human relationships. But no solution for strained affections can be gained by forcing or skirting the issue of two wills pitted against each other. If we would heal differences, we must strengthen our understanding and conviction that there is but one will—God's—governing all without exception and without resistance.

Underlying the two great commandments are powerful laws that exclude no one. Is there one God? Is He Love? Are His children all included in Love? Then, all are loving and beloved, obedient to Love's unchanging, unchangeable laws. The real, ideal man cannot rebel or react to rebellion.

Is man really a mortal who can resist divine behests? In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy explains: "Human codes, scholastic theology, material medicine and hygiene, fetter faith and spiritual understanding. Divine Science rends asunder these fetters, and man's birthright of sole allegiance to his Maker asserts itself." ^{Science and Health, p. 226.}

If we pray, acknowledging the authority and extent of God's commands, we can effectually deny any apparent reversal of the spiritual integrity and glad obedience of every child of God, including the ones we call our own. When prayer plants us wholeheartedly in true loyalty to the commands, we see—and prove—that God is all-inclusive in His domain, all that really is.

Obedience and affection are never at odds. Rightly directed, affection does not subvert but subserves our worship of God. True affection exalts spiritual, not corporeal, sense. So it's never a question of choosing between loving God and loving His likeness; truly to love the heavenly Parent is truly to love His heavenly children.

Neither hatred nor a partial sense of love exists in Love's equality. But human relationships may seem at times to defy us to prove that Love is actually everywhere, always. Animal magnetism, the delusion of intelligence, life, and love apart from God, may claim that enslaving attractions and equally enslaving repulsions rule us. Animal magnetism may come in the guise of charm or censure, enticing us with the aggressive mental suggestion that someone else can, by his words or deeds, make us like or dislike him. But our affections will not be swayed by personal sense if they are planted in divine Love.

An enemy or a friend can become like a god to us only if we let personal sense wield power over our peace and joy. In Science, we are free agents to overthrow the intrusion of a mortal sense of selfhood on our thinking. True individuality naturally reflects divine Love just as sunlight naturally reflects the sun. And we can prove this.

In reality Love never ceases to rule. What faulty human reasoning may have led us into, divine logic can lift us out of. We can retrace the mental footsteps that have led to misunderstanding. Cooperation with God's demands grows into that unselfed, Christly worship through which divine Love pours instantaneous healing power. With the facts of Love, we can challenge the premise of mortal personality. Adjusting ourselves to God's laws, we will find reconciliation with our infinite, invariable capacity to love and be loved.

CAROLYN B. SWAN

I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: ... A froward heart shall depart from me: I will not know a wicked person.... Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me.

Psalms 101:2– 4, 6