Books by Mary Baker Eddy

LOVE
page 154

LOVE

   What a word! I am in awe before it. Over what
worlds on worlds it hath range and is sovereign! the underived,

MISC 250:
the incomparable, the infinite All of good, the
alone God, is Love.
   By what strange perversity is the best become the most
abused, - either as a quality or as an entity? Mortals
misrepresent and miscall affection; they make it what
it is not, and doubt what it is. The so-called affection
pursuing its victim is a butcher fattening the lamb to
slay it. What the lower propensities express, should be
repressed by the sentiments. No word is more misconstrued;
no sentiment less understood. The divine
significance of Love is distorted into human qualities,
which in their human abandon become jealousy and
hate.
   Love is not something put upon a shelf, to be taken
down on rare occasions with sugar-tongs and laid on a
rose-leaf. I make strong demands on love, call for active
witnesses to prove it, and noble sacrifices and grand
achievements as its results. Unless these appear, I cast
aside the word as a sham and counterfeit, having no ring
of the true metal. Love cannot be a mere abstraction, or
goodness without activity and power. As a human quality,
the glorious significance of affection is more than words:
it is the tender, unselfish deed done in secret; the silent,
ceaseless prayer; the self-forgetful heart that overflows;
the veiled form stealing on an errand of mercy, out of a
side door; the little feet tripping along the sidewalk; the
gentle hand opening the door that turns toward want and
woe, sickness and sorrow, and thus lighting the dark
places of earth.

MISC 251

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