The Key to Heaven

Written by Anne Dodge, January 23, 1902

"Beloved , let us love one another." How simple, how sublime, how compact, and how complete a sentence! Yet it is the key to happiness, to harmony, to health, to holiness, yea, to the "mystery of Godliness" and the kingdom of heaven!

"Beloved, let us love one another!" Let us study these few words, ponder them, think on them, live them, and see what the result will be! We cannot love God unless we love one another, so these three words "love one another" fulfil the law and the gospel, cover man's duty to God and man's duty to man, and unlock the gates of heaven.

First let us ask ourselves, Are we doing this? And how? Are we putting out of our lives all rivalry, all envy, jealousy, evil speaking, and evil thinking? Are we seeking our brother's good, or are we elbowing him aside, pushing in this self that is each and every man's enemy, and striving to be thought greater than our brother?

To love one another means to humble this self and to serve others, to become the servant of all, even as our beloved Leader has done. Who is ready to follow her example, with no other incentive than pure love for humanity? No one can comprehend the word Christianity who is not the possessor of the broadest, widest, most comprehensive charity; and a love of humanity which sheds its heavenly dews on the unthankful and evil as well as the righteous and grateful, and sends us forth to "seek and to save that which was lost." This is what it is to "love one another, "not love in word, neither in tongue," but, like our beloved Leader, "in deed and in Truth."