Article February 2, 1918 Issue

Our Heavenly Father

FLORENCE W. SAUNDERS

The teacher was comparatively young in the study of Christian Science, and when she was given charge of a class in the Sunday school, she was at first filled with fear, for she knew something of the child mind and its capacity for asking questions, and she was aware of her own lack of knowledge. She, however, accepted the task willingly, knowing that we are never asked to perform a service which we cannot fulfill when we realize that man is the infinite reflection of infinite Mind. As the months passed she found that her ability to answer the questions which were put to her corresponded to the amount of preparation she gave to the lesson beforehand; to the study of the letter and the earnestness of her prayer for light, which unfolded to her the spirit, and also to the handling of the belief of error which, like Herod of old, would seek to injure the young child.

The class was a group of little girls, and one morning this remark was made: "I don't see how you can say that God is our Father and yet that He isn't a person." The distinction was clear in the teacher's mind, but how was she to put it into the simple phraseology which the child thought could grasp? There was a moment of realization that man is possessed here and now of everything he needs, and that this included intelligence; then the needed illustration came.

"Supposing," the teacher said, "there lived a man on your street who was the father of several children. You all knew him, and often heard the remark made about him, 'He's such a good father.' Now let us see what makes him a good father. Of course he must be fine looking." The children thought about this for a moment, each child evidently having some particular person in mind. Doubt and uncertainty was displayed, but this vanished, and all agreed that good looks had nothing to do with being a good father. Several of the children knew instances where good fathers were even homely. Then the teacher said, "But he must always be handsomely dressed and wear nothing but the finest clothes." Again the children found on thinking it over that this did not matter either. They knew rich father and also poor father who were good. The teacher kept on, at each step removing the mortal mind qualities of a human personality. The father could be homely, could wear common clothes, could be lame, blind, or deaf even, and still be, humanly speaking, "good."

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