Article November 15, 1952 Issue

Use the Books

Pupils in the Christian Science Sunday School are taught from the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, accompanied by the Christian Science Quarterly, where the Lesson-Sermon citations are found. It is important to have the books at hand and to read from them frequently in connection with the lessons that are being taught. Pupils above the primary classes are encouraged to bring their own books. But many Sunday Schools keep enough books on hand to supply each pupil who may not have brought his own. Teachers usually bring their own books.

Although pupils in the primary classes are not able to read, their lessons are taught direct from the books. The little ones like to be shown where the first lessons—the Commandments, the Beatitudes, and the Lord's Prayer, with its spiritual interpretation as given by Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health (pp. 16, 17)—and other favorite texts may be found and to know something about the books of the Bible and the chapters of the textbook from which the passages are taken. Bible stories usually are told with the Bible open to the narrative, and although it may be desirable to give the children portions of it in the teacher's own language, teachers have found it a good plan to read a passage now and then exactly as it appears in the text. In this way the little ones become familiar with Scriptural phraseology and learn to distinguish between the Bible and Science and Health; they learn the value of these books, and so they are being prepared for a more extensive use of them when they go into the classes of school-age pupils.

As soon as the children begin to read they can learn to find without help many of the passages that they study in Sunday School. It might be said that it is a part of the pupil's training to become familiar with the books, to learn to turn readily to helpful passages, and to make these precious volumes their daily companions. The pupil learns that the Bible and Science and Health are to be studied together, that Science and Health furnishes the key to the untold treasures of the Bible, that the Bible is a great guidebook leading to health, harmony, and success, and that Science and Health shows us how to follow its directions. An article entitled "A Child's Christmas," which appeared in this column under date of December 21, 1946, tells a delightful story of a seven-year-old child who on the day following Christmas turned to her Bible and Science and Health, which she had received as a Christmas present, and on reviewing her Sunday School lessons healed her cousin of a so-called contagious disease.

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