THE SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS
Recently I was asked to teach a class in a Christian Science Sunday School, and I accepted this work with the feeling that it was both an opportunity and a responsibility. As a first preparation I studied Article XX., Sect. 2, of The Mother Church Manual, in which our Leader says: "The Sabbath School children shall be taught the Scriptures, and they shall be instructed according to their understanding or ability to grasp the simpler meanings of the divine Principle that they are taught." The reason for this ruling is plainly stated in the first tenet of Christian Science: "As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life" (Science and Health, p. 497).
Clearly, then, there is a motive in presenting to little children this "sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." They are passing day by day into experiences of conscious living and living consciousness, and this growth must be rightly guided. All growth is governed by divine Principle and in accordance with this law the wise teacher seeks to establish a scientific method. Teaching may be defined as the process which leads out toward the appearing, within the consciousness of the learner, of mental concepts that unfold to him hitherto unrealized facts of his own being and environment. The law of progression is the natural order in this unfoldment, and this law cannot be ignored or violated.
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A wonderful light is thrown upon this necessity in our Leader's interpretation of the successive mornings and evenings in the account of creation in Genesis. Jesus' recognition of the fact that mortal mind passes through successive stages toward the final fulfilment of the law, is evidenced in his statement, "Therefore speak I to them in parables." This master Teacher unfolded to human thought the substance of Spirit in the language of the known tongue, and by means of this he taught the new. Everywhere we find him interpreting things as thoughts, bringing to light the real and showing the unreal to be a counterfeit; moving from the concrete image to the spiritual fact and substance of which that image is a symbol.
This, then, was the way that Jesus taught, and this is the way of all true teaching. With both subject and method clear before me, I began the serious task of selection. Several years' experience as a teacher in the public schools had taught me the futility of desultory, unsystematic effort, and so a basis for regular and related work was adopted. The study with this Sunday School class was based largely on the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes, with the other work outlined in "first lessons." It was found to be a good plan to select the illustrative material from some incident or story which was touched upon in the lesson, care being taken that the incident or narrative emphasized the truth.
I also endeavored to employ some plan by which each Sunday's lesson should be an outgrowth of the one preceding it. To this end it seemed necessary that we should find a starting-point, and naturally "the beginning" was considered as that point. After reading the narrative of creation with the children, we came to the Lesson-Sermon on "Reality." The meaning of this one word presented the important fact that the new tongue we are learning in Science must be a part of this study. It was easy to discover the realities in God's creation; so also, in the Lesson following, the unrealities in the false account of creation in the second chapter of Genesis.
In studying the next two Lessons, "Are Sin, Disease, and Death Real?" and "Atonement," we learned that the path we were following had already been blazed by the workers who prepare these wonderful weekly love-feasts. "And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations;" this was in one Golden Text. In Genesis we read, "But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground." What was this mist but the "covering cast over all people," the false beliefs which must be destroyed before they can attain to the realization of that wonderful Scripture, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."
Four Sundays were spent in the study of creation, illuminated by the truth as expressed in the subjects and Golden Texts of the Lesson-Sermons. We also found adequate hints for the unfolding of spiritual truths in each story as the narrative proceeded. In the Lesson on "Everlasting Punishment," we found in the responsive reading, "Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain." What was the way of Cain? He was a tiller of the ground, and brought the fruits thereof as an offering unto God. His offering was material, and therefore God did not look upon the fruits of his labor with favor. Abel's sacrifices were more spiritual, for he was a keeper of sheep, and we read that "the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering." When Cain in his fear pleaded with God for protection, "the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him;" thus making it possible for him to work out his own salvation and learn the way back to purity and love.
The story of the flood brought us to a sort of climax or turning-point in the narrative of events from "the beginning," and with it came the Lesson, "Adam and Fallen Man," which shows the necessity for the destruction of false beliefs. The Lesson on "Mortals and Immortals" was full of the promise of the new covenant; and the bow which God set in the cloud stands for this new covenant, the promise of immortality. So the flood, which covered the face of the earth and destroyed the errors in man's belief, hints at the omnipresence of Truth, which guides mortal thought into the ark of safety established in the beginning for the sons and daughters of God.
In some such way as this the children may become familiar with the use of our text-book, and learn that it is indeed a "Key" which unlocks the deeper things of Scripture and reveals unto babes that which has been hidden from the so-called wise and prudent throughout all the years that have come and gone. I have often tried to express in written words my gratitude to our consecrated Leader for the glimpse she has given me of a higher and better life, but until the present effort I have somehow failed to find the way. Even now, when this opportunity is mine, there is no promise I can make which I think she would appreciate more, than to live the life she has taught me to live, and to do my work a little better each day.
