Article April 18, 1901 Issue

Analysis of the Lessons

BY WILLIAM P. McKENZIE.

There are some students of the weekly lessons who seek, and so find for themselves, the teaching of each section; and others again would like to be told what it is without having to search for it. The spiritual truth enfolded in the passages from Scripture and unfolded in the correlative selections from our text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," when revealed to the student, will have from him such individual expression that no one else could phrase it exactly for him. Yet in listening to the analysis of different students, one cannot fail to see the essential unity of thought though its expression is varied, and indicative of individual experience. By such study,—in the search for the thought first, and then for words to give it adequate expression,—freshness of interest is maintained in the student, and the formality and dreariness of instruction by catechism is avoided. Should the sections of the lesson be formally designated like the heads of a sermon, the student might be apt to give aimless agreement to the form of words, without grasping their substance.

An illustration comes to hand in a letter from a western Christian Scientist, who says:—

"I enclose a slip of paper that may be of interest to you. I go to the penitentiary each Sunday afternoon and read the lesson to about thirty. They give the topic of each citation before I read the references. They do not often have paper to write them down, as they are not allowed paper, but this man, who is an Indian, uses his Sentinel wrapper. Some of their citations are very simple and beautiful."

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