Article July 3, 1909 Issue

THE SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS

ALICE L. NICHOLS.

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.

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.

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SINCERITY
July 3, 1909
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