Article July 15, 1911 Issue

"OUT OF THE MOUTH OF BABES."

MAJOR FAITHFULL CUMBERLEGE.

Swayed by human passions of the nature and origin of which she was entirely ignorant, a child of six years turned on her mother with the fretful complaint that the afternoon's outing from which she had just returned had not given her "a bit of pleasure." The incident furnished a remarkable object-lesson.

The child's life had been one of almost uninterrupted sunshine. Brought under the influence of Christian Science before she was able to talk, she knew less of the ups and downs of human existence than do most children, even of her age. Taught to be useful, to think for others, to dress and "do" for herself as much as possible,—keeping her own room tidy for instance, dusting and sweeping,—little had entered into her life of the boredom that afflicts even the youngest when they have nothing to do but to try to amuse themselves, and she was as a rule supremely happy in all her manifold occupations. These were not, however, all of a very serious nature, and included a large proportion of fun and frolic, for her parents had deemed it wise that she should enter into the games and amusements common to children of her age, and had taken care to make opportunities for her to do so. Nevertheless, thus early in life she had witnessed to the inability of the world's amusements to satisfy the heart.

All are familiar with this sense of disappointment, but the Christian Scientist alone can interpret it. He alone is in a position to estimate the significance of this consciousness of nothing accomplished, no pleasure experienced, for he knows that materiality has no place in reality, and that resort to material things in the search for happiness must in the end prove a fruitless errand, doomed to disappointment from the start. The Christian Scientist knows that pleasure seekers, searching among material phenomena, seek something where there is nothing, and so they cannot possibly attain any good. At the end of their quest they remain where they were before they started; viz., still disappointedly seeking the substance—happiness—which they can never find in the illusive scenes produced by self-mesmerism. Their action is comparable to that of a man who might seek to quench his thirst at the pools that look so real in a desert mirage, and because there is no water there his thirst is not quenched, nor even lessened; rather is it possibly increased, owing to unrealized anticipations.

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