The relation between the home and the school is often pointed out, and many beautiful illustrations come to hand of the mutual service they render to each other. In the county where the writer resides this feature of our social life has become almost proverbial; and yet it has recently been pointed out by a leading Sunday school worker that the real value of the Sunday school to the community has never been fully recorded. "Leave the Sunday school alone," it was said, and "the loss of enterprise would ruin the church."

The Christian influence of the Sunday school has more to do with the social conscience than most people are aware of. The moral fiber and spiritual enthusiasm of the community is generated and quickened in the Sunday school. This is true to such an extent that one can easily point to leading citizens who not only were brought up, so to speak, in the Sunday school, but many of whom today in middle age and later life retain this connection, with honor to themselves and added dignity to their schools, in the offices of teacher, treasurer, secretary, and superintendent. Perhaps there is no other district where anything like the same conditions prevail in this respect as the neighborhood to which the present writer refers. The experiment connected with the working of the a Christian Science Sunday school is, therefore, one that is fraught with far-reaching consequences, being eloquent with hope of that better day when every child trained under such auspices will become a citizen of whom we need never be ashamed. And this, coupled with the saving influence of a Christian Science home, becomes a possibility in the case of every scholar.

One of the writer's early experiences as a teacher in the

Christian Science Sunday school has often proved a source of encouragement along these lines and may, as it is recorded here, prove an inspiration to others who are not so favorably situated in what one might call the right atmosphere for Sunday school work.

He had a class of boys averaging twelve years of age. They were typical, not only in average intelligence, but of the new race which is springing up from the Christian Science home. Each boy came from a home where the healing power of Truth had become a happy experience in the case of a parent or some other member of the family. It was natural, therefore, in bringing his contribution to the week's lesson that each boy should bring a reflection of the truth he had seen put to the test and proved in his own youthful experience. The instruction was based on the Lesson-Sermon for the week, the subject being Christ Jesus. The teacher had prepared his own thought, and his usual habit in teaching was to present his thought to the boys and proceed to illustrate the lesson with some appropriate story or Biblical incident. On this occasion it occurred to him to adopt the Socratic method and see how the thought of the boys might correspond with the thoughts given to him in preparation for the lesson. As this is held to be the true method of education, drawing out the thought which is innate and natural, instead of forcing the thought by pressure from without, the results obtained on this occasion were decidedly encouraging, so much so that the same method has often been followed since and sometimes with equal satisfaction.

Each boy was asked in turn what he knew about Christ Jesus and asked to express briefly what he thought was the most distinguishing feature of his life. There were five boys, and the five answers given were in the following order: The first said that Jesus was the Wayshower; the second spoke of him as the most spiritual man that ever lived; the third said that Jesus expressed the intelligence of God, while the fourth said he was a worker of miracles. This list seemed so exhaustive that we must confess to some little trepidation in approaching the fifth boy for his answer. But he was ready, and proved to be a typical Lancashire lad, fully sustaining in his reply the motto of the oldest banking institution in his native town, "Semper paratus," which, Mrs. Eddy tells us, "is Truth's motto" (Science and Health, p. 458). This boy said that Jesus was human, but with a divine character. The sequence of thought running through these answers and the coincidence between the thoughts of the boys and those of the Lesson-Sermon seemed so remarkable that there was only one possible explanation of it. And this lay in the simple fact that these boys were illustrating, all unconsciously, the close and intimate relation between the home and the school. They had all come from homes where the Christian Science Lesson-Sermon was being read day by day.

Thus they had been imbibing through the week the truth which they were able to express so well in their Sunday school class. When the teacher came to examine his notes afterward he found that each boy had taken up a point which he had extracted from the Lesson-Sermon. Thus the boys' answers were confirmed by the teaching of our text-book as follows:—

(1) "The Christ-element in the Messiah made him the Wayshower, Truth, and Life"(Science and Health, p. 288).

(2) "Jesus was the offspring of Mary's self-conscious communion with God. Hence he could give a more spiritual idea of life than other men, and could demonstrate the Science of Love—his Father or divine Principle" (p. 29).

(3) "The testimony of the material senses is neither absolute nor divine. I therefore plant myself unreservedly on the teachings of Jesus, of his apostles, of the prophets, and on the testimony of the Science of Mind" (p. 269).

(4) "The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus' time, from the operation of divine before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness" (Pref., p. xi).

(5) "Jesus is the human man, and Christ is the divine idea." "Jesus was the highest human concept of the perfect man. He was inseparable from Christ, the Messiah" (pp. 473, 482).

Here, then, in these answers of the boys and the spiritual ideas to which they correspond, one might easily find the materials for a true theology of "the man Christ Jesus," even that most practical of all theology which, according to Mrs. Eddy, includes the healing of the sick. Furthermore, one can here find the materials for that greater work which is going on in the midst of men today, changing the very conditions of human life and summed up in that modern phrase so expressive of the desire of the kingdom of heaven on earth, namely, "the reconstruction of society." Here, too, is the beginning of the fulfilment of that glorious prophecy of Isaiah, "All thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children."

The Christian Science Sunday school is engaged in the work of no less a task than this; and in this great enterprise it finds its greatest asset in the sweet and gracious influence of the Christian Science home. These two forces are auxiliary to each other and will maintain a constant and unifying effect on the operations of the field of spiritual endeavor. These two institutions are linked inseparably together, "yoked in all exercise of noble ends;" and in their high emprise they are destined to contribute to the moral fiber and spiritual enthusiasm of the community a new factor of incalculable worth.

Who would not consider it his greatest privilege to have a share in such a work as this? Who could decline the call for men, which our Leader made? Surely, in this direction numbers of men, earnest and loyal students of our text-book, will find it easy to obey their Leader's call, while thus preparing themselves to acquire, through actual demonstration of the truth at every opportunity and at every hour of the day, that understanding of divine law which overcomes all error and reveals God's kingdom established on earth as in heaven.