Article June 10, 1916 Issue

Gratitude for Our Sunday Schools

SARA DODGE

All students of Christian Science are familiar with the activities of the movement, the work of practitioners, of the local church, of the publication committees, of the lecturers, and of the Publishing Society with its missionary work in the publication of authorized Christian Science literature. Much is said about the importance of the Sunday school in this connection, but not so much about the fruition of this department of the church work. Perhaps this is due to the fact that as yet few people look back upon a childhood with thought developed by Christian Science.

The writer feels most grateful that for nearly ten years she had the privilege of attending a Christian Science Sunday school. During this time a high school course was completed, and later college work begun, when the help of the Sunday School was inestimable. Problems many and varied, which arose from intercourse with people opposed to or not in sympathy with Science, were solved; ill health was overcome; many discordant conditions were conquered, and great benefits, both material and spiritual, were realized. It would not be just to appear insensible to the help received from other Scientists, from practitioners, and from her family; also from lectures and from the periodicals. But the foundation gained through the Sunday school teaching of the commandments, the Lord's Prayer, with its spiritual interpretation by Mrs. Eddy, and the beatitudes, with the Lesson-Sermons, as outlined in the Manual of The Mother Church (Art. XX, Sect. 3), during this period of development, led to a wonderful growth in the understanding of Christian Science, which was manifested in physical redemption, intellectual progress, and the upbuilding of character.

Mrs. Eddy's words in the article "Youth and Young Manhood," in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," are applicable here. She says (p. 274): "Right thinking, right feeling, and right acting—honesty, purity, unselfishness—in youth tend to success, intellectuality, and happiness in manhood. To begin rightly enables one to end rightly, and thus it is that one achieves the Science of Life, demonstrates health, holiness, and immortality." When the time came to leave the Sunday school, an understanding of the presence and power of Life, Truth, and Love had been gained to a certain extent, and proved through demonstration, so that uniting with the church was a larger unfoldment in the development so sacredly begun.

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