Article September 14, 1918 Issue

The World's Great Need

LOUISE KNIGHT WHEATLEY

Those parents who have children in the Christian Science Sunday school are often heard to say that they learn many a much needed lesson from their own little ones. The following true story will illustrate this. One Christmas day just about dusk a father and his eight-year-old boy were taking a walk together. Most of the houses they passed were already lighted, and through the windows they caught occasional glimpses of the brightness and good cheer within. The child gazed at it all in undisguised delight, but the father's heart was heavy. The family had just begun the study of Christian Science, and while the children were making rapid progress as the result of attendance at the Christian Science Sunday school, the older members of the household seemed to be advancing more slowly in their struggle toward the light. A financial problem yet weighed heavily upon the father's shoulders, so much so that when the boy suddenly called attention to an unusually beautiful Christmas tree in one of the luxurious homes which they were passing, the father responded rather bitterly: "Yes, son, I see it. That little boy can have a fine Christmas tree because his father is rich. But we are poor."

The child stopped, and the very tall man and the very little boy stood quite still for a moment looking at each other. The rapturous expression slowly faded from the child's face and he looked almost puzzled. "Why, daddy," he said wonderingly, "you don't mean that, do you? How can we be poor when we have Truth and Love?" He then took his father's hand again and went jumping along as before, looking in at the windows and trying to keep step with his father's longer strides, evidently perfectly satisfied that the whole question had been settled. Truly, great was the Master's wisdom when he once "called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them," and said that only such could enter the kingdom! With tears in his eyes and emotion in his voice the father afterward told of his gratitude for the unconscious rebuke and how it had helped to lift the veil from his eyes that he might, through the aid of the child, gain a clearer vision of the Christ.

Perhaps there are others to whom the argument is coming that they, too, are poor this year as never before, not necessarily in that which is termed money, but in something far more essential to their happiness. They may be thinking that they lack something to-day which they have always had before, something dear and precious beyond words, and without which they feel poor indeed. If any such should chance upon these lines, let him take courage from the heaven born wisdom of that baby sage, "How can we be poor when we have Truth and Love?" How can anyone be poor who has found God? How can anyone long continue to be sad or alone or friendless or heart hungry when he once understands the truth about God and man, as Christian Science reveals it? In this clearer glimpse of the realities of being there is help for all, even in that hour when the heart cries out for "the touch of a vanished hand," and refuses to be comforted. "Oh, may you feel this touch," writes Mrs. Eddy, a woman who knew beyond all other women the world's great need; and she continues (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 306), "It is not the clasping of hands, nor a loved person present; it is more than this: it is a spiritual idea that lights your path!"

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