Article April 19, 1919 Issue

Education in the Sunday School

MABEL M. BEESON

No feature of Christian Science work is more zealously guarded and protected than teaching. For this reason the instruction given in the Christian Science Sunday school follows a plan worked out by Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, and proved by her to be a safe and effectual method of presenting the teachings of Christian Science to the young. It has been the privilege of the writer to be a worker and teacher in the Christian Science Sunday school for a number of years, and for this privilege she is most grateful. It is a fact worthy of note that broad and far-reaching as the work of the Sunday school is, the rules for its government and management are comprised in three short paragraphs in the Manual of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. This proves the marvelous insight and foresight of Mrs. Eddy, that she was able to provide for so great a work in so few words. It is also worthy of note that with careful and diligent study of those rules they are seen to cover the ground.

There is to-day no more important work than that of the Sunday school. Parents seek education for their children along the line of general study, but many are not alive to the importance of the education of their children along the line of spiritual knowledge and development. It is a great thing to observe one who has been taught in the Christian Science Sunday school from the years of childhood up to maturity, and notice the knowledge and practical understanding he possesses of the great spiritual facts of being. It has been very noticeable that the applicants for church membership who come from the Sunday school usually manifest ease and freedom in their replies to questions. Many adults falter and say they know and understand, but cannot express it, "cannot put it into words," and are not able to give a satisfactory statement. It is noticeably different with the pupils from the Sunday school. They know, and know that they know; consequently they have a ready answer.

In a Sunday school class a teacher asked a pupil a question concerning creation, and instantly wished she had not asked it, as it seemed to her thought too metaphysical a thing to ask a young student; but there came instantly and without hesitation a very clear and comprehensive statement of spiritual facts. It had taken months, even years, of work and study on the part of this teacher before she had gained the understanding to give a clear or comprehensive answer to that same question. A friend of this teacher once said when making some supposedly sharp criticism on Christian Science, "Do you suppose God would come down from His throne! to heal your stomach ache?" God come down from His throne! Think of it! Could anyone who had ever been taught in a Christian Science Sunday school possibly entertain such a misconception of God? From the very first the pupil learns that God is divine Principle, and that the manifestation of healing is the sign following the right understanding of divine Principle.

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