Article November 8, 1924 Issue

The Child and the Teacher

M. ETHEL WHITCOMB

What a blessed spot is a Christian Science Sunday School! Here the child and the teacher, in heaven-born gladness, meet to hear, to see, to understand the living presence of the Christ. Hand in hand they come to learn of God, who ever imparts to the meek in heart the inspiration and glory of His presence.

"Is it possible to teach such tiny tots Christian Science?" people often exclaim as they watch the little ones of two years, and sometimes younger, entering our Sunday schools. The teacher, however, perceives through spiritual sense that children are never too young to learn to know God as Father, Mother, and great Physician; not too young to love the healing Christ, nor to turn from the false gods of disobedience and self-will. A beautiful incident which proves this true, was related by an elderly lady. She was one day lying ill in bed when a babe of two and a half years returned from Sunday school, and putting her little hand on "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, which lay beside the woman, said emphatically, again and again, "God, Grandma! Life, Grandma! Love, Grandma!" And then with conviction she exclaimed, "No sick, Grandma!" So touched was the grandmother with the consciousness of God's presence, which came to her through the help of the infant practitioner, that she felt the renewal of Spirit at once; and was well. It is as natural for the child to love the things of God as for the flower to drink the morning dew. How privileged is the teacher who is called upon to help these little ones unfold in spiritual understanding and goodness! Can one ever outgrow his work for them? Ah, no! Rather should he pray with his whole heart to grow enough in Christlikeness humbly to learn with them Love's eternal lessons.

What true joy comes to the teacher as he studies with the pupil the Commandments, the Lord's Prayer with its spiritual interpretation, and the Beatitudes, in obedience to the Manual of The Mother Church (p. 62)! Because the teacher knows how little he has as yet lived of the purified heart that sees God, of the meekness which inherits the earth, how slightly he has as yet obeyed the eternal call, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," because he perceives to what heights he must ascend before he realizes at all times, "Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory," he might say to the child: "These are my first lessons too. Let us help each other to learn them." How thought claps its hands with gladness as the one whom the world calls the child and the one who is yearning for childlikeness help each other to find new and higher ways to apply to every word and act these holy rules for living!

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Self-Abnegation
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