Article June 6, 1925 Issue

Kind Lions

MABEL S. THOMSON

Ann is seven years old. She is deeply interested in all the wonderful knowledge that is daily unfolding itself to her at home and at school; but above all she is interested in what she learns about God in Christian Science.

One evening Ann's mother read to her the story, beloved of all children, of Daniel in the lions' den; and when she had finished, she pointed out that Daniel was protected because of his reflected goodness, and because he prayed to God with such certainty of His presence that the lions could not touch him. Ann, however, shook her curls and said, "Oh, no; it was because the lions were kind lions, that was all." Her mother, feeling rather disturbed, tried to impress her point of view a little more firmly; but Ann stoutly maintained her position, that Daniel was safe simply because the lions were kind lions.

The following day Ann's mother told this little story to a Christian Scientist, evidently wondering how she was going to correct what seemed to be something like stubbornness in her daughter. The Christian Scientist, however, startled her by saying that Ann's seven-year-old sense of logic had led her to the right conclusion, which she had expressed in seven-year-old language, and that while the mother had held to the position that of course lions were carnivorous and ferocious beasts from which Daniel had to be protected, Ann had seen quite simply that since God, as she had learned, is Love, everywhere present and the only power, then all lions must inevitably be in reality kind lions.

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