Article April 16, 1932 Issue

The Sunday School

JULIA SALOME KINNEY

The Sunday school occupies a place of primary importance in the Christian Science movement. Article XX in the Manual of The Mother Church fully covers the question as to who shall be admitted to Sunday school classes, and what they shall be taught when admitted. In this Article we learn that only children, or those under twenty, are accepted as pupils. It were fitting, therefore, that all those active in Sunday school work should be familiar with the definition of "children" as found on page 582 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. This definition, consisting of two parts, gives first the spiritual sense of children as "the spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love;" and, secondly, the material sense of children as "sensual and mortal beliefs; counterfeits of creation, whose better originals are God's thoughts, not in embryo, but in maturity; material suppositions of life, substance, and intelligence, opposed to the Science of being."

This definition of "children" given us by our Leader throws a flood of light on the work of the Sunday school, which, evidently, is to replace false material sense with the right idea of children. One who would help to awaken in the consciousness of the child the true sense of its spiritual selfhood should himself daily strive to overcome all that is unlike God in his own thoughts and acts. He will then have such a firm grasp on the true idea of children that he will not be overwhelmed by false beliefs, but will be able to overcome the false concepts with the right idea. With his own consciousness filled with the glory of God's creation and the Science of being, the alert Sunday school worker can teach the child how to handle and destroy the "material suppositions of life, substance, and intelligence, opposed to the Science of being."

Spiritual law, which includes moral law, is the basis for all instruction given in the Sunday school. This law is as simple as it is sublime, when understood on the basis of the allness of Mind. Children are quick to accept the fundamental fact that there is one Mind, and that to have no other God, no other Mind, is to have no thoughts but God-like thoughts. They readily perceive that in their own thoughts they serve God or His opposite: that if their thoughts are good, they serve God; if evil, they serve graven images.

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