Article December 23, 1933 Issue

Rejecting the Counterfeit

[Written Especially for Young People]

HAROLD C. LEWIS

If one were to offer a young child his choice of either a bright red apple or a dollar bill, the child would in all probability reach for the apple; but if one were to offer the same choice to a twelve-year-old boy, the boy would take the dollar, knowing that it would buy many apples. If, however, one were to offer the twelve-year-old boy his choice of either a genuine dollar bill or a counterfeit five-dollar bill, the boy, not being prepared to detect the counterfeit, might possibly take that one. The same youth grown to manhood, and experienced in handling money, would not so readily be deceived into accepting a spurious bill instead of a genuine one. This illustrates a point brought out in the study of Christian Science, that mortals need to be educated to discriminate between the real and the counterfeit in every phase of their experience; for as Mrs. Eddy says in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 70), "The testimony of the corporeal sense cannot inform us what is real and what is delusive, but the revelations of Christian Science unlock the treasures of Truth."

Study in a banking institution would prepare one to detect the difference between genuine and counterfeit money. Similarly, children in the Christian Science Sunday School are taught clearly to discern the difference between God's creation, the real and eternal, and the unreal, counterfeit beliefs of mortal mind. Here pupils are taught how to choose between the false and the true. They learn that God is the only cause and creator; that He "saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." They know from this that they should reject the false beliefs of mortal mind—sin, disease, and death—as unreal, and accept in their experience only that which comes from God. Thus, by the time they leave Sunday school, they will be spiritually equipped for careers of genuine usefulness and happiness.

A magnifying glass may be used to examine spurious money. One's understanding of Christian Science is the lens by means of which one examines the thoughts which come to one daily and hourly to determine their genuineness or falsity. How important it is that we constantly look through this lens, that we may always be able to distinguish between the real and the unreal; for to choose only that which comes from our God is to be happy.

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