Article August 12, 1933 Issue

"And a little child shall lead them"

MARION L. KISCH

Among the well-known texts in the Old Testament is the declaration by Isaiah, "A little child shall lead them," which is preceded by the words, "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together." If the meaning is not quite clear to the reader, a passage on page 569 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy will clarify it: "The Scripture, Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many,' is literally fulfilled, when we are conscious of the supremacy of Truth, by which the nothingness of error is seen. ... He that touches the hem of Christ's robe and masters his mortal beliefs, animality, and hate, rejoices in the proof of healing,—in a sweet and certain sense that God is Love."

In an interesting interview published in the New York Herald of May 1, 1901, our beloved Leader said her successor would be a man (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 343); but a fortnight later she found it necessary to amplify this statement by a brief explanation, concluding with the words (ibid., p. 347), "What remains to lead on the centuries and reveal my successor, is man in the image and likeness of the Father-Mother God, man the generic term for mankind." This statement of our Leader is of great importance.

Surely it must be clear to the understanding eye that the generic man of Mrs. Eddy's thought and the "little child" of Isaiah's are analogous. It is not the mere trustfulness of a human child, beautiful and pure though it be, that will lead the world out of animality and hate, out of sin and mortality; it is the pure and exalted thought which overcomes sin through a clear understanding of the all-loving God, and which sees only the perfect man of God's creating, the Godlike man, and recognizes no false, sinful, human misconception of man.

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