In "Miscellaneous Writings" (pp. 196, 197) Mrs. Eddy writes, "The scriptures require more than a simple admission and feeble acceptance of the truths they present; they require a living faith, that so incorporates their lessons into our lives that these truths become the motive-power of every act." This pointed sentence sets forth briefly the responsibility of both teacher and student in the Christian Science Sunday School. Loving co-operation between pupils, teachers, and parents will produce something more worth while than mere knowledge of the letter; and as the pupil advances from the primary class to the study of "the next lessons" (Manual, Art. XX, Sect. 3), he will gain a larger understanding of Truth, and attain greater assurance and wider opportunity to use the information gained in his "first lessons," and adapt this to what may seem more complex problems.

What the student is to be taught in the Sunday school, as set forth in Article XX, Section 3, of the Manual of The Mother Church, includes the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer and its spiritual interpretation by our Leader, and the Beatitudes from the sermon on the Mount. These are basic teachings which every student of Christian Science must understand, for they are essential to the demonstration of Truth. Many classes, including those which are studying "the next lessons," find that they can study other portions of the Scriptures as an aid to spiritual growth, such as the ninety-first and twenty-third Psalms and the Golden Rule. And various definitions from the Glossary in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" may also be used as aids in studying these lessons.

In answer to the question, "How can I progress most rapidly in the understanding of Christian Science?" our Leader writes in part (Science and Health, p. 495), "Study thoroughly the letter and imbibe the spirit."

The young people are in the Sunday school class for a short period each week, and considering vastness of Truth, it is of great importance that the spiritual, practical import of the lessons be made clear. Whatever the week's lesson, that which is of paramount importance in the teacher's thought is, How shall we imbibe the spirit of Truth, so that the lesson shall be made applicable to daily need? The letter is requisite and desirable, and the pupils should know how to use the Lord's Prayer, and how to live it and love it.

One young girl, in relating what the Christian Science Sunday School had meant to her, said that it had changed her thought as to what constitutes amusement. Whereas, heretofore, on her way home from school she had regaled her friends with ludicrous imitations of what she considered other people's failings, now the conversation tended to more charitable praise of achievement. The innate desire for constructive enjoyment had been revealed.

Every teacher in our Sunday schools will recall how his own thinking, and consequently his living, has been and is still being purified through the study of Christian Science. Then he will remember that this practical religion, rightly used, is a character builder; that while it sets forth the perfect selfhood, made in the image and likeness of God, it also unfolds the divine Principle and rule through which even in our material routine we may gain some measure of the stature of Christ. Thus the teacher will turn the attention of scholars to those Godlike qualities which each boy and girl needs to claim and lay hold of, in order to conduct a successful life in the academic or business world and in the home. Our Leader writes (Message to The Mother Church for 1900, p. 6): "A child can measurably understand Christian Science, for, through his simple faith and purity, he takes in its spiritual sense that puzzles the man. The child not only accepts Christian Science more readily than the adult, but he practises it."

In summing up what each student should gain in the Sunday school, every teacher will recognize the need for having the letter, and the spiritual requisites without which the letter would fall short of its great blessing to mankind. Young people should gain from the Sunday school a reassuring, intelligent interest in the Bible, and an abiding faith in its promises. They should have a deep appreciation of Christian Science and acquire unfolding ability to apply its divine rules. They should have an unfaltering allegiance to good, so that they will voluntarily choose good rather than evil. They should have loyalty to Truth and to their own right ideals, so that they will refuse to "follow the crowd" and in the face of ridicule or criticism will maintain a good-humored equanimity. They should be able to refuse a "social glass" or a cigarette without regret, knowing that in their love of the truth they have something infinitely more satisfying. They should be honest, tolerant, generous, obedient to a conscious knowledge of right, considerate, courteous, industrious. They should realize that righteousness is not narrow, doleful, or inhospitable, and that righteousness is not narrow, doleful, or inhospitable, and that goodness carries with it plenty of cheerful humor and wholesome recreation.

The deepest desire of every teacher is to enable the pupils to love good, and to live the truths of Christian Science to the highest degree of their understanding. If they have been helped to obey the "new commandment" of the Master, "Love one another; as I have loved you," much will have been done. These young men and women go forth to take up their activities among different people and viewpoints. To "love one another" is not too high a goal, and these students win the everlasting blessing which attends aspirations and activities based on co-operation and fellowship. It empowers them to maintain and sustain within themselves an abiding sense of God's nearness and allness.

This great aim is expressed in a brief sentence in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 160): "To live so as to keep human consciousness in constant relation with the divine, the spiritual, and the eternal, is to individualize infinite power; and this is Christian Science." What pupils learn in Sunday school is how to "individualize" this "infinite power." It is the great privilege of parents, as well as of Sunday school teachers, to assist the young people to become well-rounded, capable, trustworthy, efficient Christian Scientists, true witnesses capable of demonstrating the healing love of Christ.