Happiness

[Written Especially for Children]

FLORENCE A. MYERS

Ann pressed her face against the windowpane. How hard it was raining! She sighed drearily. A rainy Saturday was such a disappointment!

"Ann, Ann!" It was John calling from the next room, where he sat at a table, his homework spread out before him. He was having difficulty with third-grade arithmetic, and often called on his big sister for help.

"I can't do these problems," he fretted, as Ann came in answer to his call. "I don't understand them."

Ann sat down beside him. As she looked at his woeful, unhappy face, an angel thought suddenly came to her. She remembered what had been discussed in her Sunday school class the Sunday before. "Mind" had been the subject of the week's Lesson-Sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly. Teacher and pupils had carefully considered the qualities of Mind, and what man is as Mind's reflection. Here was an opportunity, thought Ann, to use what she had learned that morning. Although she had helped John before with his troublesome arithmetic, she realized that her help had been only temporary, and that it had given John no real basis or foundation from which he could proceed to help himself when he was again in difficulty.

"John," said Ann, "before I help you with these problems, suppose we talk a little about God. What are some other names for God?"

"Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love," answered John, who had learned the definition of God which Mrs. Eddy gives us on page 465 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures."

"Well, John, if Mind is God and you, in reality, are His image and likeness, you are really intelligent; isn't that so? And if you reflect Mind, intelligence, as you surely do, are you not able to do your schoolwork properly and correctly? Let us sit quietly for a few moments and think about God as Mind, and how we reflect Him."

For a while the room was very still. Ann was thinking of the "other commandment"—the commandment Jesus gave us as recorded in the fifteenth chapter of John: "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you." She remembered that Jesus had just been telling his disciples that those who obeyed his commandments would abide in God's love and be full of joy. How many lessons in loving had Christ Jesus given us! He had shown his love for mankind by teaching, by comforting, and by healing. And always he knew and taught that man is ever the perfect child of a perfect and loving Father. Quite clearly, then, Ann realized how she was to follow Jesus' loving example. She could see her brother John as he really was, the perfect, harmonious child of God, the Father-Mother Love, supplied with and expressing intelligence and happiness.

"I'd like to try those problems again," said John, and went busily to work with his pencil. Soon he lifted a shining face to his sister.

"I've got it! It seems easy now, and I am sure I understand, and that I have the answers right."

They were right, indeed, and Ann felt sure that he would have no further trouble, since he was using his God-given intelligence to solve his problems.

Ann felt very happy. It was such a joy to use the truth that Christian Science taught and to see error disappear. She thought of dear Mrs. Eddy's words in the textbook (p. 11), "Truth bestows no pardon upon error, but wipes it out in the most effectual manner." The error in John's thinking that needed to be wiped out was the false belief that he did not have sufficient understanding or intelligence to do his work properly, and Ann knew that this false belief arose because he was depending on his own human intelligence, forgetting that God was his intelligence, and that such intelligence, like all things real, is spiritual and always available.

Just then a glint of sunlight caught Ann's attention. She ran to the window. Dark clouds still covered part of the sky, but they were scurrying before the ever-growing light of the reappearing sun. Just as error disappears before Truth, thought Ann.

"Thank you, Father-Mother Love," whispered Ann, "for letting the sunshine come inside first."

Ann had discovered the truth of Mrs. Eddy's beautiful statement (ibid., p. 57): "Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it."

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