Article February 15, 1941 Issue

Sunday School Notes and Comments

The True Incentive

A new teacher entered upon her duties in the Christian Science Sunday School with diffidence. She was very fond of children, but she had had no teaching experience, and she doubted her ability to expound the truths of Christian Science.

The class allotted to her was made up of children of six or seven years of age, and although every week the teacher tried faithfully to do her preparatory work, they were unresponsive, uninterested, fidgety, and even unruly, and an overwhelming sense of failure took possession of her. In her trouble she went to a friend, who listened to all she had to say, and then remarked: "You know, there's one great thing the Sunday school children need, and that is love. That's what they come for. Love the children, and you'll find everything else will come." And then she went on to talk of other things.

The teacher went away more disheartened than before, and even a little indignant. She had always loved children—that was the main attraction of the Sunday school work; but her love for them had not helped her to teach them. However, when she got home she took her Bible and the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, and prayed very earnestly that God would show her what to do. And the thought presented itself to her, "Perhaps your way of loving the children isn't the right way." Then there came the remembrance of a favorite passage in the textbook (p. 454): "Love for God and man is the true incentive in both healing and teaching. Love inspires, illumines, designates, and leads the way. Right motives give pinions to thought, and strength and freedom to speech and action."

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