The Sunday School Teacher

MARY FRANCES DEWHURST

In her definition of "children" on page 582 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy identifies them as "the spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love."

The understanding that there are no undeveloped ideas in the divine Mind—and therefore none in the consciousness of man as divine Mind's reflection—is of the utmost importance to the Christian Science Sunday School teacher, who is confronted with the suggestion that he has before him, as his pupils, an imperfect state of thought, to which he, from the standpoint of his greater knowledge of Truth, must give information. The suggestion is a subtle one, because it cloaks its inconsistencies in the disguise of altruism, picturing the benevolent or superior human person helping the needy one. The Sunday school teacher, accepting as the basis of his metaphysical work the Biblical statement that "God created man in his own image," will be alert to refuse the suggestion that Mind, the infinite creator, can show itself as less than divinely intelligent in any phase of its expression, or that in this allness of divine Mind there is another mind to cope with.

That which appears through the mystification of the human concept as the undeveloped thinking of childhood is merely the human misconception of the divine idea—already complete, perfect, and unfolding from the standpoint of the Mind which creates it. On page 61 of "Unity of Good," Mrs. Eddy tells us, "To material sense, Jesus first appeared as a helpless human babe; but to immortal and spiritual vision he was one with the Father, even the eternal idea of God, that was—and is—neither young nor old, neither dead nor risen." That which was divinely true of Jesus is divinely true of each individual expression of the Father, including that which humanly appears as children.

Might it not be said, then, that the function of the Sunday school teacher is first of all, actively to maintain this "immortal and spiritual vision" which beholds the perfection of the divine idea where the material sense testimony of an immature child seems to be? The activity of this idea in the teacher's own consciousness becomes the Christ-law to the unfoldment of Truth in the class, constituting an impersonal but potent denial to all the claims of prenatal and postnatal mesmerism, of human birth and environment, and to the beliefs of chance and uncertainty of development which so often claim to accompany the period of adolescence.

Occasionally one may ask, "If I take this absolute stand in my metaphysical work for the Sunday school children, how am I to make the connection between that which I know to be true and that which appears as the children's thought?" If we turn to the method of the Master, Jesus of Nazareth, we find that never for a moment did he disconnect himself from that conscious oneness with the Father which declared, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," and we learn that it was this very at-one-ment with his divinely intelligent source which enabled him to present the truths of the kingdom of heaven to the simple thought of his day so effectually, and which prompted him to speak in such familiar parables and illustrations as could be readily understood by all.

Turning to the life of our Leader, we see that it was her own demonstration of "immortal and spiritual vision" which enabled her to write a textbook clear enough and simple enough to meet that state of ignorance of reality which she termed mortal mind at every state and stage of its own misconception, and correct it.

One Christian Science Sunday School teacher, as a result of maintaining something of this "immortal and spiritual vision" in her work for the Sunday school, had the joy of hearing members of her class (children of grade-school age) voice the truth with the simplicity of childhood, and in place of the picture of a teacher "talking down" to uninformed students, her class took on more and more the aspect of the impersonal co-ordination of Mind's ideas, making the experience a blessing to both teacher and pupil.

The nations of the world are laying much stress on the importance of the care and development of youth in their efforts to establish and maintain what they consider a desirable way of life. It is vastly important for the welfare of the world that the Christian Scientist (understanding as he does the nature of true spiritual democracy—the right of the individual expression of God, under God, to self-government) see to it, within his own consciousness, that these beloved ideas which appear as children be cleared of the human limitations which seem to surround them, so that they may be seen to unfold in the activity of Truth, which alone is capable of establishing and maintaining enduring peace and the kingdom of heaven upon earth.

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Man Is the Expression of Mind

March 14, 1942

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