Peter and his father were climbing the wooded hill on Grandfather's farm. The narrow path led up and up, twisting a crooked way through the thicketed places. Patches of sunlight spilled here and there in changing patterns, but there was more shadow than sunshine along this path, for this was where the tall trees stood together, their friendly branches touching and rustling with the quiet talk of trees.

The path was stony under their feet, and once Peter picked up a stone to look at it. He would have tossed it aside again, but Father caught his hand.

"Why don't you keep it, Peter?" he asked.

"It isn't very pretty," answered Peter with a shrug.

Father turned the small, rough object over in his palm, then dropped it into his jacket pocket. "Let's climb higher, Son." he said.

So they climbed higher along the rough little path, and soon Peter forgot the stone. He and his father had reached the very top of the hill, where sunshine flooded a great rock. While they rested together on the broad, flat top of the rock, Father took the stone from his pocket and held it up to the sunlight.

Then Peter saw, and he gasped with surprise. "Why, it's beautiful!" he exclaimed.

And truly it was. In the shadowed path, the stone had looked dull and unlovely. But here, in the bright sunshine, it glowed with little particles of brightness and with streaks of red and yellow. Laughing, Father gave it back to Peter, who eagerly put it into his pocket to keep.

"The stones on this hill are always beautiful, Peter," he said, "but sometimes you can't see that until you climb up here to where the sunshine is. I learned to do it when I was a boy. Many's the stone I've kept in my pocket until I had climbed higher, to this rock, where I could see it in the light."

When Peter reached home, he put the curious little stone on his bureau. Every time he looked at it he remembered the day that he and Father had climbed the hill together. It was a nice thing to remember, and it made the stone seem like an old friend. Then, one day, something happened to make Father remember, too.

A new boy had moved next door. His name was Jackie Strong, and he liked to tell people that he was just like his name. He liked to swing his fists, and he told Peter that he wanted to be captain of the ball team. But Peter was already the captain, and the way Jackie looked at him when he spoke of it made Peter uncomfortable.

Peter told Father about it and his voice wasn't steady. "He's big and rough," he said, "and not nice to anybody."

But Father didn't really seem to believe it. He picked up the stone from Peter's bureau and smiled to himself as he turned it over in his hand. "Maybe." he said, "it's time to climb higher. Son."

Peter looked puzzled, but he knew Father would explain, because he always did.

"Remember where you found this stone, Peter?" asked Father. "And remember how you didn't think it was worth keeping until you had climbed up to where the sunshine was?"

Peter nodded, remembering.

"Your feet had to climb then to reach the light. But that was just for a stone. This time it's a boy— a child of God, Peter. This time it's your thoughts that have to climb. They have to climb up out of material mists to where the light of divine Truth and Love shines brightly."

Peter tried to understand. Because he had always attended the Christian Science Sunday School, he knew he should understand about seeing Jackie Strong as a child of God. "We have to know he really reflects God," he said slowly. "But he's big and strong, Father, and lie thinks he's tough!"

Father still didn't seem to believe it. He was still smiling when he opened Peter's copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. "That's mortal thought looking at a material boy." said Father. "It's material belief that thinks it's strong and tough and tells you so. Here's what Mrs. Eddy says we must do to correct wrong thinking," and Father read (p. 262). "We must reverse our feeble flutterings —our efforts to find life and truth in matter—and rise above the testimony of the material senses, above the mortal to the immortal idea of God."

"'Rise above.' that means climb higher, doesn't it?" asked Peter eagerly. "That means climbing, as you said."

"Of course," agreed Father. "Climb right up there now and take your thought of Jackie Strong up to the light of Truth. Can't you see him as an immortal idea of God?"

Peter thought of the definition of God that he had learned in Sunday school: "The great I am; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love" (Science and Health, p. 587).

There was a small silence, like the silence of sunlight that shone right down upon them. Then Peter smiled, for suddenly he knew why Father hadn't once believed the things he had been saying about Jackie Strong—because they were not true.

In the shadowed path he had seen only a rough stone, but when he had taken it up to the light he had seen shining colors and beauty. Now, in mists of matter, he had seen only a rough little boy, but when he climbed up in his thought—up to God's truth and love—shining like a light— he saw lovely things shining in his thoughts of Jackie Strong, because he knew that Jackie was, in his real being, the perfect idea of God.

"Jackie reflects Life." he said then, "and Truth, and Love, too. He can't reflect anything that isn't good, and neither can I."

"That's it," agreed Father. "Now you've climbed higher, Son. Now you really see him in the light of God's truth, which is always here, if you climb in your thought." Father read from the Bible then, the third verse of the first chapter of Genesis, which Peter knew so well, "God said. Let there be light: and there was light."

"And it's here now," said Peter, with a sigh of satisfaction. "God's light is here now."

"The light of Truth and Love," added Father. And again he read from Science and Health (p. 516): "Love, redolent with unselfishness, bathes all in beauty and light."

The sound of someone coming up the stairs made Peter and his father turn. And there was Jackie Strong, standing in the doorway.

"Your mother let me in. Peter," he said with a grin. "She said to come right up here and I'd find you. I wanted to know if you'd like to come over to my house and see my new dog."

"Sure I would!" exclaimed Peter.

"And say," added Jackie, as they started down the stairs, "I was only fooling about wanting to be captain of the ball team. You're the best captain, really."

Father watched the two boys clatter down the stairs, arm in arm, and he still smiled. And why shouldn't he?

The one sovereign cure for a sense of futility and frustration is faith in God. If anyone's faith in God were complete, so that he trusted God with his whole being, that would give direction and meaning to every moment of his time and every jot of his activity.

William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury