Article June 21, 1947 Issue

Bible Stories for Tiny Tots

The little one is constantly learning, constantly receiving impressions. These impressions are either erroneous or truthful. They are inclining thought either toward Spirit or toward matter. Either the child is learning to maintain in himself the childlike qualities that Jesus loved—innocence, purity, receptivity—or he is inclining toward selfishness and all that goes to make up a false material sense of existence. Our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, wisely points out: "Too much cannot be done towards guarding and guiding well the germinating and inclining thought of childhood. To mould aright the first impressions of innocence, aids in perpetuating purity and in unfoldidng the immortal model, man in His image and likeness" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 261).

However simple the instruction, it must be sound. Milk is proper food for babes; but there must be no adulteration, no slightest departure into fable in an attempt to reach the child's thought. What the child learns in infancy is far-reaching in effect. If he learns each Sunday something of the pure basic truths of Christian Science, something of the ever-presence and all-power of God, good, and learns by Scriptural illustration that Truth and Love are to be accepted as real, and that evil is to be rejected as unreal, these simple, truthful beginnings will continue to unfold in thought and to provide a refuge from the host of untruths which present themselves in his daily activities.

Teachers of the little tots need to be well equipped with simple Bible stories to illustrate the first lessons required by the Church Manual (see Art. XX, Sect. 3), and should be prepared to relate them accurately and winningly in language that the little ones can understand. The simple detail of a story, which an adult takes for granted, is often specially interesting to little children and helps them to grasp the significance of the narrative. In relating a Bible story the teacher needs to take advantage of the opportunities which the story affords to inspire the little ones with a love for all that is good and true, remembering as our Leader points out (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 21), "Mere historic incidents and personal events are frivolous and of no moment, unless they illustrate the ethics of Truth."

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