Dear Young Friends:

This is the season when many of you are coming back to school after the summer holidays. I assume that most of you already know something about Christian Science and are attendants at the Sunday School and so will understand my references to this teaching. I am confident that you are familiar with the First Commandment (Ex. 20:3), "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Without doubt you also have read that passage from "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy which reads (p. 467), "What are the demands of the Science of Soul?" And the answer is given: "The first demand of this Science is, 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me.' This me is Spirit. Therefore the command means this: Thou shalt have no intelligence, no life, no substance, no truth, no love, but that which is spiritual. The second is like unto it, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.'"

As you learned in Sunday School, this is the very foundation stone of Christian Science, and with this understanding you are equipped to live happily and successfully and to deal intelligently with problems of health, schoolwork, and play. But sometimes even seasoned students of Christian Science have moments when they seem to forget that God gives His children dominion over evil and discord, and allow disturbed and unloving thoughts to take possession of them for a while.

For instance, when the vacation days are nearing an end, does the thought of returning to school sometimes bring a sense of unhappiness and what might be called a sinking of the heart? Does something whisper that you don't like school anyway, that you wish you might stay at home? Right here there is need of turning to the First Commandment and making very sure that this is being obeyed. In listening to the subtle suggestions just mentioned, are you not having another god, another mind, than the one infinite God, who is good, and Love, and Truth, and from whom can come only thoughts of strength, of harmony and progressive unfoldment?

Of one thing we may be very sure, and that is that God, the only Mind and intelligence of the universe, does not impart to His ideas any possible consciousness of discord, unhappiness, confusion, or defeat. Hear this clear statement from the Old Testament (Jer. 29:11): "I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end." Therefore challenge am disturbing suggestion about your schooling, or about any other plain duty, knowing that these thoughts are not from God, and so they must be unreal, powerless.

See any disturbing suggestion as a temptation of the so-called carnal mind to make you believe in minds many, and then deal with it as Jesus did when he said sternly to the tempter (Luke 4:8)! "Get thee behind me, Satan"! It will be remembered that when the Master rebuked error and thus robbed it of power and activity, angels came to strengthen him; and everyone who has attended the Christian Science Sunday School will doubtless recall Mrs. Eddy's description of angels (Science and Health, p. 298), "Angels are pure thoughts from God, winged with Truth and Love, no matter what their individualism may be."

So when you bravely silence the unhappy mortal mind suggestions about returning to school by obeying the First Commandment—acknowledging the presence and power of the one Mind—see what comforting angel thoughts will come to you. Knowing also that any sense of homesickness, if your school is away from your home city, comes not from the heavenly Father-Mother, and therefore is as unreal as any dream you had last night, you will be able to go through days and evenings without a lump in your throat or a tugging at your heartstrings. Having no other gods but divine Love, you are not away from Love's tender care for a moment and really can know no feeling of sadness or separation.

Does the thought sometimes come that you do not make friends very readily and that possibly you won't be popular with your schoolmates? Or has mortal mind whispered to You that you are very sensitive and can get your feelings hurt easily? If you listen to these suggestions, how many minds are you believing in? The one Mind, God, does not impart any such thoughts to His creation.

Be quick to detect the spurious, counterfeit nature of any discordant whisperings the moment they appear; deny them as godless, unreal, and then turn to the one Mind, which is Love, with gratitude, declaring that man, God's reflection, is loving, lovable, and loved. Is it difficult for you to feel loving toward some of your teachers? Remember this: if you are declaring that God's child can have an irritable disposition, or can be anything but the manifestation of divine Love, you are not seeing the man that God sees. Most schoolteachers respond readily to the loving, appreciative thought of pupils. Theirs is not an easy task; have you thought of that? Should it not be a happy privilege to lighten their load by obeying the First Commandment and declaring many times a day the presence of the one Mind?

And when it comes to the question of one's studies, should not the young person who begins and ends each day with the realization that God is his intelligence, and that man can never be separated from the one Mind, find the schoolwork less laborious and his marks better? After all, the work of everyone who names the name of Christian Scientist is indicated in a few lines in Science and Health (p. 392). We read: "Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously." Armed with the sword of Truth, we can forbid entrance into our mental homes of every mortal mind suggestion which would rob us of peace, and happiness, and success. Let us be alert porters, joyous and triumphant porters, because, having no other God, no other Mind, but infinite good, we have power to bid error be gone and stay gone. "The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice"! (Ps. 97:1.)

John Randall Dunn