"WHO'S A SISSY?"

[Of Special Interest to Children]

RICHARD H. CHASE

One Sunday morning in a Christian Science Sunday School a nine-year-old boy was misbehaving. He was punching, interrupting, and generally disturbing the members of his class, composed of boys and girls his own age. After the teacher had tried unsuccessfully to quiet him, she suddenly turned to the boy and said, "You're a sissy."

Much surprised by this unexpected remark, the boy was momentarily at a loss for words. Finally, he collected himself and said: "Who's a sissy? I'm not. I'm a tough guy. I can beat up all the kids in my neighborhood." After this outburst, he swaggered a bit in his chair as if to re-establish himself in the eyes of his classmates and prove that he was a "tough guy."

This display of arrogance, however, did not ruffle his teacher, who said: "Today you've been acting like a sissy, because you have let error handle you and tell you just what to do and say. Mary Baker Eddy tells us that 'error is a coward before Truth' (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 368). Then, if error is the coward, everyone who yields to error and sides with error is a sissy. Sometimes we have to be tough with error. We have to talk up to it and oppose it; but that takes courage."

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