Article October 27, 1951 Issue

"BELOVED CHILDREN"

CHARLES GREEN

In one of those incomparable word pictures for which the Bible is unequaled, the prophet Zechariah portrays the ideal Jerusalem thus (8:5): "The streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof." This simple phraseology depicts, in that divine state of consciousness known as heaven, the presence of child qualities, such as innocence, purity, spontaneous gaiety, and unbiased affection.

Later the great Way-shower, Christ Jesus, repeatedly stressed the necessity for the expression of the child qualities as the only acceptable passport to the kingdom of heaven. "Verily I say unto you." he averred, "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein" (Mark 10:15). Note that he even said a little child, and in an interview with Nicodemus, the ruler of the Jews, who came to him by night, he straightway emphasized the need to be born again, not of any human parent, but of the Spirit, from which alone emanates the true idea of childlikeness.

When warning them of his imminent departure, Jesus addressed his apprehensive disciples as "little children" with all the tender compassion of a fond mother reassuring her little ones. Calling for a similar state of childlike trust and receptivity in present-day disciples, Mary Baker Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 189), "When, as little children, we are receptive, become willing to accept the divine Principle and rule of being, as unfolded in divine Science, the interpretation therein will be found to be the Comforter that leadeth into all truth."

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