Reference to previous discussions is often a substantial aid in teaching the Sunday School lessons. It might even be said that a certain amount of such review or repetition is essential to good teaching. Although the mere repetition of words may become dull and uninteresting, when words are associated with spiritual ideas, repetition tends to make them more meaningful and impressive.

The value of repetition may be illustrated in the study of a language. When one is studying a language he acquires in his first lesson a beginning vocabulary. In the next lesson he learns a few more words which he is able to use in connection with the vocabulary already acquired. So it is with the third and succeeding lessons. Words once learned are not dropped for new ones, but are carried along and used with the new ones to enable the student to express himself more fully in that language. So in teaching a Sunday School class, a Biblical episode or a passage from the Bible or "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy which the teacher wishes especially to impress upon the thought of the pupils may be emphasized by repeating it in successive lessons in new and varied applications. Thus the earlier lessons are not forgotten through lack of use, but are enhanced by association with later ones; and the pupils learn to value them as beacon lights along their own pathway.

Usually the Sunday School teacher expects that his pupils, those who have not already done so, will memorize the first lessons verbatim; that is, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer with its spiritual interpretation, given by Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health, and the Beatitudes. It has been found that this is not difficult for the pupils to accomplish when the lessons are repeatedly applied to different phases of their experience; in other words, when they are repeated with understanding.

This is illustrated in the case of a young man of eighteen who came into a Sunday School class with other pupils of his own age without knowing the Beatitudes. He had attended the Christian Science Sunday School for some years, and he knew some of the phraseology of the passages—the beginnings and the endings—but was unable to put the parts together properly. Perhaps at some time in his Sunday School experience he had learned to repeat the passages verbatim, but because their meaning and applicability were not impressed upon his thought, the words became disconnected phrases with little spiritual significance. He needed to appreciate the value of these lessons.

One Sunday in class the teacher made plain to the pupils how the Beatitudes when understood could be used to enrich their entire human experience. They were greatly interested, and two weeks from that date the new pupil in discussing the Lesson-Sermon as given in the Christian Science Quarterly quoted a number of times from the Beatitudes. His teacher said to him, "Well, George, you really have learned the Beatitudes, haven't you?" His reply was, "Yes, and I learned them not by just repeating the words but by trying to understand them." As he grew in understanding he gained also in ability to apply them.

Sometimes when a pupil is asked about one of the great Biblical characters, it is found that he remembers little more than the name of the person. Is not this because the child has not been sufficiently impressed to try to express in his own living the qualities that made that one great? Perhaps most of the primary classes are told about the boy Samuel who in infancy learned to listen for the voice of God and to pray, "Speak; for thy servant heareth" (I Sam. 3:10). Now, why is it that the pupil does not always learn to listen as did Samuel? May it not be because he has not been reminded in subsequent lessons of Samuel's boyhood experience? Perhaps he has not associated Samuel's early training with the wisdom which enabled him in a great national crisis to choose and anoint a king under divine direction.

One teacher of an older group of boys and girls made a point of repeating at intervals this early experience of Samuel's until the pupils were thoroughly impressed with it. When there occurred in the Lesson-Sermon a reference to Samuel and his visit to the home of Jesse for the purpose of finding Saul's successor to the throne, the class discussed again Samuel's childhood experience, and the pupils recognized that it was because Samuel had learned to listen that he could not make a mistake in his choice. Even though he knew that the king was to be chosen from the sons of Jesse and he thought that all the sons were before him, he was not led to make a decision until the youngest son, David, the future king, was brought in from the field. Thus the pupils were impressed with the importance of listening, and they gained a fuller appreciation of our Leader's hymn which begins, "Shepherd, show me how to go" (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 304).

A later Lesson-Sermon on the subject of "Mind" included a passage from the chapter on "Recapitulation" in our textbook. Science and Health, which reads, as part of the answer to the question, "What is intelligence?" (p. 469), "Intelligence is omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence." Again the episode of Samuel was discussed, and the pupils saw that Samuel by turning to God for guidance had proved that "intelligence is omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence." They also learned that in their own experience, when they need to make an important decision or are called upon to choose between two or more possibilities, or when they are seeking for something needful and right, they can turn to this passage in the textbook, consider it in connection with their own situation, and be guided as divinely and intelligently as Samuel was. This kind of repetition never becomes monotonous, for the varied applications of infinite truth are always fresh and inspiring.