Article February 28, 1953 Issue

DIANA USED THE DICTIONARY

[Of Special Interest to Children]

BEVERLY BOND FROST

The children in the fourth grade are taught how to look in the dictionary for meanings of words they do not understand. Diana, who has attended the Christian Science Sunday School since she was a little girl, has been learning how important it is to understand the words in the Bible and in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, for it is often the understanding of these words that brings about healing. Now that she is in the fourth grade in school Diana is finding that looking in the dictionary for clearer meanings of difficult words helps her not only in her schoolwork, but also in demonstrating Christian Science.

In Sunday School she has learned that God is the only cause and creator. Everything He makes is good. God is all-presence; therefore nothing unlike good can really exist. God makes man in His own image. An image is always like its original; so man is completely good. He reflects Life, Truth, and Love, and so has no illness and no false traits of character. Whenever Diana has seemed to be ill, the knowledge of Truth has always healed her. It was pointed out to her in Sunday School that Truth will also heal bad traits of character. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (pp. 142, 143), "Truth is God's remedy for error of every kind, and Truth destroys only what is untrue."

One day she and her mother talked about this for a long time. There had been many times when Diana had not wanted to do the things her parents, or teachers, or friends had asked her to do. Often they were just little things. For example, one afternoon she was reminded to put her bicycle in the garage instead of leaving it out in front of the house when she was going in for supper and would not be going out again until the next day, and she replied, "I don't want to." She just did not want to because she did not want to, with no good reason at all. At other times she would become so stubborn about something that she would get very angry and even cry. So Diana and her mother decided to apply the truth of man's nature to destroy the error of stubbornness.

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