Article April 18, 1953 Issue

BE A TRUE WITNESS

[Of Special Interest to Children]

JEAN M. GARBER

SUSAN had learned the Ten Commandments in the Christian Science Sunday School. She was happy to be able to say them without any help. She went over them as she passed from one class to another so that she would remember and understand them better.

Susan was eight now. She was reviewing the commandment (Ex. 20:16), "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour," and she asked her mother what "false witness" meant. Her mother explained to her that "false" means something that is not true and that a witness is someone who tells something he knows or sees. We are true witness when we see and tell only that which is true; we are false witnesses when we see or tell what is not true. When we see man as loving, pure, and happy we are seeing God's man; that is, the real man, and we are being true witnesses. But when we see and talk about man as sick, unhappy, hateful, or unkind we are bearing false witness against God and His son, man. We are believing that God, who is Love and only good, can make man—His image and likeness—the opposite of good, which is evil.

Susan sat listening and thinking. Presently she asked, "And what about 'thy neighbour'?" Her mother told her that our neighbor is not just the person who lives next door to us, but is everyone we see or think about, and that we can have good neighbors or bad ones according to the way we think about them. A big smile was on Susan's face now. "How wonderful," she said. "I can have just as many neighbors as I think about, and I can help everybody and be his neighbor by thinking good thoughts about him."

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

CONTROLLING EMOTIONS