ONLY GOOD IS TRUE AND REAL

[Of Special Interest to Children]

EDITH R. DOANE

Barry is a boy who lives with his parents in the country. He enjoys living there and spends many happy hours playing with his friends. He likes the city also and occasionally visits his aunt in Boston. She is a Christian Scientist. He especially likes to spend a week end with her, because then he goes to the Christian Science Sunday School.

Some of the truths that Barry has learned in the Christian Science Sunday School are that God is Love, that God is good, and that His love and goodness are everywhere. Barry has also learned that he is really God's perfect, spiritual child, and that when he is loving and good he is expressing God. And he knows that whatever is not good is called error. Each time he goes to Sunday School he learns more of God and of his own true self, made in God's image and likeness.

Once in a while, when Barry forgets about God and His love and goodness and listens to error, things do not seem to go just right. One week end his aunt went to visit him at his home. He and his father drove to the station to meet her. They had not gone very far on the trip home when Barry said that he felt very sick. His aunt knew that when we listen to what error tries to tell us, error sometimes seems very real, and that we often need to have someone help us know that it is not true or real. She knew that God's image and likeness is never sick. She gently reminded him that he was God's perfect child, and that God's love was right there where he was caring for him and protecting him from all error, including sickness. She assured him that he reflected health and could not express even a small part of error. Barry listened carefully and agreed. In a very short time he felt fine.

When they reached home Barry ran into the house saying joyously to his mother: "Oh, Mummie, I feel so well. I feel just as if I had never been sick. And God helped me!" He had been feeling ill for a few days, and his mother was pleased to know that he was well and happy again.

Later his aunt explained to him that when he had told his mother he felt as if he had never been sick, he had spoken the truth, because God's child has never been sick and never can be sick. She read to him from the Bible a verse which he had learned in Sunday School (Gen. 1:31): "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."

"Since everything that God makes is good," his aunt said, "God's image and likeness cannot be sick, because sickness is not good. It does not come from God and is not real. Only good is true and real." She explained that it is error that says God's child is sick. Then they turned to the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and she read him something of what Mary Baker Eddy says about error. It is on page 472: "Error is unreal because untrue. It is that which seemeth to be and is not."

Barry suddenly exclaimed: "If error is not true it is a lie, and I don't believe a lie. If error tries to tell me again that I am sick, I won't believe it!"

The best part of this story is that Barry has been strong and healthy since he has learned that sickness is not real. He is beginning to understand that only good is true and real.

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