Is It Only One Hour?

The Sunday School hour is a holy one, fraught with great possibilities for the pupils. In this hour the children are taught spiritual truths which if accepted and applied will enrich and happify their entire human experience. Occasionally we find one who is inclined to regret the fact that the child is in Sunday School but one hour a week when there is so much to be taught. Perhaps this one has lost sight of the fact that in the hour the child is given a lesson to be practiced every day of the week and every hour of the day. In the lessons are possibilities for endless practice, and in the proportion that they are practiced they unfold in meaning. Just as a child who has a half-hour or an hour a week with his music teacher must practice faithfully what he is taught if he would become an accomplished musician, so the Sunday School pupil needs to practice his weekly lesson daily and hourly if he is to receive the rich blessings it holds for him.

Certainly it can be said that one major purpose of instruction is to teach one to learn—how to learn and what to learn. So it is that spiritual instruction is self-perpetuating. It is not limited to the short space of the lesson, but it continues as the lesson is practiced. A lawyer once consulted Jesus as to the requirements for inheriting eternal life. Jesus referred him to the Scriptural teaching, with which the man was familiar. And when the lawyer reiterated, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself" (Luke 10:27), the Master pointed the way in two words: "This do." The man knew the letter of the commandment and was able readily to repeat it. But this was only a beginning. He must be a doer. Not in a day was this doing to be fully accomplished, but step by step as he learned from constant practice.

The pupil who says to his Sunday School teacher, "I have no demonstration to relate today because all has gone well," has something to learn about the application of Christian Science. It is true that Christian Science is a preventive agent as well as a healing one, but the child needs to learn that Christian Science is vastly more than a system for the mere healing of physical and mental ills. He needs to learn that the practice of Christian Science is the daily putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new. The pupil who is a doer of the Word learns constantly to put off the false claims of self, such as self-will, self-love, dishonesty, hatred, greed, false ambition, disappointment, discouragement. By doing he learns devotion to Principle. He learns to love more, to be kinder, more charitable, more tolerant, more just. He learns courage and steadfastness. On the whole he learns more of love for God and man, and so proportionately comes into his divine heritage of harmonious and progressive living.

It is the great responsibility and the grand privilege of the Sunday School teacher to bring to each class that spiritual animus which inspires the pupil to "do" the Commandments, to love and to live the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy, and to seek a fuller understanding of the Science contained in her textbook. "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures."'

Young people love achievement; and as the teaching is supported by Biblical illustrations of spiritual mastery, the pupil naturally accepts it as a guide in his own daily living. Hence, he should be familiar with the great characters of the Bible and their lifework. He should know of the achievements of Abraham, Joseph. Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Elijah, David, Hezekiah, Nehemiah, and others of Old Testament times. He should be well acquainted with the triumphs of Christ Jesus over sin, sickness, and death, and with the works of the faithful apostles as recorded in the New Testament. When the child learns that these great examples are invaluable to him—something that he cannot afford to lose sight of— he finds time outside of Sunday School for the study of the lessons and for prayer and spiritual meditation. Thus he finds that the habit of regular and systematic study of the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's writings is indispensable to the building of a successful career. He is eager to be in his class each Sunday, where he is impressed anew with his true selfhood and the glorious possibilities before him—to receive another priceless hour of instruction from which through daily practice he never ceases to learn.

So our Sunday School pupils may rejoice as did our beloved Leader when she wrote in "The First Church of Christ. Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 174): "An increasing sense of God's love, omnipresence, and omnipotence enfolds me. Each day I know Him nearer, love Him more, and humbly pray to serve Him better."

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