"A new commandment"

[Of Special Interest to Children]

RUTH C. BARLOW

Ellen loved the Christian Science Sunday School. On Sundays she enjoyed walking to church with her father, who was an usher and had to be there early. A little later Mother went in the car with Ellen's younger brothers.

One Sunday morning as Ellen and her father started out for church, a girl about Ellen's age came along on her bicycle. As she passed, the girl looked right at Ellen but rode on without speaking.

"Do you know this girl?" Ellen's father asked.

"That's Victoria," Ellen replied. "She's new in our school, but we don't know her very well."

Then she went on to explain that she and her friends were starting a new club, and they didn't want Victoria in it. Ellen was enthusiastic about the club, and she was glad of an opportunity to tell her father about it.

"Yes, that sounds fine for you," he said. "But what about the new girl? Does she have friends too?"

Ellen began to feel uncomfortable. She answered that she supposed Victoria had friends of her own kind.

"I hope so," said her father slowly. "It isn't always easy for a new girl to make friends— especially when others are not friendly," he added.

Ellen's face clouded. It did seem as though Victoria had spoiled this usually happy time with her father, and they walked on in silence.

As they came in sight of the church her father asked Ellen if she knew all the Commandments by heart.

"Oh, yes!" Ellen exclaimed. "And all the Beatitudes too! And we know what they mean. At least," she added, "we keep learning more of what they mean."

Her father nodded his approval. "That's good," he said. "We all need to understand them better and practice what we understand."

Ellen smiled and said that she knew this too. It would mean really living Christian Science, not just repeating the words.

Her father quickly agreed. Then as they went up the steps of the church he asked if she knew that there was a new commandment in the Bible.

Ellen was surprised. "A new commandment?" she asked. "I thought the Bible was old and that we'd had it always."

Her father assured her that although we had had the Bible for hundreds of years, still there was a new commandment in it. And he asked Ellen if she would like to look it up before Sunday School. She would find it in the thirteenth chapter of John, verse 34. He added that this would be a good commandment to learn.

"And then to live," Ellen added with a smile.

Father went on to join the ushers, and Ellen looked up the reference in the Bible. She whispered the words to herself as she read the verse slowly, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another."

During Sunday School that morning Ellen told the class about the new commandment of Jesus. They decided that to love one another as Jesus did would mean to express loving consideration and unselfishness to everyone and always to see another as the perfect child whom God created and loved.

Their teacher pointed out Mrs. Eddy's words on page 4 of Science and Health, "To keep the commandments of our Master and follow his example, is our proper debt to him and the only worthy evidence of our gratitude for all that he has done."

That afternoon Ellen went off alone for a ride on her bicycle. When she returned home, the new girl was riding along with her. Ellen took Victoria up to the porch to meet her parents.

"This is Vicky," Ellen said. "Vicky is new here, and we are all happy because she is going to join our club."

Mother and Father welcomed Vicky cordially. They noted her shy but very happy smile. And they saw a happy light in Ellen's eyes.

That evening as Ellen kissed her father good night, she whispered, "Thank you for telling me about the new commandment, Father."

As her father looked into Ellen's radiant face, he smiled warmly. And Ellen knew that he understood she was already learning to obey the new commandment: to love another as Jesus had loved.

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Editorial

"A rule in Christian Science"

September 22, 1962

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