Article September 20, 1969 Issue

Let's Not Be Fooled by Error!

[For children]

JOANNE F. OTTO

A teacher once said to a boy in a Christian Science Sunday School class, "Bob, there's a bird's beak growing on your face!" Of course Bob started to laugh. He wasn't fooled for a moment. He knew very well that there couldn't possibly be a bird's beak on his face.

A little later his teacher said to him, "Bob, there's a smudge on your nose!" This time Bob didn't laugh. Instead, he put his hand up to his face to wipe away the smudge. But there was no smudge! The smudge was no more real than the bird's beak had been. But for just a few seconds Bob had thought it was real, and this thought had given the lie its power to make him act as if the smudge were real. Once he realized that it was only a lie, he could laugh at it just the way he'd laughed at the lie about the bird's beak. It couldn't fool him any more.

Isn't that just the way error works? It tries to convince you it's a cold or an unkind classmate or a failing test grade or just a bad mood. But Mrs. Eddy tells us: "Error is always error. It is no thing." ^{Science and Health, p. 554;}