When I was in the first grade I had an experience that remains sharply outlined in thought. As background, I should mention that our home had broken up when I was sixteen months old because my mother had become seriously ill. A strong loyalty, however, held immediate relatives together, so aunts and uncles took my brother and me into their homes at various times over a period of about five years. These were difficult days financially; there was seldom any money left over for extras.

On this particular day the little girl who sat in front of me at school was absent, and I saw a penny in clear view just inside her desk. When no one was looking, I took the penny and bought some cookies during recess—something I had longed to do all year.

Just a short while later, however, I found I could not eat those cookies. Instinctively I knew I had done something wrong, and I felt in my heart I could never do anything like that again. No human voice had given warning. Yet a clear message, though inaudible, had come to a five-year-old—and an unmistakable lesson was learned!

Within a year or so Christian Science came into our lives. Through it my mother was healed; she returned, and the family became stable and strong. As the teachings of this Science have grown to be integral to my life, I have often thought about my experience after taking the penny and realized how important the moral demands of God's law are in human experience. I've since come to see the real spiritual power implicit in this passage from the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded Christian Science: "Moral conditions will be found always harmonious and health-giving." ^{Science and Health, p. 125.}

The moral qualities embodied in the Ten Commandments were deeply embedded in our family tradition, and the importance of obedience to this law surfaced in my experience because it had been woven into the fiber of my daily life. Trying to live moral qualities consistently has helped me as a wife and mother and contributed to building a firm moral foundation for our family. When moral qualities are loved and lived, they bring good to others' lives also.

But the Science of Christ takes us further still. It not only promotes obedience to moral law; it shows us that this law really stems from divine Love, which is God Himself, ever present and ever active. From this Love emanates the divine grace that saves and heals. Christ Jesus' God-given mission made this eminently clear. The Gospel of John says, "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." ^{John 1:17.}

Because God is Love and is the source and enforcer of all righteous law, the law of Love underlies and supports His creation. Christian Science teaches one God, divine Spirit, the only Mind or intelligence, the Principle of all, maintaining the universe, including His children, in perfect accord through this law of Love. Every genuine intuition has its origin in Mind. Every right idea reflects divine Principle. All good comes from the Father of good, the one God. As the sons and daughters of this all-loving Parent, we can never be outside His law.

Few better illustrations of the nature of God's universal fatherhood could be given than what Luke's Gospel tells us of the boy Jesus.

Jesus had gone to Jerusalem with Mary and Joseph for the Passover. On the return trip they found that he was missing from their group of travelers. Although it may seem strange to us that they did not discover his absence till they had been journeying a whole day, some commentators, comparing more recent customs in Bible lands, suggest that the women would have started earlier than the men and the two groups would have met later at the evening encampment. It is likely that Mary thought Jesus was with Joseph and vice versa. Whatever may have happened, Mary and Joseph were evidently deeply concerned.

They returned to Jerusalem and found Jesus in the temple, listening to the rabbis and asking them questions. Mary anxiously asked, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing." Jesus replied, "How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" Yet it was clear that Jesus cherished and respected his human family. "And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them." ^{Luke 2:48, 49, 51.} Not only was this respect and obedience in accord with the Mosaic law, but it hints at that higher sense of love, the Christliness which Jesus embodied so fully and perfectly as the Messiah.

Christian Science brings assurance that God's law provides guidance in every situation on the basis of man's oneness with the Father and man's sinlessness as the perfect offspring of perfect, divine Principle. It teaches parents and children that they can rely on God in times of trouble. It awakens thought to spiritual intuitions that help avert mistakes. And even when mistakes are made, and we may feel that our children or we ourselves least deserve God's love, by humbly turning to Him we can find and follow the leadings of God's law.

It is impossible always to be with our children. Only one Parent can do that; and His angels, His thoughts, are always with us. Understanding this helps us know that wherever our children are, whatever their age, the one Mind, divine Love, is ever present and ever available, already supplying the human need. This kind of reasoning aids in guiding our thoughts and prayers when our teen-age daughter or son is out long after curfew or even when our kindergartner needs to make a decision at the simplest level of honesty.

During the years of the Exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land, the Mosaic law held the children of Israel together under one God. The moral law of the Ten Commandments helped prepare thought to receive the Christ message Jesus brought of God's love for all His children. To many, such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, whose stories are included in the Bible, the Word of God, with its spiritual and moral demands, came through clear divine messages. For the boy Samuel, it was an audible call heard three times. To the prophet Elijah it came as "a still small voice." The great prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah brought messages of comfort and warning from God to His people.

God's Word has been heard and understood in varying degrees throughout all ages, by what are termed ordinary men and women as well as those called prophets. Science and Health assures us of the ever-presence of God's Word: "The 'still, smallvoice' of scientific thought reaches over continent and ocean to the globe's remotest bound. The inaudible voice of Truth is, to the human mind, 'as when a lion roareth.' It is heard in the desert and in dark places of fear." ^{Science and Health, p. 559.}

The Bible speaks the Word of God. Through the teachings of Christian Science the Word is seen to be alive with practical meaning. Our obedience to God's law in even the smallest ways brings sweet assurance that whether adult or child, we each can hear the needed message from our Father-Mother today!