"Out of the mouth of babes"

ELMA E. WILLIAMS

As a man was driving an automobile along a country road one day last summer, one wheel of the machine dropped into a rut. The effort to extricate the car caused it to veer across the road and collide with a boy who was coming from the opposite direction on his bicycle. The bicycle was smashed, and before the driver could stop the car, two wheels—a front and a rear one—had passed over the boy's body. The driver was badly frightened, and ere he could collect his wits sufficiently to find out what had happened to the boy, the lad was standing beside him and saying, "Don't be alarmed, sir, I'm not hurt a bit."

Following this car was another automobile in which was a veterinary surgeon, who had witnessed the accident. This man refused to accept the boy's statement that he was unharmed. From his standpoint it seemed impossible that a heavy car could pass over a child's body without doing it some harm. He kindly took the lad and his broken bicycle home. On arriving there he insisted that an examination should be made, and to satisfy him the mother examined the boy's body and found it absolutely unharmed.

Now this mother is a working Christian Scientist, and by this is meant that she uses her understanding of Christian Science in a practical, sensible way, and teaches her children to use theirs in the same manner. She does not do their Science work for them, but has them do it. If the problem seems tolerably hard for them, her attention is directed toward increasing the children's understanding of Truth rather than toward relieving them of demonstrating it. Her children are sent to a Christian Science Sunday school and are taught to study the Lesson-Sermon as regularly and as thoroughly as they study their lessons for school. Then if discords arise they are taught to use what they have gained from their study in solving the difficulty.

The incident related above occurred on a Saturday. The Lesson-Sermon to be read in the Christian Science churches the following day was on the subject, "Is the Universe, including Man, Evolved by Atomic Force?" There had been a great many references in this Lesson-Sermon to the effect that matter is unreal, and these children had been obliged to study hard in order to grasp the spiritual fact, for matter seemed pretty real to them. The mother had overheard them discussing the Lesson among themselves during the week, and she told the writer that she was confident it was the truth her son had gained from this study, operating in his consciousness, which saved him from injury. When questioned by his mother concerning his thought during the incident, he said: "Why, I just knew that God is our Life;" and then he added that he also realized the nothingness of matter.

While going through this experience the child not only had no fear, but he maintained great presence of mind, even after the front wheel had gone over his body. The father of the boy is not a Christian Scientist, and he was filled with fear on seeing his son brought home with a demolished bicycle. The fear, however, was turned to gratitude and amazement when he learned the facts. He could not quite understand it and wanted to talk about it. Here again the boy put into practice his understanding of the truth, for he said, "Now let's not talk any more about it."

This boy's demonstration of God as the Life of man, and of the protecting power of a right sense of substance, has been so helpful to the writer that she wishes to share it with others. We have in this demonstration a practical illustration of the work which the Christian Science Sunday schools are doing in training the children to become right thinkers; we have also a proof of what is gained by having children study the Lesson-Sermon for themselves, leaving the unfolding of Truth in the child-consciousness to God's own guidance. We have, moreover, a proof that parents make a serious mistake when they try to do the child's work for him. Finally, we have a rebuke for that state of consciousness which declares that Christian Science is difficult to understand or cannot be understood; which says the Lesson-Sermons are incomprehensible, and the like. Here was a boy, less than a dozen years old, who proved that he could gain enough understanding of Christian Science to find protection and freedom in a very trying experience, to say the least. Paul says, "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God," and conversely it may be stated that the wisdom of God is foolishness with this world.

Proofs of God's ever-presence and power in the child life should make us all more awake to the import of the Master's words: "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight."

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