The Faith of a Child

EDMUND K. GOLDSBOROUGH

Evidently William Wordsworth recognized the receptivity of the child to the sweet influences of Spirit, since in a beautiful ode he clearly depicts that the child, until contaminated by the world of sense, loves all that is pure and unsullied. In the early dawn of life, to most of us the world perhaps seemed "apparell'd in celestial light," to use the poet's words. "Heaven," indeed, "lies about us in our infancy," as Wordsworth affirms, but not until the educated beliefs about man as separated from God, the parent Mind, find lodgment in his thought, do

"Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy.
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy."

Due to false systems of education, however, he is soon impregnated with the notion that he is more or less a slave to the vicissitudes of life, and hence the hope of heaven or harmony is relegated to a vague, suppositional condition beyond the grave. If men and women the world over would but accept Christian Science and so learn to avail themselves of the mental simplicity of childhood, or, in other words, keep their thoughts attuned to the sweet concord of Spirit, the animalistic tendencies would disintegrate, and the clean, clear realization which Mrs. Eddy has so beautifully expressed in Science and Health (p. 184) would dawn upon their thought, that "controlled by the divine intelligence, man is harmonious and eternal."

Jesus, the master Metaphysician and certainly the model for mankind to follow in all times and under all conditions, clearly saw that the human mentality must be cleansed of carnal dross superinduced by self-will and wholly erroneous thinking. Calling a child to his side he exhorted his followers to humble themselves and become "as this little child" if, indeed, they wished to enter the kingdom of heaven. Through this wonderful object lesson the Nazarene forcibly impressed his followers with the fact that simplicity of spiritual thinking and not so-called intellectuality, best reveals the spiritual idea.

The simple trust in good and its infinite power to sustain, were so forcibly illustrated to me several years ago by a small lad of three that the incident made an indelible impression. In midwinter I had gone to the country to spend the day, and upon alighting from the car started to the house of some friends who lived at the top of a near-by hill, which was slippery with a coating of ice. I had walked a block or more when the little fellow in question came racing toward me, apparently oblivious of the fact that the ground was slippery or that there was any possibility of his falling. Upon reaching my side he looked up with the happy, confidential smile which so often characterizes the child still uneducated in the falsities of mortal thinking, and evidently noticing that I was carefully picking my way, said, "I can run down the hill on the ice without falling!" "How is that?" I inquired, deeply interested by this remarkable show of confidence. "Why," he replied, "I keep saying my prayers." "To whom do you pray?" I then asked. "To God, of course," he answered, as if surprised by such a query. Desirous of knowing what the word "God" conveyed to his budding thought, I said, "And what is God?" Looking up into my face with an expression of beautiful innocence and trust he replied simply, but with a wealth of meaning: "Love."

The little boy had clearly accepted what so many countless multitudes have overlooked and still overlook; namely, that man is in truth upheld by an infinite and ever loving presence, and this knowledge had actually enabled him to run and play even on the slippery ice, without any peril whatsoever. Indeed, the child appeared to be hugely enjoying the occasion, and the fear of slipping or suffering from the cold, which seemed intense, was altogether foreign to his thinking.

The thought then presented itself that if the world at large had accepted the simple truth as explained in Christian Science, that man is divinely sustained, the manacles of sense would have long since been broken; and people, far from being enmeshed in the web of physical being, would be enjoying the peace and freedom which invariably accompany the knowledge that man is not at the mercy of a false, mortal mentality. Revealing the might of immortal Spirit not only to support man but to destroy forever the errors produced by erroneous thinking, Mrs. Eddy has written in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 103), "The truths of immortal Mind sustain man, and they annihilate the fables of mortal mind, whose flimsy and gaudy pretensions, like silly moths, singe their own wings and fall into dust."

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit