Sunday School Notes and Comments

Abundant fruitage proves that the Christian Science Sunday Schools are doing their part toward the fulfillment of Mrs. Eddy's revelation. In the Church Manual by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 17) we read that "at a meeting of the Christian Scientist Association, April 12, 1879, on motion of Mrs. Eddy, it was voted,—To organize a church designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing."

Several members of a class of lively young children came to Sunday school one morning, eager to tell the teacher and other members of the class about a moving picture, giving a vivid description of war, which they had seen the day before. The members of the class who had not seen the picture desired to hear the details. The teacher, who had planned a review of the Ten Commandments for that day's lesson, felt a momentary sense of dismay when she found the thoughts of the pupils so filled with images of war and bloodshed. Then she lifted her thought to God in prayer, that she might be shown how to turn the thoughts of those little ones away from warlike scenes to the contemplation of God as universal Love and of the brotherhood of man. The answer came, and when the time for the lesson arrived, the teacher asked the class what wrong ways of thinking made men believe that they wanted to go to war and fight one another. The class named such false beliefs as fear, hatred, greed, jealousy, envy, dishonesty, selfishness, and pride. The teacher asked the class whether any of these false traits belonged to man made in the image and likeness of God. The reply was that not one of them any part of the real man of God's creating. Then the class talked for a while about the true qualities of God reflected by man, of which the unlovely traits they had mentioned were unreal opposites, and several of the Beatitudes were cited in bringing out the good qualities expressed by man.

Next, the teacher asked the class which of the Ten Commandments, if obeyed, would prevent men from going to war. The answer came at once, "The First Commandment!" "Because," said one little boy, "if all men knew there is only one God and that God is Love, they would all love one another and there would not be any reason for fighting!" Then the second commandment was named; and so on through the tenth, the class giving, in each case, the specific reason why obedience to that particular commandment would help to prevent war. An animated discussion of the Commandments and their spiritual meaning and practical application then took place, and the pupils learned a little more about how to apply the lessons which they teach. Moreover, their thoughts had been turned away from mere contemplation of war. "Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain."

Mrs. Eddy's beautiful words about love in "Miscellaneous Writings" may well be carefully considered by Sunday school teachers and officers (p. 250): "As a human quality, the glorious significance of affection is more than words: it is the tender, unselfish deed done in secret; the silent, ceaseless prayer; the self-forgetful heart that overflows; the veiled form stealing on an errand of mercy, out of a side door; the little feet tripping along the sidewalk; the gentle hand opening the door that turns toward want and woe, sickness and sorrow, and thus lighting the dark places of earth."

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"Unto the perfect day"

November 16, 1940

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