Virtually everyone realizes the importance of right education to prepare one to take his place in the world of today. The person who lacks vocational or professional training may find it difficult to earn a livelihood, while he who is lacking in culture is at a disadvantage in society. But does the world always realize the importance of education in spiritual things?

The greatest Teacher of all time, Christ Jesus, said (John 8; 31, 32), "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed: and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Material systems have not succeeded in showing mortals how to overcome sin, disease, and death, but the truth brought to mankind by Christ Jesus, rightly understood, will make us free from all evil. This truth, lost to the world during the dark ages, was again brought to light by our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, and given to the world in Christian Science. The understanding of this truth, which reveals God's allness and the nothingness of all that is unlike Him, constitutes true spiritual education.

One of the avenues through which young people may get true spiritual education is the Christian Science Sunday School. How important that we should help our children to see the immense value of this true education in order that they may not be misled into neglecting it for things of lesser importance!

Sometimes a perplexed parent may ask: "Am I doing right in insisting that my child attend Sunday school when he does not seem to realize the need of it? Or should I let him make his own decision as to whether or not he attends?" Does the decision rest with the child alone, or does the parent have a part in this demonstration?

The parent recognizes that it is his duty to see that his child is properly clothed, fed, housed, and that he has an opportunity to get an education along paths of human advancement. The parent sees to it that his child gets an education, whether, in his immature years, he appreciates it or not, knowing that the time will come when the child will thank him for sending him to school.

In like manner we should insist that our children get true spiritual education. There need not be any sense of forcing the child to attend against his will, for earnest metaphysical work will sweep into oblivion the arguments which would keep the child away, and a pure sense of the everpresent Christ, the manifestation of infinite Love, will gently attract him to the truth.

Christ Jesus loved children. Speaking of them, he said (Matt. 18:10), "In heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." Nothing can keep our children from gaining a progressive understanding of the Christ. Truth, for there is no power opposed to God. Nothing can in reality ever separate them from their heavenly Father, omnipotent and omniscient Life, Truth, and Love.

"The exterminator of error," writes Mary Baker Eddy, "is the great truth that God good, is the only Mind, and that the supposititious opposite of infinite Mind— called devil or evil—is not Mind, is not Truth, but error, without intelligence or reality" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 469). Because God is the only Mind, there are no erroneous suggestions which can keep children out of Sunday school. In infinite Mind there is no apathy, no materiality, no selfishness, self-love, self-indulgence. There can be no resistance to Truth, because there is no mind opposed to God. There can be no counterattractions, for all of God's ideas are attracted to divine Truth and Love, which embrace all, and are the only attraction.

Right metaphysical work on the part of officers and teachers in the Sunday school is requisite. The realization that ever-present divine Love is the only teacher removes all thought of personality from our work, enabling us to see the loving Shepherd guiding and guarding us, enabling us to realize that in reality there is but "one fold, and one shepherd."

For many weeks a Sunday school teacher, feeling a sense of personal responsibility for his work, tried earnestly before each class period to realize that, as the reflection of God, man expresses the Christ-consciousness. Then one Sunday he suddenly realized that his brother man whether a teacher, officer, or pupil, also expresses the Christ -consciousness.

At this point the teacher's work became less personal, more joyful, and more inspired than it had been before. From that time forward he never entered the class without receiving the spiritual inspiration which enabled him to bring out some healing truth for the pupils.

The Christian Science Sunday School is playing an important part in bringing the Christ, Truth, to all mankind. It is helping to free mankind from the fetters of sin, disease, and death. It is our privilege and duty to know each day that nothing can interfere with this holy work. In the words of Isaiah (Isa. 55:10, 11), "As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."