Our Beloved Leader

[Of Special Interest to Children]

MAREN P. MENDENHALL

One sunny morning a little girl and her daddy were standing on a hillside, watching a shepherd bring his flock of sheep down the hill into the town. Her daddy told her that in each flock there was one sheep which was the leader, that the leader would do as the shepherd directed and all the other sheep would follow the leader, and that they would not go where the leader had not gone first. Very soon she saw what he meant.

Some workmen had been digging in the road the day before and had left a big pile of earth and boards in the street. On one side there was a very small space where a man might walk past, but on the other side there was plenty of room for a wagon to pass. The shepherd, seeing that it would be safer, directed the leader to the narrow opening, and each one of the others waited its turn to get through the same place. Even though there was much crowding and pushing in their eagerness to get by, not one sheep attempted to go through the wider opening, although to the little girl that certainly looked like the easier thing to do.

When this little girl was a few years older, she used to play a game called "follow the leader," which doubtless many of you have played too. In this game one child is chosen the leader and each of the others must watch very closely and do exactly what the leader does, in order to keep his place. For if he fails in the least way to follow exactly, he drops to the end of the line.

Not long after that the little girl began attending the Christian Science Sunday School, and there she learned to sing and to love a beautiful hymn (Poems, p. 14), "Shepherd, show me how to go." Each Sunday that the pupils were to sing it the superintendent always said. "The words of this hymn were written by our beloved Leader, Mary Baker" Eddy." The children in the little girl's class loved to have their teacher talk about this hymn. She read to them from the Bible about Moses and David, shepherd boys of whom they knew, and about other watchful, wakeful shepherds who were abiding in the fields the night the babe Jesus was born.

She told them that the shepherd watches over and protects the sheep, and knows where to lead them to green pastures, even though the way seems rugged and the hill steep. She read to them from the eighteenth chapter of Matthew, which tells how tender one shepherd was to the little lost sheep who did not listen for his voice. Next she read them the precious twenty-third Psalm: "The Lord is my shepherd. ... He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake." And then the children knew that divine Love was the Shepherd who their beloved Leader prayed would show her how to go, and whose voice she knew and listened for always.

After spending some time studying the definition of "sheep," which Mrs. Eddy gives in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 594), "Innocence; inoffensiveness; those who follow their leader," they agreed to try to keep their hearts so pure that they might follow their Leader. This meant that they must not let in sick and sorry thoughts, or cross and impatient ones, or disobedience and demanding their own way, for then self-will would shut out His voice and Mrs. Eddy's leading, and they would be like the little sheep lost on the hillside. Sometimes self-will might whisper. "I want to go my way; it's easier; it's more fun," but they should remember that they must follow their Leader's teachings in the way divine Love had pointed out.

What is this way which Jesus has shown and along which Mrs. Eddy has led us? It is the path of meekness and love. It is the meekness of Jesus, who said, "I can of mine own self do nothing." It is the meekness of Mrs. Eddy, who asked the Shepherd to guide her. It is the great love which God has for us all that makes us want to promise (Poems, p. 14),