Sometimes we find teachers who are reluctant to teach the younger children, and I was one of these. I had taught the older classes for many years, and when asked to take a class of three and four-year-old pupils I told the superintendent that I felt I could not do much with little children. She asked me to try.

The first two Sundays the children were noisy and wanted only to play "choo-choo" train. The third Sunday when they still wanted to play, I shut my eyes and prayed. One little one came to me and said, "I want to say, 'No odder gods for me.'" He still spoke baby talk, but his desire to be a part of the Sunday School gave me great encouragement.

The following week I did much metaphysical work about this situation, and the answer came quickly and clearly. To a three or four-year-old child, a train means going on trips and seeing things. How could I keep them interested and how could I be obedient and teach them the first lessons, which are defined in Section 3 of Article XX of the Manual of The Mother Church by Mary Baker Eddy? It came to me that the history of the Ten Commandments would be very interesting to the children, and by my telling them the history, the words and the meaning of the Commandments could also be learned.

The following Sunday I said to the children: "Today we are going to visit Moses. We must walk up a high mountain to see Moses and learn what he is doing. We shall have to walk, because there were no trains in the days of Moses." (The children knew about Moses in the bulrushes.) I then continued, "Now Moses is a big man, and he is on a mountain talking with God." The children were instantly interested. In our imaginary trip up the mountain we spoke of how Moses' face shone when he talked with God and of how God told Moses to write the Ten Commandments. "This many," I said and held up my ten fingers. "They were put on two tables of stone"; here I held up my two fists, and they held up theirs also.

Then one little boy said, "But there is only one God." So we talked about the First Commandment, and the pupils were able to repeat it. I told them that this commandment means to have only one God and no other. Thus they learned that God gave us the Commandments and that we must obey them.

Another Sunday we walked down the mountain to visit Aaron, the brother of Moses. We learned that while Moses was a long time on the mountain, Aaron made a golden calf, and the people all fell on their knees and worshiped it. One child said, "He was naughty."

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Because he made other gods," he replied. So we learned about the second commandment, which tells us not to make any graven images.

The children learned the meaning of the Commandments without knowing all the words, but later they memorized them. During this time we also learned the definition of God, found on page 587 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. We also learned of God's love for all His children.

Another time we took an imaginary trip to Lynn and saw where Mrs. Eddy wrote Science and Health, and I told the pupils that the Key to the Scriptures unlocks the Bible. One little boy asked why people could not just open the Bible and read it without using a key. Here was a great opportunity to tell the children that the Bible is like a big treasure chest and that Mrs. Eddy gave us Science and Health, which explains the Bible so that people can understand it. The pupils were told that the treasures in the Bible are not made of gold or silver, but are spiritual truths that they can use no matter where they are or what they are doing.

One treasure that the pupils enjoyed was the story of Elijah as told in I Kings, when Elijah was on Mount Horeb. Here we learned that God was not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire, but in the still small voice.

The great lesson from this story was that we can hear the voice of God only when we are still and do not listen to what mortal mind is saying. We learned that this is real prayer and that Mrs. Eddy shows us how to pray. At this point we studied the Lord's Prayer and its spiritual interpretation, found in Science and Health (pp. 16, 17).

We learned much about Daniel, the three Hebrews in the furnace, the giant Goliath, and many other Biblical characters. We also took a trip up another mountain to hear Jesus tell the people how they could be happy. At this time the children learned the Beatitudes and were able to memorize most of them.

The words "choo-choo train" were never mentioned again, and on the whole there was good discipline. The children were usually responsive and attentive. I have always been grateful for those three years, because they were very profitable.