Russell Loved His Enemy

[For children]

ARTHUR HAMPTON CRAWFORD

A boy at Russell's school was a very rough fighter. His name was Ivan, and he had been at school much longer than Russell.

One day Russell took something very special to school. It was a bright red car, which fitted snugly into his hand. It had its name "Fire Chief" on its bonnet. As soon as he and his father spotted it in a shop a few days before, Russell knew that it was just what he had always wanted.

At playtime Ivan noticed the little Fire Chief and walked up to Russell. "I'll punch you if you don't, give it to me," Ivan threatened. Russell thought he had better give it up. He hoped that Ivan would put it down or, perhaps, bring it back to him later. But when home-time came, Ivan still had it.

The next day Russell asked Ivan for his little red car. Ivan told him to look on a seat way across the other side of the playground. But when he got to the seat, he found that Ivan had only tricked him.

That night he decided to tell his parents the whole sad story. At dinner the next night Russell heard his parents talking about how much God, good, loves each one of His children because His children are really God's own ideas and are His own likeness. "They are lovable because they are perfect," Russell heard his father say. "We are all His perfect children."

Ivan perfect? Russell was startled for a moment. But quickly he saw the point. "If I am God's likeness, I can love Ivan too," he said.

"And that is the truth which Christian Science shows you that you can know and practice wherever you are," said his dad. Russell listened as his father read what Mrs. Eddy has written in one of her books about loving our enemies: "We must love our enemies, and continue to do so unto the end. By the love of God we can cancel error in our own hearts, and blot it out of others."^{No and Yes, p. 7;}

Russell wanted Ivan as a friend, not an enemy, so he tried hard to think of Ivan as he really was—a perfect child of God. That way it was easier to love him.

After the weekend when Russell was back in school on the playground, he felt a light tap on his head. When he stopped and looked back, he saw Ivan. Then Ivan handed Russell the little Fire Chief. Russell thanked him very much. And Ivan seemed glad that he could become Russell's friend.

That night Russell and his dad read together from the Bible a part of Christ Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, which they both loved. This part says: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven."^{Matt. 5:44, 45.}

"Though Jesus said this many, many years ago," explained his father, "this truth is just as useful and powerful today as it has ever been."

Russell agreed.

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