The so-called retarded child is not a hopeless case. Christian Science shows that no limitation is irreversible. Limits may appear formidable to ignorant human belief, but with God's help they can be set aside and a child's real potential as the image of divine Mind be brought to light.

Surely it is obvious that the God, whom Christ Jesus called Father, and whom he proved to be divine Love, has never created a situation that consigns innocent children to a lifetime of mental twilight. Christian Science teaches that God Himself is the Mind of His children and nothing can separate the individuality of each child from this infinite source of wisdom and intelligence. Speaking of little children, Jesus said, "Their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven."^{Matt. 18:10;} And part of Mrs. Eddy's definition of "angels" is "spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect."^{Science and Health, p. 581;}

Those parents or teachers who are guiding the seemingly backward child are constantly challenged to guard their thoughts and attitudes. Schoolteachers find that a child tends to react positively when high performance is expected of him. This hints at the deeper spiritual fact that each individual responds to being seen in his true being as the perfect reflection of all-knowing Mind. Retardation is just an invention of human belief, and we must look right through this false picture and patiently and persistently see the child of God untouched by limitation.

The picture that the material senses present is one of frustration and anxiety. The child can be very sensitive to his backwardness and unable to understand his inability to keep up with others. What he craves is understanding and patient love and support. When surrounded by such constructive attitudes, he is encouraged to reach out, to try, and to try again.

A Christian Scientist is particularly well equipped to help the growing process. He can support positive development by quiet, confident scientific prayer. He must be clear in his own thought that the child's real identity is a fully developed spiritual idea that has preexisted, exists now, and forever will exist in God, infinite creative Mind. Mrs. Eddy writes, "Mortals will lose their sense of mortality—disease, sickness, sin, and death—in the proportion that they gain the sense of man's spiritual preexistence as God's child; as the offspring of good, and not of God's opposite,—evil, or a fallen man."^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 181;}

Medical theories state the possibility of what are called genetic upsets. A recent article on the subject of mental retardation says: "The genetic material that determines our inherited physical and mental characteristics is located in forty-six small bodies present in the nucleus of every living cell. These are called chromosomes. Sometimes something goes wrong in our germ cells or during the first cell division, and abnormalities arise."^{Royal Bank of Canada Monthly Letter, Vol. 50, No. 10;}

Christian Scientists recognize that theories such as these do seem real to the material senses, and when unopposed by divine Truth do appear to affect the lives of many children adversely. But when the fact of man's spiritual preexistence in Mind is understood and confidently asserted as law, it can set aside the false theories that handicap the innocent.

Genes and chromosomes, like all matter, are mortally mental phenomena. They are but names for illusive, hypnotic thought forms, and have only the power that false belief assigns to them. Christian Science gradually imparts the ability to see this fact. We can begin to uproot the basic error, faith in the substance and power of matter, and thus strike off the chains of limitation. After all, if God is Mind and the substance, Life, and intelligence of His child, how can a defective supposition called a retarded brain affect the destiny of anyone? How can the influence of unthinking, inanimate cells affect one when it is understood that real consciousness is God Himself and is reflected by man?

Speaking of the one real Mind, which each child reflects, Mrs. Eddy says: "Mind alone possesses all faculties, perception, and comprehension. Therefore mental endowments are not at the mercy of organization and decomposition,—otherwise the very worms could unfashion man."^{Science and Health, p. 488.}

Retardation has been measured in terms of intelligence quotient, commonly referred to as IQ. This, of course, is a wholly material yardstick that limits the child, and should be utterly rejected by the Christian Scientist as a genuine view of the child's capacity. His real capacity is limitless, and this we must tirelessly see. It may take much patient, compassionate prayer to lift him into human normalcy. The constancy of our love may be tried and tested many times. But what a reward for our efforts when we finally lift the pall of mental darkness and set the youngster free!

Christ Jesus intuitively perceived the transparent innocence of the child-thought. This innate purity and goodness is present in the consciousness of each child. It, and the divine intelligence with which it is linked, can never be lost. This we must strive to realize until mental retardation disappears from human experience.

Alan A. Aylwin