Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little Child, he shall not enter therein. (Mark x. 15.)
Jesus must have held a very different view of a little child from that ordinarily taken. In Science and Health, Glossary p. 540, See definition of the Kingdom of Heaven. This is what we are to receive, and how? As a little child: i. e., unquestioningly, obediently, understandingly! Obedience cannot be demonstrated without understanding; yet understanding, in Science, has nothing to do with "human intellect." This was clearly proven in a manner which forever settled, for me, the question of Children's Science Literature. The proof came as follows:
A woman, in my home, who had been healed of what seemed a severe malady, had with her a little girl two years of age, who could only lisp a few words. One evening the little one seemed restless; and, when I put her to bed, kept calling for "a book" In the night the mother called me, saying: "The baby is in a fever and raving delirium. She will not let me touch her, but keeps calling for 'a book.'" Instantly, with an awed feeling, I recognized the need. "Keep still, dear; and Aunty will think book," I said. "Baby up. Aunty read book"—the little receiver of the kingdom pleaded. I felt my utter incompetency to select a passage for Infinite Mind; yet dared not refuse. With the baby on my lap, and holy awe in my heart, I opened what I love to term the Testament of the Holy Ghost—the third book of our triune Bible—Science and Health. I read where it opened, (p. 38, 40th Ed.) beginning with, "Brains can give no idea of God's man." I read on, striving to get a fuller, newer depth of meaning. I did not read to the child. I dared read only to my own ignorance. I finished the fourth paragraph: "...for Life is God, and man is the idea of God, that dust can neither make nor unmake." "Bed, now," said baby, perfectly well! With tearful eyes the mother received her, saying, "She is God's—not mine": then confessed to having been mentally resisting the thought (overheard in conversation between a Scientist caller and myself) of loosing these earthly ties, and merging them into divine.
