Christian Science had been referred to, and advocated, occasionally, at a dinner table where a father, having a little boy of five or six years, was really an inquirer, but outwardly was a mirthful opponent. He was subject to severe headaches, and had been invited to seek healing through Christian Science. Getting some idea of it, according to his own thought, by a few questions, he made it the subject of an occasional, goodnatured jest, that was not unkind, but rather in the nature of enlivening the conversation. In this, his principal charge was —in irony —that sickness was nothing but imagination." "If you only think you are well, you will be," etc. The boy's name is Robert. He is bright, and comprehends much beyond his years, and hears more that his elders say than is suspected, as children always do. One day, his mother, of whom he is uncommonly fond, came to the table complaining of headache. During a little pause in the complaint, the boy spoke up, with an earnest, half curious look, and said: "Mr.—tell her it is imagination" Under the circumstances, this caused a general laugh, as it was doubted if he knew the meaning of the word, and seemed therefore to be, merely, and unconsciously, reflecting his father's jests; but the little man was in earnest. A few days after, at breakfast, being quite hoarse, he said again, Mr.—,"I have got cold: tell me its imagination," in a tone of belief in the efficacy, and desire for such a procedure. He was told it would be done. At night, appearing better, his father laughingly said, —"He did not have any cold," to which the Scientist observed, "Well, your view is in accord with Robbie's request to tell him it was imagination."
A few days later the boy was asking questions; in the answering of which, it was stated to him that if he would know and say to his thought of sickness of any kind, that it was nothing, in reality was "imagination" (to use the term he had learned of his father), it would make the sickness go away. He seemed to understand and to accept it, but he wanted his father's approval; so he turned, and asked, innocently: "Will it, papa?" His papa was a half believer, but not ready to own it; still he would not deny it, and was caught by this frank, simple, trusting question which he could not evade. Ah, these innocent children, they are "the windows of heaven," as has been well said, and we cannot look through them to the light beyond, without gaining a truer sense of life that is real, unmixed with the harsh gratings of materiality, and hot, eager pursuit of gold; as if that could, by any possibility, be life, or be exchanged for any life giving elixir or substance.
