I Was once a teacher in the public schools. I enjoyed my classes in mathematics because there was a principle involved; I could show my pupils that if they worked in accordance with the principle, making no mistake in their work, they would be sure to get the correct answer.
When teaching in a primary department I sometimes found it difficult to make the children see how the cipher, which had no value when standing alone, could make so much difference in the result of a problem. It required at times some patience to show them why placing the cipher on the other side of a significant figure would make a great difference in their answer. For instance: They might have the figure 5 on the board; now place two ciphers on the left, the amount is still five; but place two ciphers on the right, and we have multiplied the amount a hundred times. By illustration and demonstration they would finally see the reason for the difference and have no more trouble with that principle.
Now I find myself working at just that same problem in a higher sense. In Christian Science I am taught that error, under any name, is nothing,—a cipher,—and yet how often it seems to be something—seems to have weight and power! But when I look to see why this seeming, I find I have been doing just what I had such hard work to teach my pupils not to do. I have been putting the cipher on the wrong side.
