WITH its God-bestowed power to heal and bless, Christian Science is finding its way into institutions which care for children, some of whom have been taken from the streets of our large cities and sent through the courts. Some teacher or matron who is trying to reflect divine Love, remembers and heeds the Master's admonition, "Feed my lambs." This field of service is large, and though as yet the laborers are few, the writer is able to give some instances where Truth has found a channel to reach these little ones.
In one of these institutions an instructor, a student of Christian Science, had in her class a little boy, eleven years old, of unprepossessing looks and manner, with a well sustained reputation for dishonesty and untruthfulness. One day, on hearing a matron tell him that he was a thief and a liar, that he had come of a line of thieves and liars and would always be one himself, the Scientist began mentally to declare the truth for the child, holding that man is the image and likeness of God, therefore spiritual, and knowing that as such the boy could not inherit evil tendencies. When she called the little fellow into a room to talk to him alone, he began stoutly to deny having taken anything, although the missing articles were found in his possession. He was lovingly told that he was not called into the room to be punished, but to be helped.
Finally, seeing tears in the eyes of his new friend, the lad buried his head in her lap and sobbed out: "Don't cry. I didn't know any one cared like that. There's something inside of me that just makes me take things." She explained the commandments, "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not bear false witness," and assured him that there was no power greater than God, who gave those commandments and who would keep him from breaking them. For three months this child came to his friend every morning, and together they said those commandments and the prayer that God could and would help him to keep them. As time went on, gradually the shifting glance gave place to a steady look straight in the eye, and at last the day came when with surprise and almost awe this dear lad said, "Why, I don't even want to take what does not belong to me," and he was no longer in bondage to his belief in these errors.
