Jesus never made a promise or imposed a condition which could not be fulfilled. Calling unto him a little child, he said to his disciples, "Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." This may be counted among the most precious of his sayings, the most startling to adultism; but what material sense defines as time is no barrier to spiritual reflection, the way to which is made plain through Christian Science. Pride, shame, the multiform self-importance of personal selfhood—often accentuated by the mortal sense of time—have nothing in common with man, who knows himself as spiritually individual, neither young nor old, neither causative nor creative—as never less than the eternal image of God's perfection.
Rather marked, from the human standpoint, is the tendency in this era of youth to look down on age and of age to look down on youth. Human thought and estimate are wont to center on birthdays, on personality, on mortal dissemblances rather than on spiritual resemblances, which can only be spiritually discerned. Yet before one and all, eternity stretches, and in the light of Christian Science we learn to love and respect one another on the single basis of Spirit and spiritual identity.
Continuing, Jesus said, "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." The heavenly education upon which we enter when becoming students of this Science outshines in due course the traces of wrong upbringing. Academic education, while having its uses, does not constitute the equipment to spiritual growth. Waking to realize his need of spiritual education and its blessed availability, the student in Christian Science, of whatever age to human sense, devotes some time to spiritual study. And the more joy he brings to this higher education, this vista of the new birth, the more readily will he grasp not only the letter of Christian Science, but also its heavenly, healing spirit. If disturbed by the attempts of self-will and fear to hold him in the old mental ruts and failings, he needs to deny emphatically the belief in time and precedent. It is never too late to gain spiritual understanding and to reap its natural fruitage in release from error, and joy in Godlikeness.
