The teaching of the youngest children in the Christian Science Sunday School is a blessed privilege. The teacher is entrusted with the feeding of these lambs, who are largely untouched by material education.
One approaches the budding thought confidently, knowing that its purity, simplicity, and teachableness render it receptive to Truth, which plants the child's footsteps in the path of reality. What shall be taught the children is indicated by Mary Baker Eddy in the Manual of The Mother Church (Art. XX, Sect. 2), which reads, "The Sabbath School children shall be taught the Scriptures, and they shall be instructed according to their understanding or ability to grasp the simpler meanings of the divine Principle that they are taught." Thus the teacher needs prayerfully to seek divine guidance that he may feed the little flock with simple food, which will ensure steady growth Godward.
What is required of the teacher of the first class? The first requirement is love, and love for God must be first. This love for Him must be so great that we are willing to cast out a false sense of selfhood in order to become a clearer transparency for Truth. Another asset required of the teacher is childlike simplicity of thought—a quality which characterized the master Christian. His simple statements of truth put to shame the intellectualism that would materialize and confuse the worship of God. The tiniest child accepts the thought of God as Love and is ready to respond to Jesus' precept (John 13:34), "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another."
