I was teaching an older class when the appointment came to teach the little ones. I turned to God in prayer and there came to my thought a statement in the book We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, First Series (p. 37), where a student of Mrs. Eddy's told of hearing her say that she loved children, "that theirs was the white unwritten page." I also pondered the first part of Mrs. Eddy's definition of "children" in the Glossary of Science and Health (p. 582) as "the spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love."
From this work I came to realize clearly that these small ones were complete ideas of God. Of course I loved them, but I saw that human love would not be enough ; it had to be the Christ-love manifested humanly. I was healed of any false sense of responsibility when I realized that these children were protected, governed, and loved of the Father, as I was also.
I had a joyous five years with classes of four-year-old. At the outset I told them, in a very quiet tone of voice, that in the Christian Science Sunday School we all speak softly so as not to disturb the other classes. I explained that all the children in the room were learning about God and that His love was all around us. They accepted this completely. There was never a discipline problem to meet.
