How to Teach Religion | Page 9

at so high a price of sacrifice and suffering. Suppose
they should turn deaf ears to the appeal of art, and reject the claims of
morality, and refuse the lessons of Christianity and the Bible. Where
then would all our boasted progress be? Where would our religion be?
Where would modern civilization be? All would revert to primitive
barbarism, through the failure of this one generation, and the race
would be obliged to start anew the long climb toward the mountain top
of spiritual freedom.

Each generation must therefore create anew in its own life and
experience the spiritual culture of the race. Each child that comes to us
for instruction, weak, ignorant, and helpless though he be, is charged
with his part in the great program God has marked out for man to
achieve. Each of these little ones is the bearer of an immortal soul,
whose destiny it is to take its quality and form from the life it lives
among its fellows. And ours is the dread and fascinating responsibility
for a time to be the mentor and guide of this celestial being. Ours it is
to deal with the infinite possibilities of child-life, and to have a hand in
forming the character that this immortal soul will take. Ours it is to
have the thrilling experience of experimenting in the making of a
destiny!
Childhood's capacity for growth.--Nor must we ever think that because
the child is young, his brain unripe, and his experience and wisdom
lacking, our responsibility is the less. For the child's earliest
impressions are the most lasting, and the earliest influences that act
upon his life are the most powerful in determining its outcome.
Remember that the babe, starting at birth with nothing, has in a few
years learned speech, become acquainted with much of his immediate
world, formed many habits which will follow him through life, and
established the beginnings of permanent character and disposition.
Remember the indelible impression of the bedside prayers of your
mother, of the earliest words of counsel of your father, of the influence
of a loved teacher, and then know that other children are to-day
receiving their impressions from us, their parents and teachers.
Consider for a moment the child as he comes to us for instruction. We
no longer insist with the older theologies that he is completely under
the curse of "original sin," nor do we believe with certain
sentimentalists that he comes "trailing clouds of glory." We believe that
he has infinite capacities for good, and equally infinite capacities for
evil, either of which may be developed. We know that at the beginning
the child is sinless, pure of heart, his life undefiled. To know this is
enough to show us our part. This is to lead the child aright until he is
old enough to follow the right path of his own accord, to ground him in
the motives and habits that tend to right living, and so to turn his mind,

heart, and will to God that his whole being seeks accord with the
Infinite.
Religious conservation.--If our leading of the child is wise, and his
response is ready, there will be no falling away from a normal Christian
life and a growing consciousness of God. This does not mean that the
child will never do wrong, nor commit sin. It does not mean that the
youth will not, when the age of choice has come, make a personal
decision for Christ and consecrate his life anew to Christ's service. It
means, rather, that the whole attitude of mind, and the complete trend
of life of the child will be religious. It means that the original purity of
innocence will grow into a conscious and joyful acceptance of the
Christ-standard. It means that the child need never know a time when
he is not within the Kingdom, and growing to fuller stature therein. It
means that we should set our aim at conservation instead of
reclamation as the end of our religious training.
Yet what a proportion of the energy of the church is to-day required for
the reclaiming of those who should never have been allowed to go
astray! Evangelistic campaigns, much of the preaching, "personal
work," Salvation Army programs, and many other agencies are of
necessity organized for the reclaiming of men and women who but
yesterday were children in our homes and church schools, and plastic to
our training. What a tragic waste of energy!--and then those who never
return! Should we not be able more successfully to carry out the
Master's injunction, "_Feed my lambs_"?
The child-Christian.--All of these considerations point to the inevitable
conclusion that the child is the great objective of our teaching. Indeed,
the child ought to be the objective of the work of the whole