-throw his mind open to the conception of God as the Creator and Sustainer of the world about him.

(2) His credulity and faith. At first the child accepts without ques tion whatever we tell him of God simply because he believes anything.

"A little girl was questioning her mother minutely concerning the domestic habits of the angels. Her mother replied that she was sorry she could not answer all the questions, as we really do not know very much about what goes on in heaven. At this the child looked very much astonished, and said, 'Oh, don't you know? Why, cook knows all about it!'"*

As rational curiosity develops and he begins to put things together, he carries out to many a naive and fantastic conclusion the things that he has been told about God.

Two boys were talking about the rain. J. was giving whatever information he had to W., and finally said, "When the clouds are rent, the rain drops out. Rent means torn, just as you would tear your clothes." W., after thinking for a time, exclaimed, "I should think God's mother would get tired mending." A little girl was convalescing from typhoid. Her mother was telling her of God's great love; that even the sparrows are included in it. She retorted quietly, "Don't you think God spends too much time on sparrows? If He gave a little more attention to me, possibly I shouldn't have to go for a whole month without a bit of real, solid food." A little girl heard a man in argument use the phrase, “There is not a spot on this footstool," etc. She asked, "What footstool?" Being told that he referred to the earth as the footstool of God, "O-h-h!" she muttered in astonishment. "What long legs!" Her face was perfectly grave; not for a moment did she think of irreverence. The suggested idea was that God must be an exceedingly big man. †

Such interpretations are neither to be feared nor laughed at. They result from the child's attempt to make his ideas coherent, with his literalness and inability to comprehend our figures of speech. We should meet them by a simple explanation of the truth, not by a reiteration of figures or by telling the child that he will understand better when he grows up. Certainly they need not be taken, as they are by Oppenheim, as an argument against giving children any re* Drummond : "An Introduction to Child-Study," p. 301.

† Condensed from Oppenheim: "The Development of the Child,” p. 136.

ligious ideas. Their reasoning is similarly naïve concerning everyday things. Kirkpatrick tells of a little girl who was promised something at noon. Becoming impatient later, she was told, "Noon is coming soon. "Has noon footies?" she asked. "No." "Well, how does noon come, then?" A little boy asked what made the locomotive go so fast, and received the not precisely true answer that it was the smoke that he saw coming from its stack. "But I don't see any smoke coming from that man's head,” he objected a moment later as a bicycle rider whizzed by.

If parents meet the naïve questions of childhood with the simple truth, the child's credulity becomes faith. He comes to know whom he can believe. There is a great difference between credulity and faith. The one is mere acceptance because no alternative presents itself; the other is positive trust. Theologians have argued a good deal about the possibility of infant faith. There is one kind of early faith whose reality none can doubt-the faith of a child in its father and mother. The father can do no greater service in the religious de velopment of his child than so to meet the dawning reason that credulity is replaced by perfect faith in himself. We need not worry then about the child's faith in God-the heavenly Father.

(3) His affection and sensitivity to the personal attitudes of others. The child's capacity to love and to be loved is of the very heart of religion. To the end of his life, his acquaintance with the God who is Love will be influenced by the response which his affections meet in these early days. His conception of God as Father and of himself as God's child will reflect the life of the home.

(4) His imitation and suggestibility. "If anyone should ask me," says Bishop McCabe, "what most impressed me in my boyhood days, I would answer, The sight of my father coming out from the secret place of prayer every day at noon."* The child's impressionable nature gains much that he does not understand, and that we ought not try to make him understand until he seeks to know. A child has no business to have a religious "experience." But our own reverent worship, the prayers and songs of God's house, its solemn sacraments, its music, its beautiful windows and stately architecture—most of all, the quiet devotion of the family altar-all these enter into the very making of his soul.

So we see the justification of our brief characterization of the religion of childhood: it is a religion of nature and of home. The child's interest centers in the great world that lies open to his senses, Pattee: "Elements of Religious Pedagogy,” p. 149.

God

and he seeks its Maker. But the positive content of his religion comes from the home. It is what father and mother make it. enters his life because He first dwells in theirs. God lets them for a little while stand in His place. His trust and the child's alike rest in them.

7. The religion of later childhood is one of life and law in life. The boy's interest is in God's dealings with men rather than in His works in nature.

(1) The social instincts bring a new sense of law. Conscience awakens. Right is conceived, no longer as from an external authority, but as resting upon inward grounds of obligation.

(2) The development of the historical sense begets a new interest in life as revealed in biography and history. It is the time, we remem. ber, of hero-worship. Tales of the mighty doings of great men are eagerly sought and read.

(3) The religion of the period, therefore, centers about God as revealing Himself to men. The boy thinks of God the Law-giver and Redeemer, rather than God the Creator. His is a God of Right and of Might, who moves in human history and accomplishes His will through the lives of the great heroes of faith.

(4) We may remind ourselves of three things that make this period especially significant in religious education: its plasticity to habit, its quick and retentive memory, and the fact that life's decision time comes at its close.

8. In adolescence religion becomes personal. In later as well as in early childhood, interest in religion is objective. The child learns about God, His works and His life with men. But now religion comes home to the will. It presents itself as a way of life, to be accepted or rejected. God claims the soul that is His.

We have already thought of the characteristics of adolescent religion; and we shall discuss its problems in a coming chapter which will treat of the spiritual goal of our work. We need here only to remind ourselves of the three great periods of religious awakening :

(1) Decision at twelve or thirteen is usually the natural result of a normal religious nurture and of social suggestion. The Lutheran Church, with its ideals of education in religion, its belief that baptized children are members of the church, and its rite of confirmation, does well to center its attention here. Its great problem is to care for the spiritual activity and further development in grace of those who have been confirmed.

(2) Conversions at sixteen and seventeen are more apt to be of the

emotional type. There is a conflict of impulses and feelings, with a final triumph of those that lead to God. There wells up something within that breaks down the barrier of selfishness, indifference or distrust.

(3) Conversions at nineteen or twenty are apt to be of a more intellectual and practical type. It is because new insight has come, or some doubt has been resolved; or because the youth reaches the practical conviction that he needs religion as part of life's equipment.

QUESTIONS

1. Is conscience an intuitive and infallible guide? Give reasons for your answer. Explain the instinctive character of the moral

nature.

2. In what sense is the child himself a natural lawmaker and law. observer?

3. What are the natural roots of law in a child's life? Distinguish the adaptive roots from the initiative root.

4. What is the character of the child's moral development through、 out early and middle childhood? What change takes place in later childhood?

5. Discuss the work of the teacher in the moral development of the pupil.

6. What is religion? Show how the whole self enters into religion and how it develops with personality.

7. Characterize the religion of early and middle childhood. Discuss those factors in a child's life which contribute most to the devel opment of religion within him.

8. Children often get naïve and fantastic ideas about God, and it has been argued from this that we ought not to teach religion until later childhood or adolescence. Is the argument sound? Give careful reasons for your answer.

9. Characterize the religion of later childhood.

10. What change in religious development comes with adolescence? What is apt to be the character of a conversion in each of the three great periods of religious awakening?