interpreted, to lead the wish of the child on to the time when there shall be no more war and the reign of the Prince of Peace shall be supreme. No mother should hesitate to encourage the child to read the Old Testament simply because it contains stories of war and cruelty. The daily paper, the history of our country, from the earliest times to the present, are full of such accounts. We cannot quarrel with history: "What is written is written." But the Bible contains, in addition to these old stories, the great lessons of the doom which overtakes evil men and unjust causes and tyrannical nations; it always points the way to peace. It is full of the passionate longing and pleading for peace, and in the New Testament we have the stories of those two great souls, Jesus and Paul, who won their victories without lifting a sword or striking a blow. Children should read all the stories of the Bible, then they should be guided into a right interpretation of them. The second question is, How can we give the stories, especially the Old Testament stories, religious values? Many of them seem only secular. There is a wide-spread feeling that religious education has sometimes erred in dragging in a religious lesson when it was not there; and so it has. The remedy is not to cease using the stories, but to use them as the Bible writer used them. Sometimes he tells a story, which is only a part of a larger story, and has by itself no religious lesson. The selling of Joseph as a slave to the Midianite merchants is not in itself religious, but is a part of the story of how God guided the life of Joseph to his own purposes. Genesis 50:20, "You meant it for evil; God meant it for good," is the writer's religious teaching. Often the writer has a religious purpose in telling the story, but leaves the reader to find it. In the stories of the Garden of Eden, of Babel, of Achan, and many others, the teaching is that sin brings punishment. It is not necessary, however, that a religious label should always be tagged to the story. If the child becomes familiar with the Bible, the stories may be trusted to make their own religious impress. We may trust something to the common sense of a child's mind. The first stage of the interest of the child, then, is in the story or incident. The next stage is that of interest in hero tales. This is usually said to begin at about the age of twelve. Then is the time to use the great characters of the Bible for examples of nobility and heroism. Then is the age to enlist youth under the great Captain of our Salvation. They will respond to the heroism of Moses, Daniel, Paul. Great deeds and noble characters thrill them. Any means which will make the Bible people seem living and vivid, not merely characters in a book, should be used at this age. Sometimes stories like the "Little Stories about Jesus," in Volume 1 of this set, will help. Sometimes they will be drawn more to the Gospels themselves. This is an important age, for in it are laid the foundations of character for later life. The Bible must be made attractive, not repellent, if it is to have any influence. At a later time in the child's life, perhaps at the age of sixteen, comes an interest in the fundamental principles of life. This is the stage of idealism. The youth seeks absolute honesty. He may object to the church because he is not sure he can honestly subscribe to its creeds. He is looking for principles on which to found action. Here comes the opportunity to give the religious idealism of Jesus's teaching. The youth will often respond to the Sermon on the Mount. If the prophets with their splendid ideals can be made living to him, their teaching will be helpful. The precepts of Proverbs, which are convenient forms for memorizing in childhood, now take on a living interest as the expression of principles of action. Already the social instinct is awakening, and the youth finds it necessary to adjust his life to the life about him. He is learning to live with others, perhaps to earn his living and take his share of community life. He turns to the Bible for the principles of adjustment of personal and social relations on a religious basis. What has God to say through the Bible as to his relation to other men, to society and the state? The teaching of Jesus is rich for young people of this age; so are the principles of religious life in any part of the Bible. A problem which often arises at this period is how to keep the religious life real amid the rush of other things. Another problem is sometimes that of readjustment. Many young people have to revise their ideas about religion as the result of education or of new conceptions. They are forced to lay aside some of the notions of their childhood, and they fancy, quite wrongly, that they are laying aside their religion. Not at all. They are only making a restatement of it to fit their intellectual development. Will the Bible help them in these problems? Yes, if they will use it aright. Let them come to it with this question, What constitutes religion? They will see it is not particular opinions about unimportant things, but a confident trust in God and a desire to do his will. That was religion to the prophets, to Jesus, to Paul. They may find that religion is far simpler and more elemental than they had supposed it to be; and at the same time, that it probes life far deeper. Education never ceases. As long as there is some spiritual power still to be gained, religious education goes on. The Bible always has its part to play in that education. The writers of the Bible met the same elemental experiences we meet, and found them roads to a better knowledge of God. They met joy and sorrow, hope and despair, success and failure, triumph and discouragement. We go to the Bible to see how they met them. If they found God in such experiences, so can we. God can speak to us through them, and so the Bible grows year by year more truly the Word of God to us. To the very end of our life we are still using the Bible for religious education. Let us always keep in mind the great purpose which is behind the Bible. That is why the Bible is the Word of God. It is not because any council or body of men said it must be, but because men who listened for the Word of God found it speaking more clearly to their souls from the pages of these books than from any other pages in the world. It does not speak with equal clearness from them all. Beyond doubt, some parts of the Bible are more valuable than others. The Gospels are worth more for religious life than the Song of Solomon. But taken as a whole, no body of books in all the world can compare for religious truth and help for life with the Bible. It is God's best message in the literature of the world. viii-261 MADONNA DELLA STELLA By Fra Angelico (Giovanni Guido, 1387-1455) Photograph by Alinari Brothers, Florence, Italy THE "Madonna of the Star" is so called the detail. 4 |