THE CHILD'S CONCEPT OF RELIGION

Gradually throughout his training the child should be forming a clear concept of religion and the part it is to play in the life. This cannot come through any formal definition, nor through any set of precepts. It must be a growth, stimulated by instruction, guided by wise counsel, given depth of meaning through the lives of strong men and women who express the Christian ideal in their daily living.

Matthew Arnold tells us that religion is "morality lit up by emotion."

We turn to G.o.d for our inspiration, for the quickening of our motives, for fellowship, communion and comfort; but it is when we face the duties and relationships of the day's work and its play that we prove how close we have been to G.o.d and what we have received from him. As there can be no religion without G.o.d, neither can there be religion without morality; that is, without righteous living.

Connecting religion with life.--One of the chief aims in teaching the child religion should therefore be to ground him in the understanding that _religion is life_. Probably no greater defect exists in our religion to-day than our constant tendency to divorce it from life.

There are many persons who undertake to divide their lives up into compartments, one for business, one for the relations of the home, one for social matters, one for recreation and amus.e.m.e.nt, and _one for religion_. They make the mistake of a.s.suming that they can keep these sections of the life separate and distinct from each other, forgetting that life is a unity and that the quality of each of its aspects inevitably colors and gives tone to all the rest.

The child should be saved the comfortable a.s.sumption so tragically prevalent that religion is chiefly a matter for Sundays; that it consists largely in belonging to the church and attending its services; that it finds its complete and most effective expression in the observance of certain rites and ceremonials; that we can serve G.o.d without serving our fellow men; that creeds are more important than deeds; that saying "Lord, Lord," can take the place of a ministry of service.

Religion defined in n.o.ble living.--There is only one way to save the child from such crippling concepts as these: that is to hold up to him the challenge of _life at its best and n.o.blest_, to show him the effects of _religion at work_. What are the qualities we most admire in others?

What are the secrets of the influence, power, and success of the great men and women whose names rule the pages of history? What are the attributes that will draw people to us as friends and followers and give us power to lead them to better ways? What are the things that will yield the most satisfaction, and that are most worth while to seek and achieve as the outcome of our own lives? What is true success, and how shall we know when we have achieved it? _Why does the Christ, living his brief, modest, and uneventful life and dying an obscure and tragic death, stand out as the supreme model and example for men to pattern their lives by?_

These are questions that the child needs to have answered, not in formal statements, of course, but in terms that will reach his understanding and appreciation. These are truths that he needs to have lodged in his mind, so that they may stir his imagination, fire his ambition, and harden his will for endeavor. These are the goals that the child needs to have set before him as the measure of success in life, the pathways into which his feet should be directed.

The qualities religion puts into the life.--What, then, are the things men live by? What are the great qualities which have ruled the finest lives the world has known? How does religion express itself in the run of the day's experience? What are some of the objective standards by which religion is to be measured in our own lives or in the lives of others, in the lives of children or in the lives of adults? What are the characterizing features in the life and personality of Jesus? What did he put first in practice as well as in precept?

_Joyousness._ No word was oftener on the lips of Jesus than the word "joy," and the world has never seen such another apostle of joyousness.

The life that lacks joy is flat for him who lives it, and exerts little appeal to others.

_Good will._ The good will of Jesus embraces all manner and conditions of people. His magnanimity and generosity under all conditions were one of the charms of his personality and one of the chief sources of his strength.

_Service._ Jesus's life was, if possible, more wonderful than his death, and nothing in his life was more wonderful than his pa.s.sion for serving others. The men and women whom the world has remembered and honored in all generations and among all peoples are the men and women who found their greatness in service.

_Loyalty._ Steadfastness to the cause he had espoused led Jesus to the cross. Great characters do not ask what road is easy, but what way is right. Where duty leads, the strong do not falter nor fail, cost what it may. They see their task through to the end, though it mean that they die.

_Sympathy._ Jesus always understood. His heart had eyes to see another's need. His love was as broad as the hunger of the human heart for comradeship. We are never so much our best selves as when self is forgotten, and we enter into the joys or the sorrows of one who needs us.

_Purity._ Sin has its price for all it gives us. We cannot stain our souls and find them white again. We later reap whatever now we sow.

Jesus's life of righteousness, lived amid temptations such as we all meet, is a challenge to every man who would be the captain of his own soul.

_Sincerity._ No man ever doubted that Jesus meant what he said. No man ever accused him of acting a part. His enemies, even, never found him misrepresenting or speaking other than the truth. All truly fine characters can be trusted for utter sincerity of word, of purpose, and of deed.

_Courage._ Jesus was never more sublime than under conditions that test men's courage. Did he face hostile mob and servile judge? did he find himself misunderstood and deserted by those who had been his friends?

must he bid his disciples a last farewell? did he see the shadow of the cross over his pathway?--yet he never faltered. His courage stood all tests.

_Vision._ A distinguishing quality of the great is their power to put first things first. Jesus possessed a fine sense of values. He willingly sold all he had that he might buy the pearl of great price. His temptations to follow after lesser values left him unscathed, and he refused to command the stones to be made bread, or to do aught else that would turn him from his mission.

_G.o.d-Consciousness._ Those who have most left their impress upon the world and the hearts of men have not worked through their own power alone. They have known how to link their lives to the infinite Source of power; the way has been open between their lives and G.o.d. Jesus never for a moment doubted that all the resources of G.o.d were at his command, hence he had but to reach out and they were his.

It is evident, as before stated, that this functional definition of religion, this great program of living, cannot be thrust on the child all at once--cannot be _thrust_ on him at all. But day after day and year after year throughout the period of his training the conviction should be taking shape in the child's mind that these are the _real_ things of life, the truest measure of successful living, the highest goals for which men can strive. The definition of religion which he forms from his instruction should be broad enough to include these values and such others of similar kind as Christianity at its best demands.

KNOWLEDGE OF THE BIBLE

A knowledge of the essential parts of the _Bible_ is indispensable to Christian culture. The Bible is the storehouse of spiritual wisdom of the ages, the matchless textbook of religion. Great men and women of all generations testify to its power as a source of inspiration and guidance. To be ignorant of its fundamental spiritual truths is to lack one of the chiefest instruments of religious growth and development. Not to know its teachings is to miss the strongest and best foundation that has ever been laid for fruitful and happy living. To lose a knowledge of the Bible out of our lives is to deprive ourselves of the ethical and religious help needed to redeem society and bring the individual to his rightful destiny. Yet this generation is confronted by a widespread and universal ignorance of the Bible, even among the adherents of the churches.

Making the Bible useful to the child. The child cannot be taught all of the Bible as a child. Indeed, parts of if dealing with the ideals and practices of peoples and times whose primitive standards were far below those of our own times are wholly unsuited to the mind of childhood, and should be left until maturity has given the mental perspective by which to interpret them. Other parts of the Bible prove dry and uninteresting to children, and are of no immediate spiritual significance to them.

Still other parts, which later will be full of precious meaning, are beyond the grasp or need of the child in his early years and should be left for a later period. But with all these subtractions there still remains a rich storehouse of biblical material suited for all ages from earliest childhood to maturity. This material should be a.s.sembled and arranged in a _children's Bible_. This abridged Bible should then be made a part of the mental and spiritual possession of every child.

The knowledge of the Bible which will be of most worth to the child must be a _functioning_ knowledge; a knowledge that can and will be put at work in the child's thought, helping him form his judgments of right and wrong and arrive at a true sense of moral values; a knowledge that stirs the soul's response to the appeal G.o.d makes to the life; a knowledge that daily serves as a guide to action amid the perplexities and temptations that are met; a knowledge that lives and grows as the years pa.s.s by, constantly revealing deeper meanings and more significant truths.

The test of useful knowledge.--This is all to say that the knowledge of the Bible given the child must in no sense be a merely formal knowledge, a knowledge of so many curious or even interesting facts separated from their vital meaning and application. It must not consist of truths which for the most part _do not influence thought and action_.

Not how many facts are lodged in the mind, nor how many have pa.s.sed through the mind and been forgotten, but _how many truths are daily being built into character_--this measures the value of the knowledge we teach the child from the Bible.

KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE CHURCH

The church represents religion organized. Because of our social impulses we need to worship together in groups. Many religious activities, such as education, evangelism, missionary enterprises, and reforms, can be successfully carried out only by joint action; hence we have the church, a _means of religious culture_, and the _instrument of religious service_. Few there are who, outside the church, maintain their own religious experience or carry the ministry of religious service to others. A knowledge of the church is therefore an essential part of the child's religious education.

What the child needs to know about the church.--This does not mean that the child needs to know the technical and detailed history of the Christian Church; this may come later. Nor does it mean that the child needs to know the different theological controversies through which the church has pa.s.sed and the creeds that have resulted; this also may come later. What the child needs first to know is that the church is the instrument of religion, the home of religious people; that the Christian Church began with the followers of Jesus, and that it has existed ever since; that it has done and is doing much good in the world; that the best and n.o.blest men and women of each generation work with and through the church; that the church is worthy of our deepest love and appreciation, and that it should command our fullest loyalty and support.

Besides this rather general knowledge of the church, the child should know the organization and workings of the present-day church. He should come to know as much of its program, plans, and ideals as his age and understanding will permit.

Even the younger children are able to understand and sympathize with the missionary work of the church, both in home and in foreign lands.

Missionary instruction offers a valuable opportunity to quicken the religious imagination and broaden the social interests. Lessons showing the church at work in missionary fields should therefore be freely brought to the child.

Knowledge of the church's achievements.--The part the church has taken and is to-day taking in advancing the cause of education will appeal to the child's admiration and respect. A knowledge of its philanthropies will make a good foundation for the later loyalties to be developed toward the church as an inst.i.tution. The important influence of the church in furthering moral reforms and social progress is well within the appreciation of adolescents, and should be brought to their recognition.

Especially should children know the activities of their own local church; they should learn of its different organizations and of the work each is doing; they should know its financial program--where the money comes from and the uses to which it is put; they should know its plans ahead in so far as their partic.i.p.ation can be used in carrying out its activities. All these lines of information are necessary to the child in order that his interest and loyalty may have an intelligent and enduring basis.

Knowledge of one's own church.--The first knowledge of the church as an inst.i.tution given the child should be of the _church as a whole_, and should have no denominational bias. We should first aim to make out of our children _Christians_, and only later to make out of them Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, or Congregationalists.

There comes a time, however, when the child should become informed concerning his own particular church or denomination. He should learn of its history, its achievements, its creeds, its plan of organization and polity. This is not with the purpose of cultivating a narrow sectarianism, but in the interests of a self-respecting intelligence concerning the particular branch of the church which is one's spiritual home. That the great ma.s.s of our people to-day possess any reasonable fund of knowledge about the Christian Church or their own denomination may well be doubted. This is a serious fault in religious education.

KNOWLEDGE OF RELIGIOUS MUSIC AND ART

Not all of the child's religious impressions come through direct instruction in the facts and precepts of religion. Religious feeling and comprehension of the deeper meanings and values often best spring from their expression in music and art.

Music essential to religion.--No other form of expression can take the place of music in creating a spirit of reverence and devotion, or in inspiring religious feeling. So closely is music interwoven with religion that no small part of the world's greatest musical masterpieces have a religious motive as their theme. Even among primitive peoples music is an important feature of religious ceremonials. The Christian Church has a large and growing body of inspiring hymnology.

The child needs to be led into a knowledge of religious music. He needs this knowledge as a stimulus and a means of expression for his own spiritual life. But he also needs it in order to take part in the exercises of his church and its organizations. He needs it in order to enjoy music and do his part in producing it in the home and the school.

This means that children should come to know the hymnology of the church; they should know the words and the music of such worthy and inspiring hymns as are adapted to their age and understanding. They should finally, during the course of their development to adulthood, learn to know and enjoy the great religious oratorios and other forms of musical expression.

The place of art in religion.--Art, like music, owes much of its finest form and development to religion. Religious hope, aspiration, and devotion have always sought expression in pictorial or plastic art and in n.o.ble architecture. We owe it to our children to put them in possession of this rich spiritual heritage. They should know and love the great masterpieces of painting dealing with religious themes. They should not only have these as a part of their instruction in the church school cla.s.ses, but they should also have them in their homes and in their schools, and see them in public art galleries and in other public buildings suitable for their display.

Wherever possible the church building should in its architecture express in a worthy way the religious ideals of its members. It should first of all be adapted to the uses expected of it. It should be beautiful in conception and execution, and should allow no unlovely or unworthy elements to enter into its structure.

We should teach our children something of the wonder and beauty of religious architecture as represented in the great cathedrals and churches of all lands, and lead them to see in these creations the desire and attempt of great souls to express their appreciation for G.o.d's goodness to men.

1. It will help you to understand the child's idea of G.o.d if you will think back to your own childhood and answer the following questions: Just who and what was G.o.d to you? Was he near by or far off? When you prayed, to what kind of a Being was the prayer addressed? Did Jesus seem more near and friendly to you than G.o.d?

What were (or are) the most outstanding attributes of G.o.d's nature to you? Did you ever have any disturbing ideas about G.o.d?

2. Now, suppose you attempt to answer these same questions about the children in your cla.s.s. You will have to remember that the child may not be able to explain just what G.o.d seems to him--perhaps you can hardly do this yourself. Further, a child may often have some notion that what he feels is queer or would not be well received, and hence he will not fully express it to others.