Across the dew-wet meadows they went, in the early flush of morning, and the child, her hand clasped in her mother's, listened with her to the exquisite music of the thrush in the holy hour and place.
What need of words? It is the spirit that giveth life. The flame was kindled in the heart of the child because it burned undimmed in the mother's heart. Not by preaching, nor even by much speaking, will our teachers teach religion. But they will surely teach whose lives abide in the shadow of the Almighty. We can not but speak the things we have seen and heard. Striving to do His will in the school-room, we slowly learn of the doctrine, and the truth we have made our own we are enabled to share.—Sarah Louise Arnold, "Proceedings of the Religious Education Association," 1905.
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RELIGIOUS INFRACTIONS OF PROPRIETY
There are religious infractions of propriety,
and they are serious. The Chinese
word for propriety is an ideograph made up
of two parts; one means to proclaim, or to
reveal; the other means a sacrificial vessel.
That is, propriety in the group of countries
dominated by Chinese etiquette is a matter
of religion and so is not to be lightly regarded.
But what does one witness at the
temples? Not infrequently one sees a missionary
stalk boldly into a temple. He may
not take off his shoes in Japan before walking
over the polished temple floors. Very
possibly he walks up to the idol and familiarly
pats him with his ever-present cane. It
is to the believer in those faiths like taking
hold of the Ark of the Covenant in ancient
Jewish times. We should remember that
ridiculing the beliefs of people is poor missionary
policy. They are usually the best
that that country, or people, know. Let us
not profane those things which are held
most sacred. We may argue against them
and reason about the unwisdom of holding
them, but let us never laugh at the religious
views and practises of the non-Christian
world.—H. P. Beach, "Student Volunteer
Movement," 1906.
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RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION
"Let the child wait till he has grown and
then choose his own religion," said an English
statesman in the hearing of Coleridge.
Coleridge, leading his friend into the garden,
said: "I have decided not to put out any
vegetables this spring, but to wait till
August and let the garden decide for itself
whether it prefers weeds or strawberries."
This is the logic of the delayed instruction
theory.—A. B. Bunn Van Ormer, "Studies
in Religious Nurture."
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RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION DENIED
In the psychological confession of a writer
(Sentenis), a German philosopher whom his
father had submitted to the experiment advised
by the author of "Émile," he tells us
that, left alone by the death of a tenderly
loved wife, this father, a learned and
thoughtful man, had taken his infant son to
a retired place in the country; and not allowing
him communication with any one, he
had cultivated the child's intelligence through
the sight of natural objects placed near him,
and by the beauty of language, almost without
books, and in carefully concealing from
him all idea of God. The child reached his
tenth year without having either read or
heard that great name. But then his mind
formed what had been denied it. The sun
which he saw rise each morning seemed the
all-powerful benefactor of whom he felt the
need. He soon formed the habit of going at
dawn to the garden to pay homage to that
god that he himself had made. His father
surprized him one day, and showed him his
error by teaching him that all fixt stars are
so many suns distributed in space. But such
was the keen disappointment and the grief of
the child deprived of his worship, that the
father, overcome, acknowledged to him that
there is a God, the Creator of the heavens
and the earth.—A. B. Bunn Van Ormer,
"Studies in Religious Nurture."
(2673)
Religious Narrowness—See Regularity, Ecclesiastical.
RELIGIOUS TRAINING
Suppose a sculptor should take a piece of
marble and stand it in front of his studio
on the sidewalk, and should invite every
passer-by to have a stroke at it with mallet
and chisel, shaping it according to the fancy
or the caprice of the moment, and then at
the end of the year have it suddenly endowed
with life, and ask it to choose what it would
be—the shape of a god or of a satyr, of
beauty or ugliness, pure and white or stained
and soiled—this man would be rational as
compared with the one who believes that
you can let a child grow up until he is
twenty unbiased, without absorbing any religious
ideas or convictions, and then freely
