CHAPTER X.
RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION.
1. “Rejoice not in impious children. If they be multiplied rejoice not over them; since the fear of God is not in them. For it is better to die childless, than to have impious children.” So said the wise son of Sirach. Above all things, parents should be careful to imbue their children with truth, and not be satisfied with merely outward piety; apart from this, knowledge and manners, however refined, may be more injurious than beneficial; just as a knife, a sword, or a hatchet in the hand of a maniae, the sharper it is, the more dangerous it becomes.
2. In the first and second years, because of their tender age,[1] and from the reasoning faculty nob yet being developed in children, little can be effected in this matter beyond what God, through nature and His own internal grace, effects; still, by some means, the beginning of our duty towards them and of theirs towards God must be laid, so that we may coöperate, as far as we can, with God and nature. For although we cannot teach piety to new-born
- ↑ Comenius, like Fénelon, recognized that reason was necessary for religious instruction. The latter, in L’Éducation des Filles (Paris, n. d.), says: “We have already remarked that early infancy is not adapted to the exercise of the reasoning faculty on account of the limited knowledge of children. We should, nevertheless, endeavor, without placing their faculties under unnatural restraint, gently to turn the first exercise of their reason to the knowledge of God.”
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