The master of the house had returned from a visit to the country home.

"Whom do you suppose I saw to-day?"

The children could not imagine.

"Old Robert. And what do you think he said?"

The guesses flew wide.

"No; you're all wrong. What he said was, 'How are the little men?'"

Then up rose Deacon, as the old colored man had dubbed him, the youngest, blandest, tricksiest of the trio; and he laughed in derisive resentment.

"I think old Robert is funny. He calls us little men. I don't think people will like old Robert if he calls 'em names."

Names! Will children never cease to shock us by their points of view? Old Robert, like a well-baked pie, had put all the richness of his highly flavored feeling for the lads into that one phrase. He made it serve him as a message of loyalty, respect, affection, comradeship.

Old Robert had probably never heard of James Mill; and if he had, he would not have cited him as an authority; for old Robert did not act according to the logic of his phrase. James Mill, however, did just that; he proceeded on the theory that it is wholesome to treat children as if they were miniature men and women. He began with his first-born by fitting to him an intellectual frock coat and tall hat. Why he waited till the youngster was three years old no one, so far as I know, has ever explained. Without much further delay he also gave him a religious outfit. This, though decidedly less conventional than his intellectual wardrobe, had the same adult cut. It was not the Benthamite fashion of his religious garb, but its mature lines, that gave John Stuart Mill his air of fascinating priggishness and suave conceit.

Our taste, unlike James Mill's, may be for orthodoxy. We need not on that account despair of imbuing our children with religious precocity and self-assurance. Before he was ten years old, John Stuart Mill had learned that Christianity was immoral, and that there was no personal God. There is no reason why any child at the same age may not know all the mysteries of predestinarianism, and be old in the experiences of sanctification. All we need is the diligence, the courage, the determination of James Mill.

In these qualities some of our forbears had the advantage of us. They knew very definitely what they wished their children to do and to believe. Among them was an American contemporary of James Mill, the Rev. Carlton Hurd. There are people still living who gratefully recall the ministration of this kindly, stalwart New England divine. He so ran as not uncertainly; so fought he, not as one that beateth the air. And his certitude did not forsake him in the training of his little daughter. It may seem almost grotesque to couple the English author and employee of the East India Company with the Orthodox American parson. The one held beliefs antipodal to those of the other. James Mill, moreover, not being able to believe in a God so stern as to create this evil world, made up what was lacking in the cosmos by cultivating in himself an iron sternness toward his son; on the other hand, Parson Hurd, as he is still affectionately called, being fully persuaded of the existence of a God capable of infinite wrath, seemed to cherish in himself, as sort of compensation, a most touching solicitude for his daughter. In only one respect did Parson Hurd resemble James Mill,—in having and holding to a body of convictions which were, to his mind, not only indisputable, but also, in substance at least, essential to the proper adornment of the mind of a child. The letter in which he tells the story of Marion Lyle Hurd is the narrative of a complete and orderly religious experience.

Marion died at the age of four years. When she was eight months old, her parents read to her from leaflets for Sabbath Schools. They explained to her, when she was a year and a half old, in answer to questions from her, the origin and use of the Bible. They noted that when she had reached the age of two "her mind was seriously exercised with religious things." At that time she would sometimes kneel down and would say:—

"Mother, I am going to pray. What shall I say to God?"

"Ask God to make you good and give you a new heart."

"What is a new heart, Mother?"

"This was familiarly explained," writes her father, "and at the same time she was particularly informed of the way of salvation by Jesus Christ, and the steps God had taken to save sinners. We endeavored to impress upon her mind that she was a sinner and needed forgiveness; and God would forgive her sins, and give her a new heart through Jesus Christ." That from this time "she chiefly devoted her few remaining days to the acquisition of religious knowledge" her father finds to be "a consoling reflection." He adds, with conscientious caution, "If she was truly converted, we cannot tell when the change took place." Her parents hoped, however, after she had died two years later, that she had "entered 'the city of our God.'" Though they had no means of perceiving the approach of the disease of the brain which occasioned her death, they realized that the sensitiveness and activity of her mind warned them "to lead Marion with the gentlest hand; to make her way as quiet and even as possible." In this third year the books which were read to her included Parley's "Geography" and "Astronomy," Gallaudet's "Child's Book on the Soul," and "Daily Food for Christians." In her fourth year her books, which she read to herself, were, besides the Bible, "Child's Book on Repentance," "Life of Moses," "Family Hymns," "Union Hymns," "Daily Food," "Lessons for Sabbath Schools," "Henry Milnor," Watts's "Divine Songs," "Memoir of John Mooney Mead," "Nathan W. Dickerman," Todd's "Lectures to Children," and "Pilgrim's Progress." As these titles indicate, she was "particularly fond of reading the biography of good little children." Of all her books, however, Bunyan's masterpiece seems to have been the most instructive. Her knowledge of the allegory was tested by questions. She knew why Christian went through the river while Ignorance was ferried over. She knew what was meant by the Slough of Despond and the losing of the Burden. "When we come to Christ," said she, "we" (not Christians, or people, or you, but we) "lose our sins." And she sought from her father a certificate to enter the City. "We cannot doubt," comments her father, "Marion understood much of what was intended to be taught in that book, which Phillip says, in his life of John Bunyan, contains the essence of all theology. Certainly, she was familiar with every step of the pathway of holiness trod by Christian, from the city of Destruction through the river of death to the 'Celestial City.'" And later he adds that she evinced "a familiar acquaintance with all parts of that allegory and its doctrine." Though he makes clear in his letter that "it is not the piety of the full grown and mature christian, that we are to look for in a child," he makes equally clear that in all essential particulars her piety was complete. It included even a regard for the significance of eternal reward and penalty. From Doddridge's "Expositor," both by examining the pictures and reading "the sacred text" under the direction of her father, she derived many ideas of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and the general resurrection at the end of the world. "Marion," continues the narrative, "after closely inspecting the countenances given in those pictures, both to the just and unjust, in the resurrection, would say,

"'Oh! how the wicked look, when they rise from the dead!' adding in a serious and solemn manner,

Indeed, from the earlier months, life after death, "the happiness of the good, and the misery of the wicked," were topics of "frequent and delightful conversation with her parents."

In her last hours she expressed her assurance that she would be saved, and her last audible words were, "I am not afraid to die." Thus ended this brief life of four years and twenty-six days.

An example of such training would be hard to find among parents of the present day. This is not because there are no parents who have Parson Hurd's convictions; neither is it because there are none who have his confidence in the capacity of children. It is because there are lacking parents who have both the convictions and the confidence. The reason why many parents fail where James Mill and Parson Hurd succeeded is that they try to make compromise between two contradictory theories. Although they wish to give their children a full complement of doctrines, they either do not possess the full complement themselves, or do not believe that their children are mature enough to receive it. The spectacle of adults attempting to instruct a primary class in the Logos Doctrine by the kindergarten method is thoroughly modern.

If the way of Parson Hurd and James Mill seems to us either too hard or unreal, there is another way that may be found. That is the studious exclusion of religion from the life—even from the knowledge—of our children. It was this way that J. S. Mill supposed his father set him traveling. Of course he was mistaken when he said in his autobiography that he never had religious belief. He was embowered in religious, though not in Christian, or even in theistic, belief. The way that he walked was erroneously marked on his map; that was all. This is worth noting because it indicates how easily even a logician may miss this obscure way of no religion. Those who would lead their children by this route must avoid the very shadow of religion as they would that of the upas. Indeed, against even the air that has passed the shadow of religion they must quarantine their children. Religion is infectious. It can be conveyed by the subtlest means. To it children are perilously liable. Against it there seems to be no trustworthy antitoxin. Children are surrounded by infected people. A chance word may deposit the germ. One child out of the brood may thus fall a victim to a particularly virulent species of religion simply because he never had it in a mild form. Nevertheless, it is possible to establish a quarantine that may chance to remain effective for years. By this means children may be kept from a knowledge of religion just as many are safely, or dangerously, kept from a knowledge of what most people regard as advanced physiology. One family, I am told, has taken this way. How successful it has proved, I cannot say. All I have heard is that one member of the family is now enlisted in the ministry. This does not necessarily betoken failure. The theory was simply that each child was to be kept immune until he was old enough to decide for himself whether or not he would take the infection. This way is not the way of indifference. It cannot be followed by any one who is not profoundly affected by religion, whether hostile or friendly to it. It may require less routine diligence than the other way, but it requires more anxious circumspection.

Different from either of these is that third way blazed by the developing traits of our children. Those who take it cannot regard religion as a form of doctrines or practices to be handed over to their child ready-made; neither can they regard it as a superfluity, which they are to withdraw from their child until he can choose to avoid it as a danger or accept it as a luxury. They can regard it only as a mode of life and therefore a mode of growth. They conceive it to be quite as perfect when it is genuinely manifested in the immaturities of the boy or girl as when it is shown in the riper forms of old age.

Not that they undervalue doctrines. They know that there never was a religion that did not formulate itself. They look, however, for the doctrines to follow the religion, not the religion the doctrines. They are not surprised when they find their children constructing a philosophy of religion for themselves. Once upon a time a little girl was heard to address her dolls: "There's us, and Bridget, and Jews. We're all made of the same material; and we all have the same Father; I guess the difference is that some are more refined than others." No grown-up could have given her in the same number of words a more thoroughly typical example of theology: a union of anthropology, biology, and metaphysics, with a quasi-ethical conclusion. No ecumenical creed could have been more valid for the generation that produced it than could this brief philosophy be for her.

Those who would take this third way well know, too, that there are some phases of religion from which it may be well, if possible, to save children for a time. It is no more necessary to feed them on Dante's "Inferno" than on Welsh rabbit. This, however, is very different from enforcing abstinence from all religious food.

Conceding as much as this, then, to dogma and to caution, those who do not object to seeing a child grow will—let him grow. They will not be surprised if he looks out on the world with wonder. Neither will they be surprised if his wonder is slow in reaching satiety. It is sometimes very leisurely.

Davy, aged six, asked one day at table: "Mamma, what's above the clouds?"

"Air."

After a moment of thought: "What's above the air?"

"Ether."

Another moment of thought; then, "What's above the ether?"

"More ether. Ether is everywhere."

Throughout this colloquy, Davy's brother Donald, two years younger, seemed no more attentive than usual; which means he was quite inattentive. A few weeks later, Davy had occasion to tell some one the story of the Tower of Babel, and added his usual formula, "I think they were foolish to try to get up to God, for God is everywhere." Donald's mind seemed busily engaged about some other matter. A few months passed, and Donald, now turned five, Donald the inattentive, suddenly thrust at his mother this question:—

"Is God ether?"

"No," said his mother, with a little hesitating inflection; she was trying to prepare herself for the unknown but inevitable sequence. It came promptly:—

"Is God the universe?"

Not willing to commit herself to pantheism, she answered again, "No;" and this time her inflection was more hesitant and inquiring than before.

"How can God be everywhere?"

For all those months that wonder had been nestling in that small mind until it grew brave enough to become vocal. Ether everywhere; God everywhere; God is ether. Why not? And if not, how can both be true?

"Grandfather is in the library; perhaps he can tell you."

A sound on the stairway like the roll of a drum and Donald was down in the library.

"Grandfather, how can God be everywhere?"

Grandfather touched Donald's hand: "Is Donald here, or," touching his shoulders, "is he here, or," touching his chest, "is he here, or," touching his knee, "is he here?"

Donald did not hesitate; touching each spot in turn, he answered: "Donald is here, and here, and here, and here."

"So it is with God," said his grandfather; "he is in New York and England and China and the sun and the moon and the stars."

With a smile that broke like the dawn, and that meant both understanding and gratitude, Donald stood thoughtfully still a moment, and then skipped off to his blocks.

Wonder. That seems to be the first phase of religious experience, and it grows silently unless it is thrust out by some grown-up body's system, or is atrophied by studious neglect. Miracles? Santa Claus? Need we trouble ourselves about these when our children are sun-worshipers, polytheists, pagans?

Wonder is only one part of religion. The natural response to wonder is ritual. And children, whether we like it or not, are natively ritualistic. The little son of a well-known writer went with his mother for the first time in his life to service in the Church of England. As they entered, the people were singing; as the music ended, the people knelt.

"What are they going to do now, Mamma?"

"They are going to kneel and say their prayers."

"What! with all their clothes on?"

Untrained in ecclesiasticism, that small boy had developed a ritual of his own. Night-clothes, to his mind, were essential to the proprieties of religion. What does it matter to the ritualist whether or not he understands all the words he says? The ritual itself is his reaction to the spirit of reverence.

Indeed, ritual is almost a prerequisite to the spirit of reverence. It is Professor James who has said that a man does not double up his fists because he is angry, or tremble because he is afraid; he is afraid because he trembles, and is angry because he doubles up his fist. So one may say that a man does not kneel because he is reverent; he is reverent because he kneels. What power ritual has needs no further demonstration than that afforded by the Society of Friends. What ritual surpasses in power that of the Quaker meeting-house? What vestments have given color and form to character more effectually than the old-fashioned Quaker garb? If we wish our children to have the spirit of courtesy, we insist that they acquire the habit of speaking politely. If we wish them to have the spirit of reverence—there is no knowing what we shall do, for most of us are very human and irrational.

That is the reason why we shall probably be careless in considering the question of church attendance. There are some of us, perhaps, who have the sense to give an intelligent answer to the question, Why don't you have your children go to church? There is only one rational answer to that question. It might be put into some such form as this: "I have no special objection to churches. They are useful. So are free libraries. People who have no books at home find free libraries a great benefit; but my family have at home all the books they need. So people who are not well supplied with religion derive undoubted benefit from churches; but my family have at home all the religion they need. The community would be about as well off without any churches as it is with the churches it has. If no other charity seems more important, I am willing to contribute to a church as I might to a free library; but really I see no reason why I should go to church myself, or expect my children to go." That is a rational answer. I know of no other answer essentially different that could be called rational. An equally rational answer can be given to the other question, Why do you require your children to go to church? It might be put in these words: "A church of some kind is essential to the welfare of this community. Without any church, even the value of real estate in this place would enormously depreciate. That shows how everybody recognizes the church as a conservator of social morality. In this respect the church stands alone. The sermons may be nearly as dull as those which I have to preach to my children; the music may be even less entertaining; but the congregation represents as no other body of people the moral sense of the community. Besides that, the church is the only expression of religion as something not merely individual but also organic. Inasmuch as the church cannot be a church without a congregation, I am obliged, if I believe all this, to take my share in maintaining the existence of that congregation. And since the responsibility for seeing that my children take their share cannot be put upon them, it rests upon me. As a consequence, they no more question why they go to church than they question why they go to meals. They are not being entertained; they are not primarily even being instructed. For that reason it is not necessary, though it may be advantageous, for them to understand the sermon. They are forming a habit. On much the same grounds I am acquainting them with the Bible. What they store in their memory now they need not understand till later. There is a time for learning by heart; there is a time for understanding. I no more propose to postpone my children's practice in religious observances until they reach the age of discretion, than I propose to postpone their practice in being honest or in learning their five-finger exercises." That answer, like the other, is rational.

A part of ritual is the observance of days and seasons. To this phase of religion we may expect children to be sensitive. Paul's mother came into the nursery one Sunday afternoon.

"What are you doing?"

"Studying."

Paul's mother was surprised.

"We try to keep Sunday different from other days. After this we shall understand that you are not to study on Sundays."

A little more than two weeks later, Paul came home from school.

"Sammy is a funny boy," he remarked.

Sammy is a schoolmate.

"What has he done?" inquired Paul's mother.

"Why, Sammy gets his lessons on Sunday."

Two Sundays had sufficed for the establishment of a tradition in religion so complete that a violation of it seemed grotesque.

In regard to the observance of Sunday, one household has reversed the traditional rule. The ritual characteristic of that family originated in a bachelor uncle's remark. He recalled how alluring were those books which had been forbidden him, as a boy, on Sunday, and how gray a day Sunday was because those books were proscribed. He advocated the plan of selecting certain interesting books, which would be forbidden on week-days. In other words, he would remove the ban from Sundays, and put it on the other six days. His plan was adopted. Certain delights, including several volumes of stories from the Bible, were confined to Sunday. In consequence, Bible stories are in great favor, and Sunday is a day of privilege. In that household the ritual of Sunday observance is a ritual of liberty.

Besides wonder and ritual, there is a factor in religion on which children seize. We may call it hero-worship. Others, following the lead of psychologists, might prefer to name it imitation. As the children of a certain family gather to look at Bible pictures, they are prone to ask of any group of people depicted, "Are those people good?" Reverence for what to them is an ideal may come later than wonder or ritual, but it is sure to come in time to all children. Those parents who are ready to take their children as they are and to help the growth of the spirit as they help the growth of the body incur the peril of always seeing in this reverence a searching inquisition of their own lives. The nearest objects of hero-worship that a child has are his parents. This fact may raise a disturbing inquiry: Shall they puzzle him by setting forth two ideals of fatherhood, one incorporated in themselves, the other involved in their representation of the character of God? Shall they confuse the mind of the child by setting up two inconsistent standards of human service, their own lives and what they tell him of the life of Jesus of Nazareth? This dilemma of course is avoided by such parents as hold either of those comfortable theories, that religion is a theology and that religion is a luxury. In the one case such questions are not pertinent; in the other they are unimportant. If, however, we understand religion to be a mode of life, we may find such questions as these driving us into an uncomfortable corner. They seem to compel us to pose as exhorter and pattern, and to force on us a paralyzing self-consciousness. Perhaps it will not harm us to be occasionally reminded of the fact that we cannot expect our children to become altogether different from what we are determined to be; but to be always composing precepts and assuming the attitude of examples seems to be but a feeble part to play. Happily, we need not confine our children to the contemplation of ourselves. There are many who, if we but let them, may share with us the burden of our children's imitativeness. And here comes our reward, if we have cultivated their imagination. We may be a bit stingy ourselves; but if we covet generosity for our children, we can let Abram make the suggestion. We may cherish our own resentments; but if we want our children to despise theirs, we can let them join that group that heard Peter bidden to put up his sword. Whatever may happen to us in the process will probably do us no hurt. We may find another illustration of that which we encountered at the beginning, that the principal part in the training of our children is the training of ourselves. This may have meant to us, when we started on our course, that the training of ourselves was simply the preparation for the training of our children. By this time we shall have discovered that it is not so much a preparation as an outcome. This art of being a parent is an art of give and take. If it is more blessed to give, as the Lord said, it is, as far as parents are concerned, quite as obligatory to receive. As much, at least, as this is the implication in one thing that our Lord did. Whether he ever instructed a child in the faith we do not know; we have not been told. What has been told is that when he wished to show his disciples—among them some parents, we may surmise—what religion was, he took a child and set him in the midst of them.