a child asks, “Did God make the world?” the answer that will be true to the child may be a simple affirmative.  If the child asks or his query implies, “Did God make the leaves, or the birds, with his fingers?” we had better take time to show the difference between man’s making of things and the working of the divine energy through all the process of the development of the world.  When the child asks, “Mother, if God made all things, why did he make the devil?” it would surely be wise and opportune to correct the child’s mental picture of a personal anti-God and to take from him his bogey of a “devil.”  But the question of the relation of God to the existence of evil would remain, and the best a parent could do would be to illustrate the necessities of freedom of choice and will in life by similar freedom in the family.

It must be remembered that children’s curious questions are only their attempt to discover their world, that they have no peculiar religious significance, but that they afford the parent a vital opportunity for direct religious instruction.  These questions must be treated seriously; something is missing in parental consciousness when the child’s questions furnish only material for jesting relation to the family friends.

Sec. 7.  MORAL TEACHING

Questions on conduct:  Scores of times in the day the children come in from play or from school and tell of what has happened.  Their more or less breathless recitals very often include vigorous accounts of “cheating,” “naughtiness,” unfair play, unkind words, discourtesies, all dependent as to their character on the age of the children and all opening doors for free conversation on duties and conduct.  Here lies one of the large opportunities for moral instruction.  There is no need to attempt to make formal occasions for this; so long as children play and live with others they are under the experience of learning the art of living with one another; this is the simple essence of morality.  The parent’s answers to their questions on conduct, the comments on their criticisms, and the conversation that may easily be directed on these subjects count tremendously with the child in establishing his ideals and modes of conduct.  Returning to his play, there is no mightier authority he can quote than to say, “My mother says—­,” or “My father says—.”

Let no one say that instruction in moral living is not religious, for there can be no adequate guidance in morals without religion, nor can the religious quality of the life find expression adequately except through conduct in social living.  Children need more than the rules for living; they must feel motives and see ideals.  They do not live by rules any more than we do.  Besides the rule that is known there must be a reason for following it and a strong desire to do so.  All ethical teaching needs this imperative and motivation of religion, the quickening of loyalty to high ideals, the doing of the right for reasons of love as well as of duty and profit.