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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.—, "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.—, "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.—, "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.—, "Studies in Religious Nurture."

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Religious Narrowness—See.

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