Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/67

 Afternoon. This, then, I say is the result of the teaching that I would give to the little ones; you will notice that there is no thought of kings or saints or heroes in the child's mind, no pompous cathedral stuns and dwarfs his imagination, popes and priests are present only as vague embodiments of evil, destined to final punishment; he thinks of the good people about him, of the simple music he has heard Sunday after Sunday, of the eloquent discourses of which I have told him, and thus forms a picture which, for all I know, is as "inspired" as the vision of John. I do not understand why Battersea should not be as holy as Patmos, and a Christian child in the England of to-day may, for all I know, have a clearer vision than the Eastern solitary of the first century.

But when I turn from little Albert's simple story to the so-called "Divine Comedy" of Dante; what a gulf yawns between them!

But this opens up a new vista before us, and I think I will defer my remarks on this subject to some succeeding afternoon.