Page:Sunday Lessons for the Instruction of Children of the New Church.pdf/18

Rh which are most likely to be yours, when youare grown up. Now long experience has taught instructors of youth a good deal about this.And the books and teaching provided for you in the week days are such as the experience ofa great many teachers, and a great manyschools, and the consideration of many sensible persons, have shown to be, on the whole, the best.

But besides this teaching and these truths,there are truths of a different kind. There are such truths as I will call religious truths. Perhaps you will understand me when I say that religious truths are those which make other truths useful to your regeneration. Religious truths are those without which other truths are of no use. Thus, you are learning grammar, or geography, or French, or how to sew; well, these things would not and could not be of any use to your regeneration, unless you know you have a soul, and that there is a God, and that He commands us to love our neighbour as ourselves. The reason of this is, that whatever you do, unless you do it with a wish to obey God, and because God commands it, or puts it before you as a duty—the thing you do does not help forward your regeneration. So that you may see that it does not depend only on what you do, whether you are promoting your regeneration,—but also on the feelings with which you do it. And religious truths make these feelings right.

I think you can now understand the difference between what I call religious truths, and other truths. Other truths are useful in teach-