Page:The art of story-telling, with nearly half a hundred stories, y Julia Darrow Cowles .. (IA artofstorytellin00cowl).pdf/111

 of Gideon; the pastoral story of Ruth. In the New Testament are the stories of Christ's birth, His life, with all its boyhood incidents, its parables, and its wonders, closing with His death and resurrection. The question is not, "What can I tell?" but, "Which shall I tell?" The fund is practically inexhaustible.

I have a word of caution to offer to the one—be she mother, Sunday School teacher, or story-teller, who presents Bible stories to children: put nothing into the stories by way of explanation which the Bible does not put there, and which will have to be recalled or modified when the child grows older and begins to ask questions, and to this end do not make the mistake of confounding the truth taught, with the literal form of its teaching.

As the child grows older and begins to analyze, to reason, and to ask questions, then must the story-teller—and let us hope that the chief Bible story-teller may be the mother—be ready to guide surely and unfold wisely the deeper and higher meaning of the stories of the Book of Books.