only enjoys, and perhaps
dimly senses the hidden lesson or truth they contain. This is as it
should be. Later, when thought, judgment, and discrimination are
developing and beginning to play their part in the expanding mind,
questions are sure to arise at certain points. This is also as it should
be.

When such questions arise let us meet them frankly and wisely. Let us
have the spiritual vision and the reverence for truth that will enable
us, for example, to show the child how the servants of God in those
ancient times used the bold, picturesque figure of "feathers" and
"wings" to express the brooding love and care of God; how they told the
wonderful story of God's creation of the world in the most beautiful
account they could conceive; how they showed forth God's care for his
children, his companionship with them, and man's tendency to sin and
disobedience by one of the most beautiful stories ever written, this
story having its scene laid in the garden of Eden; how these writers
always set down what they believed to be true, and how, though they
might sometimes have been mistaken as to the actual facts, they never
missed presenting the great lesson or deep spiritual truth that God
would have us know.

Protecting the child against intellectual difficulties.--Children
taught the Bible in this reasonable but reverent way will be saved many
intellectual difficulties as they grow older. Their reverence and
respect for the Bible will never suffer from the necessity of attempting
to force their faith to accept what their intellect contradicts. They
will not be troubled by the grave doubts and misgivings which attack so
many adolescents during the time when they are working out their mental
and spiritual adjustment to the new world of individual responsibility
which they have discovered. They will, without strain or questioning,
come to accept the Bible for what it is--the great _Source Book of
spiritual wisdom_, its pages bearing the imprint of divine inspiration
and guidance, and also of human imperfections and greatness.

The developing child should, therefore, be encouraged to use his reason,
his thought, his judgment and discrimination in his study of religion
precisely as in other things. His questions should never be ignored, nor
suppressed, nor treated as something unworthy and sinful. The doubts,
even, which are somewhat characteristic of a stage of adolescent
reconstruction, may be made the stepping-stone to hig