her reaches of
faith and understanding.

The youth who went to his pastor with certain questionings and doubts,
and who was told that these were "the promptings of Satan," and that
they "must not be dwelt upon, but resolutely be put out of the mind,"
was not fairly nor honestly treated by one from whom he had a right to
expect wiser guidance. He returned from the interview rebellious and
bitter, and it was with much spiritual agony and sweating of blood that
he fought his own way through to a solution which ought to have been
made easy for him by wise enlightenment and sympathetic counsel.

Reverent seekers after truth.--Religion requires the mind at its best.
There is nothing about religion that will not bear full thought and
investigation. We are not asked to lay aside any part of our powers, can
not lay any part of them aside, if we would attain to full religious
growth and stature. Let us therefore train our children to _think_ as
they study religion. Let us lead them to ask and inquire. Let us train
them to investigate and test. Let us teach them that they never need be
afraid of truth, since no bit of truth ever conflicts with, or
contradicts any other truth; let us rather encourage them reverently and
with open hearts and minds diligently to seek the truth, and then _dare
to follow where it leads_.

THE APPEAL TO IMAGINATION

Imagination, the power of the mind that pictures and makes real, is a
key to vivid and lasting impressions. Unless the imagination recreates
the scenes described in the story, or vivifies the events of the lesson,
they will have little meaning to the child and appeal but little to his
interest.

It is imagination that enables its possessor to take the images
suggested in the account of a battle and build them together into the
mass of struggling soldiers, roaring cannon, whistling bullets, and
bursting shells. It is imagination that makes it possible while reading
the words of the poem to construct the picture which was in the mind of
the author as he wrote "The Village Blacksmith," the twenty-third
psalm, or "Snowbound," and thereby enables the reader himself to take
part in the throbbing scenes of life and action. Without imagination one
may repeat the words which describe an act or an event, may even commit
them to memory or pass an examination upon them, but the living reality
will forever escape him. It is imagination that will save the beautiful
stories and narratives of the Bi