the various articles of belief which we are anxious that they should
not share. They will ask you whether the story of the creation of the
universe is true; whether such and such miracles really happened;
whether this person or that actually lived, and actually did all that he
is said to have done. Plainly the right course is to tell them, without
any agitation or excess or vehemence or too much elaboration, the simple
truth in such matters exactly as it appears to one's own mind. There is
no reason why they should not know the best parts of the Bible as well
as they know the Iliad or Herodotus. There are many reasons why they
should know them better. But one most important condition of this is
constantly overlooked by people, who like to satisfy their intellectual
vanity by scepticism, and at the same time to make their comfort safe by
external conformity. If the Bible is to be taught only because it is a
noble and most majestic monument of literature, it should be taught as
that and no more. That a man who regards it solely us supreme
literature, should impress it upon the young as the supernaturally
inspired word of God and the accurate record of objective occurrences,
is a piece of the plainest and most shocking dishonesty. Let a youth be
trained in simple and straightforward recognition of the truth that we
can know, and can conjecture, nothing with any assurance as to the
ultimate mysteries of things. Let his imagination and his sense of awe
be fed from those springs, which are none the less bounteous because
they flow in natural rather than supernatural channels. Let him be
taught the historic place and source of the religions which he is not
bound to accept, unless the evidence for their authority by and by
brings him to another mind. A boy or girl trained in this way has an
infinitely better chance of growing up with the true spirit and
leanings of religion implanted in the character, than if they had been
educated in formulae which they could not understand, by people who do
not believe them.

The most common illustration of a personal mistake being made the base
of a general doctrine, is found in the case of those who, after
committing themselves for life to the profession of a given creed, awake
to the shocking discovery that the creed has ceased to be true for them.
The action of a popular modern story, Mrs. Gaskell's _North and South_,
turns upon the case of a clergyman whoso faith is overthrown, and who i