Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1896-09-24
TEACHING CHILDREN RELIGION.
The Necessity of Recognizing the Child's
Capacities.

The Necessity of Recognizing the Childs
Capacities.
The story is told of the most popular
of American novelists, who has just
passed away, that she taught her little
thereupon put to her the question:
"Why, then, mamma, does the Bible say
SO often that God was angry?" AS
mothers do too often, she avaded the
question by telling him he would under
stand It better wien he was older. This
did not satisfy the child, and after pom
dering seriously for awhile, he burst
out: ''Oh, mamma, have found it
out! God is angry because God is not
a Christian"
A fair answer to that question was not
beyond the child's capacities. 1t is not
in mature life, but in childhood that
fundamental questions are asked and
answers true or false obtained. Other
people are surrounded by conventions,
and do not raise such questions after
living a long time satisfied with what
they have been taught. What is seems
to them right. 1t is children that are
radicals, that are ready to overthrow
everything; and it is most important
that full and fair answers should be
given to children when they ask ques-
tons which seem perhaps absurd to
their elders. Tie child, when grown
up, will not understand bit better why
God is represented as angry, and why
that is not sin in Him which is a sin in
man.
Of course, any anger which would be
a sin in man would be n sin in God. A
child can understa that. OF course
we have the right to be angry at
wrong done to helpless person. In
dignation that is not malicious or vim
dictive or selfish is virtue rather than
a sin, whether in God or man. The pri-
mary questions of ethics and religion
are simple enough, open to the compre-
hensiop of very young child.
If we avoid teaching a child these
first principles and their applications,
there may be danger that the child will
reach the most erroneous and perhaps
dangerous conclusions. Such was this
chiid's conclusions. He got the idea
that God. our Heavenly Father, is less
loving than Jesus Christ. Put in the
bold, childish terms, God is not
Christian,' it shocks us. But we are in
danger of teaching the doctrine that lies
behind that form of words in exposition
of the character of God. We make him,
too often, anything but a loving Father,
as full of love as is His son, our blessed
Lord. If the Son loves us, the Father
loves us no less. The fountain of love
is in the Fathers heart. God is no more
angry with US than is Jesus Christ. If
one is indignant at sin, so is the other.
If one thinks it should be punished, so
does the other. If one is gracious and
pardons, so does the other; for they
are one.
We are, in these days, making less of
God. in His COVE rnmental relations to
US, and more of Him in his paternal re-
lation. The anger of a good father is no
more terrible than that of a good elder
brother. God is not so much king 20
be pacified and appeased as is father
who sees us afar off and runs to meet
us. So we are to consider him as Jesus
describes him to us, and we are to take
pains to teach such God, full of love,
to our children. But above all, let us
not deceive them, or put them off, or
tell them not to ask questions about the
great things of God. They should be
encouraged to think and talk and ask
about those things which most enlarge
their souls, purify their thoughts, and
bring them into filial relations with a
great but loving Heavenly Father.-N.
Y. Independent.