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Page 43
The use of the story with older children.--A mistake has been made in
not a few of the Sunday school lesson series in sharply reducing the
story material for all ages above the primary grades. It must be
remembered that while the older child has more power to grasp and
understand abstract lessons than the younger child, there is no age or
stage of development at which the story and the concrete illustration
are not an attractive and effective mode of teaching. Surely, all
through the junior and intermediate grades the story should be one of
the chief forms of material for religious instruction, while for
adolescents stories will still be far from negligible.
The principles of story-using, then, are clear in the teaching of
religion: _Make the story one of the chief instruments of instruction;
see that it is charged with religious and moral value; make sure it is
adapted to the age of the learner, and that it is well told; for younger
children use few stories frequently repeated until they are well known;
do not insist that the child shall at first grasp the deeper meanings of
the story, make sure of interest and enjoyment, and the meaning will
come later._
MATERIAL FROM NATURE
The child's spontaneous love of nature and ready response to the world
of objects about him open up rich sources of material for religious
instruction. God who creates the beautiful flowers, who causes the
breezes to blow, who carpets the earth with green, who paints the autumn
hillside with glowing color, who directs the coming and going of the
seasons, who tells the buds when to swell and the leaves to unfold, who
directs the sparrow in its flight and the bee in its search, who is in
the song of the birds and the whisper of the leaves, who sends his rain
and makes the thunder roll--this God can be brought, through the medium
of nature's forms, very near to the child. And the love and appreciation
which the child lavishes on the dear and beautiful things about him will
extend naturally and without trouble of comprehension to their Creator.
Nature material useful for all ages.--Most of the lesson material now
supplied for our Sunday schools use a considerable amount of nature
material in the earlier grades, but some important lesson series omit
most or all nature material from the junior department on. This is a
serious mistake. All through childhood and youth the pupil is continuing
in the public school his study of nature and its laws. Along with this
broadening of knowledge of the natural world should be the deepening of
appreciation of its spiritual meaning, and the inspiration to praise and
worship which comes from it. One does not, or at least should not, at
any age outgrow his response to the wonders and beauties which nature
unfolds before him who has eyes to see its inner meaning. None can
afford to lose the simple, untutored awe with which children and
primitive men look out upon the world.
Carlyle, recognizing this truth, exclaims: "This green, flowery,
rock-built earth, the trees, the mountains, rivers, many-sounding seas;
that great deep sea of azure that swims overhead; the winds sweeping
through it; the black cloud fashioning itself together, now pouring out
fire, now hail and rain; what _is_ it? Aye, what?... An unspeakable,
godlike thing, toward which the best attitude for us, after never so
much science, is awe, devout prostration, and humility of soul; worship,
if not in words, then in silence."
In the same spirit Max M�ller exhorts us: "Look at the dawn, and forget
for a moment your astronomy; and I ask you whether, when the dark veil
of night is slowly lifted, and the air becomes transparent and alive,
and light streams forth you know not whence, you would not feel that
your eye were looking into the very eye of the Infinite?" And Emerson
reminds us: "If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years,
how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the
remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night
come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their
admonishing smile."
When, then, shall we have become too far removed from childhood to be
beyond the appeal of nature to our souls? When shall we cease to "hold
communion with her visible forms," and to find in them one of the many
avenues which God has left open for us to use in approaching him! What
teacher of us will dare to leave out of his instruction at any stage of
the child's development the beneficent and wonder-working God of nature
as he smiles his benediction upon us from the myriad common things
around us!
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