The Adair County news. [volume], February 23, 1916, Page 2, Image 2

About The Adair County news. [volume] (Columbia, Ky.) 1897-1987

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THE ADAIR COUNTY NEWS
5
What Everyone Loses by not Be
ing Familiar with Bible Stories.
The following Paper was read
at tbe last meeting of the Self
Culture Club by Mrs.. A. H. Bal
lard: The Old Testament has a spec
ial and unique value. This every
intelligent reader concedes, what
ever may be his views of the his
toric authority or the literary
importance of the volume. Its
unique value lies in that God
consciousness with which every
page is saturated. The Old Tea
tament, being, like the. child, a
revelation of the essentially hu
' man, of the elemental man, is by
that very fact a revelation of
man with his face toward God.
And this is why the Old Testa
ment is the natural reading of
the child. For there is. in all
the world nothing so reasonable
to the unsophisticated human
being as God. We never have
to explain the word "God" to
the youngest baby to whom words
mean anything. Man is, indeed,
a religious animal, as has so of
ten been said: the- meaning of
which is, that long before the
sge of reason or reflection ar
rives, almost before the baby
lias passed the age where its en
tire consciousness is a craving
:for the satisfaction of its appe
tites, the little soul reaches out
:for God, and grasps with satis
faction the fact that He exists.
Our children are born into this
environment of the West and of
the twentieth century, which of
3ll other times and places is
least congenial to the develop
ment of this fundamental human
instinct, this "inevitable God
"Consciousness;' and if this na
tion is not to become like France,
a nation where infidelity has
- the controlling voice in the nat
ional councils, a people whose
.highest faculty is well-nigh
atrophied,--parents and teachers
&re solemnly bound to recognize
sas their most important task
that of developing the sense of
God until it becomes the com
imanding factor in the child's
ilife. For this there is no better
jmethodin the case of a very
ryoung child there is no other
method- than "telling Bible
stories," in which, without dis
cussion or philosophizing, it is
-simply assumed and shown that
man is in the divine, order.
In France they have awakened
ix this necessity, notwithstand
ing the noisy attempts of the ex
treme socialistic party to banish
God from "all the thoughts" of
the nation. The republic had
hardly been well established
when.Iin about 1878, it was found
-essential to its pretention to
jmss a law secularizing the com
mon schools, replacing clerical
teachers, monks, and. nuns, by
lay man and women. One re
sult of this act was that remark
able development of "congrega
tional" free schools, which has
formed one of the most difficult
and dangerous problems of the
government in this opening cen
tury. Another result made it
self more immediately felt. The
next census revealed an appall
ing increase in child crime, and
especially in child suicide. A
rising young publicist, a serious
free thinker,, was set by the
government to study the causes
of this woeful condition. His re
port, afterward published in a
book entitled "Crime and the
School," made a deep impression.
It traced the evil to one cause,
the profound soul-discourage
ment of the child who knew not
God. To such a child at the age
of ten, at the age even of seven,
life became literally not worth
living, and he laid it down in dis
pair, or failing courage for this
supreme act of self-renunciation,
he plunged into reckless self
indulgence and crime. This was
the more expressive because, in
laicizing the schools, the govern
ment had been clearsighted as to
the moral danger involved, and
had called to its aid the most
brilliant minds in France to pre
pare a series of text books in
morals, in which all reference to
religion should be omitted, for
every school grade from the in
fant class up. The result has
been apparently, to the highest
degree satisfactory. It would be
difficuld to find in any country a
series of text-books on ethics
equal to these in literary charac
ter and pedagogic value. Yet
ten years' use of these text
books created so thorough-going
a pessimism among the' children
that they found goodness not
worth seeking and life not worth
living; The result of this in
quiry led the French govern
ment to admit that however little
the grown man may find a need
for any Supreme Being, yet, dur
ing the educational period of the
child the ultimate sanction of
morals must be found in God,
and, notwithstanding the clamors
of the atheistic group, the name
of God is no longer excluded
from school text-books of morals.
French pedagogies have thus
discovered the truth underlying-!
Napoleon's cynical remark,-that
if there had been no God it
would be necessary to inyent
one..
Yes, the little child instinct
ively perceives that the religious
life is the natural life, the f ul-
-1
fillment of human nature in
largest and truest ways. It will
be admitted without argument
that it is impossible to develop
this God-consciousness in chil
dren by opening to them the re
ligious experience of their par
ents or terchers. The absurdity
of this idea is self-evident,
though as a matter of fact many
porents and pastors proceed on
this impossible principle and En
deavor to make the religious ex
periences of children conform as
closely as possible to those of
grown persons. We cannot
bring .the children into relations
with God by showing them our
own relations with Him, because
notwithstandipg our Lord's "Ex-
I cept ye become as little chil
dren," we are in fact anything
but that. But the relations with
God which we find mirrored in
the Old Testament stories are
the relations of a child people
with their heavenly Father;
they do appeal to the child; they
awaken in him a response, not of
the affections only, but of the
intellect; they are an adequate
and a compelling force to lead
him, while yet a little child, into
like relations with God. And
the child to whom the sense of
God early becomes second nature
can no more lose it than he can
lose the art of walking or of oth
er acquired habits which have
become spontaneous. .
Especially appealing to the
child is the freshness of feeling
which characterizes the Old Tes
tament poetry, making Herder's
remark literally as well as figu
ratively true, that it should be
read in the dawn of the morning,
because it was the first dawn of
the illumination of the soul. The
poetic character of the Old Testa
ment also makes it the children's
book because the child nature is
the poet's nature. Not only does
the little child love rhythm and
the balance of measured utter
ance, so that it is not in the
least necessary that he should
understand a poem or a bit of
doggerel in order to delight in
it, it is also true that the child
rejoices in poetic forms of utter
ance, in tropes and figures of
speech, and in the play of the
imagination. In this respect the,1
Old Testament is peculiarly the
little child's book. It abounds
in metaphor and poetic imagery.
For example, where the Old
Testament would refer to great
trees, trees whose size was nota
ble, it calls them "trees of God."
Our giant redwoods in Califor
nia would surely be "trees of
God" to the-mind of the old He
brew, and no other expression
would so well satisfy a child's
sense of awe on seeing these
trees. So with the mighty voice
of thunder. It was no attempt
at scientific explanation, but true
poetic instinct which impelled
WAR!
HAS the whole world gone stark mad over a very foolish and trivial
question? Are swords rattling, cannon rumbling, mailed armour
glistening just because Russia wanted to show her love for the little
brother Servia? Tear aside the curtain of Europe's politics and see the
grim and sinister game of chess that is being played. See upon what a slim,
yet desperate, excuse the sacred lives of millions are being sacrificed. Read the
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the psalmist to call thunder "The
voice of Jehovah."
We teach the children history
not half so much in order that
they may know, and alway re
member things that have hap
pened, as that they may under
stand life, and how to meet it.
We repeat poetry to the little
ones and tell them fairy tales,
not merely to amuse them, nor
as an exercise for the memo
ry, but as a stimulus to amuse
the imagination and to the
aesthetic sense. The Bible
stories serye botn the3e purpo.
ees. The spontaneous instinct
of the child, and the almost equal
ly spontaneous revelations of hu
man nature in these stories, cor
respond one to another as face
answers face in water. The
perpetual splendor of sentences
in the Old Testament, the lofty
sublimity of its suggestions,, ap
peal to the nature of the child
as no other literture does.
This, then, is the value of Bi
ble stories for the child, that
they give a religious meaning to
all the experiences of his early
life, and furnishes the bond of
unity, the centralizing focus of
What Is It
All About?
dreds of illustrations fcranhicallv tell their
own stones. More fascinating than any
romance, here is a history so vivid, so dra
matic, so stirring, so fascinating, so realistic.
so wonderfully presented, so thrillingly told
that it leaves an ineffacable impression.
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a copy of this lnznriona bindiW. rhanmihm.
all the processes, intellectual,
and spiritual, of his maturing
years. "No other book finds me
,4
as the Bible does," said Colerige,
and this is superlatively true of
the child of any age. The Bible
stories find him as no other
stories do. The Old Testament
made the Hebrews a peculiar
people, by developing in them
an unique God-consciousness. It
will do the same thing for the
people of the United States when
it is freed from overloading con
vention and unintelligent inter
pretation. It will do this for
our children, if we give it to
them. And what better can we
ask for them than an abiding
consciousness of the presence of
God?
Louise Seymour Houghton.
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