And, if one could summon to his side all the really great souls that have, in dying, made other lives richer, they would invariably testify to its worth and its power. So I say, with Dr. Holland, "Let us stick to our Bible. It is our all-the one regenerative, redemptive agency in the world-the only word that even sounds as if it came from the other side of the wave. If we lose it, we are lost." To put the Bible into the hands of all children, and its precepts into their hearts, is a holy mission. When one counts over the services that are really worth while, will it not invariably be found that what one does to guide the timid footsteps to the Father is in the last analysis the best service God gives him to do in this life? An old teacher, whose many, many years of faithful service had left him at last poor and alone, was one day visited by a former pupil, now a man of influence and of character. They discussed together at length the earlier days when this man was a boy in the teacher's school. They recalled many interesting incidents. The gratitude of the man touched the heart of the poor old teacher. The man invited the old teacher to the village inn to dine with him. The old teacher begged to be excused, saying, "I am too old, my hands tremble, my clothes are not fit." But the former The Power of pupil insisted. The old teacher yielded. They both enjoyed the meal: the man, because he was honoring his teacher; the teacher, because he was honored by his pupil. When they parted at the railway station the man pushed his gold-headed cane into the trembling hand of his dear old teacher, saying, "Now, dear teacher, good-by till we meet again." The old teacher was so overcome by this act of kindness that his eyes grew dim, and his voice trembled even more than before. He protested that he did not deserve this generous gift. The man thought he did. He said so, and springing upon the train called out again, "Good-by till we meet again." The old teacher, his finger pointing to the heavens, answered, "Yes, till we meet again-up there." Blessed is that teacher whose words and influence are such that at the last he can point with gratitude to the Father's house and say to his pupils, “Let us meet again-up there." QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS. For testing one's grasp of the subject, and What led to the separation of school and church? Enumerate the gains and the losses resulting from the establishment of secular schools. Why did the modern Sunday-school come so late in the history of the church? Are we giving time enough to religious education? What marked tendencies of a religious character assert themselves at the age of adolescence? Why should adolescent pupils remain in the Sundayschool? What are you doing to keep them there? May we complacently resign our children to the secular school and demand of it their complete education? What reasons may be assigned for the relatively small number of young men and women in the Sunday-school? Do you try-really, earnestly try to impress upon your pupils the full value of a knowledge of the Bible? Write a list of services you know the Bible has been to you, to civilization. What is the best service man can render to God through teaching? XXVIII THE SCOPE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OHN RUSKIN once said that there were but Jo Three Great three questions that concerned the human soul; that if the human soul could propound to itself these three questions, and answer them, it had justified its right to be. The first of these questions is this: How did I get into this world? The second: How am I going to get out of this world? And third: What had I best do under the circumstances? In other words, the three great concerns of life center themselves around the thoughts of our origin, our destiny and our duty, and we have scarcely approached the problem of duty until we see that problem in the light of our destiny, and in the light of our origin; for unless we understand that with which we are endowed, and that for which we have been endowed, we will scarcely be able to make a rational use of our lives. We may safely leave the question of our origin and of our destiny to God. The question of our duty we must face. What had we best do under the circumstances? When one comes to a consideration of the The Moral Life moral life, the life which sets before itself the standard of living up to its best thought, one has at once a heroic conception of the human soul. If, to-day, we had an appreciable group of people who were heroic enough always to do the things which they know are best to do, we would at once have a most wholesome leaven in our civilization. The Religious If, to the thought that one is to live up to his best knowledge, is added the additional fact that where one's knowledge fails to give guidance one must trust a higher and diviner guidance, so that the life begins with thought and ends with faith, one has the real conception of the religious character. I take it that the child in the home lives heroically when it lives up to all that it has been taught, and, in the absence of guidance from that side, lives up, in the next place, to the example of its parents, its teachers, and those who stand above it in years and experience, as examples of what should be best in life. And so, in all the years of our growth we need, not merely the heroic moral quality, that makes us do the best things we know, but also the higher religious quality that makes us willing to be led in the hours when our own thought and our own guidance fail to give us direction. If to the moral |