The child as God's child

Dedication

To

MY WIFE

Who shares the views expressed

Contents

Chap. Page

I. The Possibility .... 9

II. The Propriety . . . . 17

CHAPTER I The Possibility

Can a child be religious? It is a strange question in an age when not a few are ready to predicate religion of animals. And especially is it surprising in view of the very general recognition in modern thought of the religious instinct as a constituent element in human nature. But the religion of animals and of untutored men is vague and indefinite. It exists rather unrecognized than recognized. Can a little child be religious in the definite sense implied by the educated Christian man's use of the term? To this the answer must be, No; and for the very good reason that the child is not a man and is not educated.

In What Sense Religious In what sense, then, can a child be religious ? It cannot recognize itself as religious. This would imply a knowledge of the meaning of words and a power of abstraction, judgment, and generalization far beyond the capacity of many full-grown men. If the power to analyze its own inner life and to distinguish and classify its mental states and activities were necessary to religion the child could not be religious. But religious feelings and activities are no more dependent upon such power of discrimination than intellectual activities or the presence of the social feelings in childhood are dependent upon a knowledge of psychology. The child may love or be religious without being able to say, "I love," or, "I am religious." Mental facts must exist before we take cognizance of them, and they generally exist long before that power of introspection is developed which enables us intelligently to apprehend them.

Equally impossible to a little child is religion in the sense of a definite and elaborate set or system of religious ideas. The ideas of omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience, eternity, and of infinity in general must of necessity be extremely vague to the child mind. So also must it be with the idea of spirituality, which could be understood by the child at best only negatively. The child's idea of God, metaphysically considered, cannot but be unsatisfactory from the standpoint of the philosopher. The same must be said of many other religious

JO

The Possibility

ideas, such as sin, forgiveness, regeneration, immortality, judgment, retribution.

Not only are these ideas vague and indefinite in the minds of children ; they are often incorrectly conceived. At this point it is that the deniers of the possibility of religion in children find their chief support. They delight to dwell upon instances of anthropomorphic misconceptions of God and his relations to this world. And if religion depended upon correct religious conceptions children could not be religious. But there is no such relation of dependence here any more than there is between nutrition and a correct knowledge of the chemistry of food, which, by a good providence of God, most people get on reasonably well without.

But so do the majority of adults get on religiously without clear ideas of religious theory. And it is this lack of correct conceptions in adults to which we must trace most of the defective or erroneous religious notions of childhood. Where did these children get their ludicrously anthropomorphic ideas of God but from their elders? That children acquire such concepts does not prove that children should not be taught, but that they should be better taught. Were the reasoning that is

applied by some to this subject employed in II the sphere of general education we should have to forbid all attempts to teach children. For even in schools whose teachers are entirely well qualified for their task the examinations of the pupils reveal a most ludicrous state of ignorance and misapprehension in the common branches. Incorrect conceptions are by no means confined to religion.^ But it is not impossible to give to children relatively correct though incomplete religious ideas. The exact age at which correct religious ideas of various kinds may be found in children cannot be definitely fixed. Some may be correctly conceived earlier, some later; and the age will vary with different children. But as soon as a child gets the concept of visible being it can have that of invisible being. The reality of the one it will no more question than of the other. At the dawn of the thought of causation may be apprehended the idea of God as omnipotent Creator. The invisibility and activity of God are principal ingredients in the thought of his spirituality. Upon the child's first conception of

^ Rousseau and Kant held that religious instruction was appropriate to youth rather than to childhood— the former on the ground that the child can see God only with the imagination, and that this interferes with the later conception of him by the understanding; the latter because religious ideas always presuppose some system of theology which is beyond the powers of the child. 12

The Possibility

self may easily be grafted the thought of God as a person. When the child learns the theory of space so far as to know the meaning of "here" and "there" it is prepared to conceive the idea of omnipresence ; and when it knows past, present, and future it can be made to know something of eternity. The practical acquaintance of the child with knowledge and ignorance furnishes the necessary preparation for the thought of omniscience.

What is here meant is not that the child can understand these portentous terms; much less that it can relate the ideas they convey or see in them what well-instructed adults see in them. The wisdom of using such words in the impartation of religious ideas to the very young is decidedly open to question. But it is a fact that a child can get a practically correct conception of what is meant by certain untechnical religious propositions, such as: "Some things there are that you can see and feel and smell and taste and hear ; but there is One whom you cannot see, feel, smell, taste, or hear. This One is everywhere, can do all things, knows all things, always has been, and always will be." And it is not difficult with these ideas in the mind of the child to teach him how different God is from every one of us, and yet how much 13 he is like us in the possession of purpose and choice. In some instances the child might indeed misapprehend, but he will not misapprehend seriously if he is intelligently taught. The failure will not result from the difficulty of the ideas so much as from the ignorance or incapacity of the teacher.

How much of this religious knowledge should be imparted to a child is not here considered, but as far as any or all the ideas mentioned are necessary to childhood religion they may be easily acquired. So that the opponents of religion in children have no standing ground left. That the ideas are vague and incomplete is nothing to the purpose unless we were to make it a principle of pedagogy that nothing is to be taught until the mind can fully comprehend.

Perhaps few would be so venturesome as to affirm that in the more intimate sense religion is impossible to children. Gratitude, love, the desire to please, obedience, right, wrong, dependence are feelings and activities of the child mind from very early infancy. Prayer, praise, Bible reading, church attendance, and other religious practices are not alien to the child's conceptions of the proper and fitting; though there may be times when other impulses, holy 14

The Possibility

or unholy, will prompt him to prefer omitting them. That in all respects in which it could be expected of them multitudes of children have been and are religious can admit of no dispute with those who are conversant with the facts. That it should be so argues no precocity or abnormality, but rather a healthy, normal state of the child mind under proper training. Among the many things that Jesus must have meant by his pregnant saying about the necessity of our becoming as little children must be included this — that the piety suitable to a child contains about all the elements necessary in the religion of an adult, except, perhaps, its expression.

Unreasonable Demands One cannot but be surprised at the unreasonable demands made upon children in the matter of religion. In every other department of life they are expected to display only so much progress as comports with their physical and intellectual capacities. In religion, on the other hand, it is expected by many that they will exhibit perfection from the start. This is, no doubt, due in part to the erroneous idea that religion is a sort of divine gift bestowed upon us from without — a something which 15 must be bestowed entire or not at all — rather than a divine influence operating differently upon different hearts according as each has capacity to receive it. That such gradations exist, and that they are conditioned by temperament and the like, must be evident to everyone who studies the lives of adult Christians. The imperfections of child Christians should surely be as leniently dealt with as those of adults, and we should no more expect all children to manifest equal degrees of religious interest and power than we expect them in adults. If some are not as manifestly religious as others we should not at once leap to the conclusion that the lack is an indication of absolute irreligion. And while in the realm of morals we may be more anxious about any exhibition of vice in children than we would be for the same vice in adults — because we know the character of the latter and see that it is a departure from the main trend, while in the child we cannot tell but that it may indicate the main trend — still we should not judge a child's religion too severely because it is insufficient to control the life with absolute sovereignty. Religion and morals are not always intimate companions in adults ; much less can we expect

that they should be in children. i6

Chapter II

Groundlessness of Objections Much prejudice has been aroused against religion in children because of the precocious, morbid, or hothouse character of it in many of its historical instances. That children or younger young people should pray or speak publicly with the freedom of adults is unnatural and shocking to educated sensibilities. The boy evangelist may be sincere, and even effective, but he is a monstrosity. That such manifestations, even on a smaller scale, should be offensive and arouse prejudice against any well-marked religious development in the very young is not surprising, for it is a sure evidence that the child's feelings have outrun his judgment. But the religion of children need not be of this type; nor should it be. Undue repression should, of course, be avoided; but so also should undue and abnormal expression. Encouragement should be given only to that kind of religious life which manifests itself in reverence, confidence, acquiescence in the provi- (2) 17 dence of God, gratitude, love to God and man, and the like. While there may be exceptions, the rule here is, as elsewhere, that children should be seen, not heard. Nevertheless, although there is justification for the revulsion of feeling which arises when we see public religious manifestations, whether in children or adults, which we regard as not sufficiently founded in thought or character, there is no ground for objection to a religious life suitable to each age and stage of development in human life.

From still another widely different standpoint the propriety of child religion has been questioned. It is evident that if children are to have any definite religious conceptions or forms they must learn them from others. If one could conceive a generation of children left entirely to themselves they would not develop religious ideas or ceremonies until they had long passed the stage of childhood and youth. It is claimed, therefore, that religion, so far as it is superimposed upon children from without, is a violation of their rights, that it hinders their free development and makes them what they would not naturally be. Thus they grow up to be not wholly themselves, but, at least in

part, bear the character of others. i8

The right claimed, then, for the child is the right to be itself and to develop according to its own inner nature. But how singular that this claim is confined to the matter of religion ! The very same people who are loudest in their demand that the child shall not be filled with religious prejudices are also among the most determined that the child shall not be left to itself in any other line of individual development. Nor can these objectors hide behind the fact that there are differences of opinion in matters of religion, while the elements of scientific knowledge are common to all ; for these people entertain, and inculcate in the minds of their children, very definite ideas as to society, government, and manners, notwithstanding many all about them maintain views quite diverse from their own.

Still others emphasize the thought that when the child grows up he may regret that he was taught and trained in the doctrines and practices of religion, and that religion will thus be made odious to those who might have chosen it freely for themselves if it had not been forced on them. But do we not incur the same risk in the secular education of our children? It is by no means uncommon for men and women to wish that a different course had been pur- 19 sued in their school life than that chosen for them — that more or that less time had been given to language, ancient or modern ; that this rather than the other language had been taught them; that their teaching had included more or less of certain sciences, of history, and the like; or even that they had been allowed more time or less time for their school life. There are numberless young men who feel that their college days are wasted days so far as real benefit is concerned, and are kept in college only by a sort of parental compulsion. Who can tell beforehand what the individual will prefer when he attains the years of manhood? And the fact that no one can foretell does not justify waiting for the training of a youth until he is old enough to express and follow his own mature and final choice. The child's training must go forward. If when he grows to maturity he does not approve that training he can take measures to change the direction in which he was started. But there are few indeed who would wish that they had had no training at all.

There are other aspects of the question which the opposers of child religion on the grounds now considered appear to forget. One of these is the duty of the parents and of the community to the child. If the child has its rights the child's elders have their obligations. And these elders alone can determine what those obligations are. That they should be governed in this respect by the thought that the child grown to be an adult might not approve the action taken does not excuse them for inaction. Especially is this true of the parents, to whom by nature and by law is committed the care of the child. They must take the responsibility. If they decide to give religious training the child may later not approve; if they decide to omit it the child may not approve. The disapproval, in a world constituted as ours is, would be more certain in the latter case than in the former. But some decision parents must reach on this momentous question. What more natural than for them to decide in favor of what they have found to be the most important single factor in their own welfare and happiness?

Obligations of Parents

But suppose that the parents should omit religion from the child's training. This would involve the abandonment on their own part of all religious exercises either public or private and the avoidance of all mention of religious subjects. It would involve the restraining of the child from all associations which might give it the idea of religion. Others might hear of God and of the religions of the world, but not their child. He would be deprived not only of the associations in which most children find much of their pleasure and social delights — the society of those who attend the Sunday school, the young people's meetings, and the services of the church in general — ^but also of the reading of most of the books which would arouse his interest and awaken his enthusiasm for humanity. If religion is to be left out such a course would have to be pursued, and it might be necessary to renounce all society whatever by going into hermitage. Does all this seem absurd? Then why say that religion should not be taught to children? In fact, if children were not to become acquainted with religion, religion would have to be banished from history, literature, and daily life or else the child would have to be banished.

But perhaps the objector wishes only that the parent should not in any way bias the child's mind in favor of any specific form of religious faith or practice. How, now, would that work ? There can be but one answer. The result would be a picked-up, haphazard form of religion, or perhaps of irreligion. In short, the opposer asks the parent to vacate his duty in the interest of the child's Hberty, and in so doing is wilHng to risk the child to whatever chance influence may affect it. That a parent who so conceived his duty would conceive of duty as neglect is apparent. Such a course could be followed only by one who felt that whether the child became religious or not made no difference, or who felt that any form of religion was as good as any other. So can no one feel who has given sufficient thought to the subject to entitle him to speak concerning it. The parent has his duty as well as the child its rights.

Rights of the Community Then, too, the community has its rights as well as the child. This is recognized in our truant and compulsory school laws. Too great repression of individuality is, of course, to be avoided ; but, on the other hand, so is too great development of individuality. Associated life is possible only between those who by similar training are brought into reasonable harmony of taste and habit. This involves the elimination of all the more prominent idiosyncrasies — in short a rigid process of leveling among the youth of any land. If the individual does not by this system come to his 23 full development he at least becomes of use to his fellow-men. One of the most important differences between animals and men is that the adults of the former are of very little, while those of the latter are of great, use to each other. In this connection the length of human infancy as compared with that of animals becomes very significant. With his greater capacity of individualization a brief infancy would render the human individual incapable of associated life. In other words, the infancy of human beings is greatly extended, apparently in order to secure the adjustment of each individual's special capabilities to the general condition so that he can be of the greatest use to the society in which he is to live. The community has a right to demand that its younger members shall be so brought up as to be useful to society at large and not as freaks. Only the rankest egoism can deny this. And as the general consensus of opinion is that religion adds greatly to the common benefit the community rightly condemns those few individuals who oppose the religious training of children.

Rights of the Parents The parents, too, have some rights as compared with the child. But especially as the 24 custodians of the youthful life must they employ the most effective methods for developing its highest character. Apart from religion there are no thoroughly effective ethical motives. This is very generally acknowledged by ethicists, and it is the tendency to a relative over-emphasis of religion as compared with the morality that ought to accompany it, not a denial of the value of religion, which has led to the organization of ethical culture societies. So, also, it is not disregard of religion as an ethical motive that has led to the almost universal abandonment of religious instruction in the public schools, but a recognition of the fact that the formal instruction in religion possible in the school fails of both the religious and the moral results desired while, of necessity, it runs counter to the religious convictions of some of the patrons and supporters. But while there may be some justification for the course pursued by the school authorities in this particular, it is plain enough to anyone who studies the matter that moral instruction and moral training must be carried on in such schools at a great disadvantage. The most efficient motives Felix Adler recognizes, in his Moral Instruction of Children, are the appeal to the aesthetic, the intellectual, 25 and the emotional faculty. That this appeal has a certain value is frankly admitted, and the moral instructor may need to avail himself of these motives. But however useful they may be, they are not comparable to the religious sanction when rightly apprehended. That abuses of the religious motive are possible does not argue against its proper use.

Utility of Child Religion The propriety of child religion is further seen in its utiHty. Many of the noblest specimens of Christian manhood and womanhood are found among those who were trained in the habits and dispositions of religion from infancy. Such was the case with the Rev. Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler, who, in his Recollections of a Long Life, tells us that he cannot name any day or place of his conversion; but that his mother's steady and constant influence from his infancy led him gradually along, and that it was under her patient training and by the power of the Holy Spirit working through her agency that he grew into a religious life. It is difficult for those accustomed to the influence of revival methods to appreciate the value of religious training. But wherever it has been

faithfully tried this method has proved suc- 26 cessful. Nor is there here any purpose to be- Httle or decry the properly conducted revival. It has its place in the work of the Church. It is needful for those who are Church members, but not Christians; for those who are Christians, but not members; and for those who are both Christians and members, as well as for those who are neither Christians nor members. But it is especially needed and designed for the last-named class, and therefore should not be permitted to usurp the place of Christian training or to occasion its neglect. Christian nurture should be the rule in all Christian homes. For gathering into the fold those who have not enjoyed the privilege of Christian nurture the revival is very effective.

The utility of training for religion from early childhood is seen not alone in its numerous examples ; it lies in the very nature of the conception of such training. For while the chief stress appears to be laid upon human influences, the real purpose is the bringing of the child and youth into vital relationship with the divine. The product of such training is not bare of the supernatural. Rightly conducted, it opens the heart to the influence of the Spirit of God as truly as, and more effectively than,

the revival method. Whatever religion can do 27 to support one in the moral crises of life is secured by Christian training, since religion so appropriated is not something foreign and unassimilated, but becomes part of the very being. It is not the religion of the "once-born" or of "healthy-mindedness," merely, which even Professor James affirms to be inadequate for the vicissitudes of life. It is the religion of the union of human and divine forces working together harmoniously toward the worthiest end. The strength is great because the combination is strong. The life thus engendered is the life of personal effort, of consecration to duty, of love for God and man, and of prayer. The nature of such religion is a pledge of its utility, meeting, as it does, the needs of the

individual soul at every moment of its life. 28

Chapter III

Possibility of Child Conversion Admitting the possibility, propriety, and utility of childhood religion, the question still remains as to its beginnings. Not a few are ready to champion the cause of the child on the ground that children can be converted at a very early age, even as early as six years, and some would say at the age of four. Numerous instances are on record of very young children who experienced the pangs of remorse for sin, the blessedness of saving faith, and the ethical transformation familiar to instances of sudden conversion. There need be no doubt as to the genuineness either of the remorse, the faith, or the transformation. Nor is there any room for question as to the permanent results often attained in such conversions. The only question is whether such high-pressure methods are as wise or as religiously desirable as methods more suitable to the child's development.

There is a degree of truth in the plea that, 29 while children are relatively innocent when compared with those who have lived long in sin, they may, just because less hardened, feel as keen remorse for whatever sins they have committed as they would be likely to feel in later life. The point here disputed is not the possibility, but the desirability, from the religious standpoint, of inducing such remorse in the young. Remorse exhibits a fatal tendency to grow weaker with recurrence, and should therefore be experienced very infrequently if its full benefits are to be reaped. Besides, while keen remorse can be induced in the young, it is questionable whether it is not a too painful feeling for the child, considering his general immaturity and moral irresponsibility. The feeling of remorse has its place in the moral and spiritual development of juveniles ; but it ought to be graduated according to age and the turpitude of the moral delinquencies, which are seldom great in early life.

A crisis in the religious Hfe of a child may be brought on attended by all the violent emotions known to adult converts, but it is unnatural. Furthermore, it is dangerous, and in most cases it is, and in all cases it should be, unnecessary. There is nothing in the moral 30 condition of the average child to warrant such a crisis. This too is admitted by many who beheve in the necessity of a distinct crisis in which the child shall commit himself definitely to a religious life — in which he shall distinctly break with his past and begin the new life. There is certainly far more justification for child conversions of this type than of the other. The predominant element in them is that of devotion or consecration. If adapted to the child's capacity, if not forced or unnatural, if patterned after the true type of child religion, such child self-consecration is legitimate enough, although there is a still better way, at least, for children of Christian parents.

New Testament Conception of Conversion Conversion is an event which ought not to be necessary in the conscious life of any human being. It must be said in truth that the New Testament conception of conversion is that it ought not to have been necessary. It is urged upon adults who have lived for many years in a state of moral obliquity and alienation from God. All the presuppositions of conversion — the new birth, adoption, justification, or whatever other terms are employed to ex- 31 press the new life and the new relationships assumed by the convert — are connected with the thought of a life of sin previous to the change. In the present-day idea of conversion these same presuppositions prevail, whether the conversion be that of an adult or of a child. Conversion, in other words, presupposes a previous life of sin. Unless such a Hfe is unavoidable conversion must be regarded as a means adapted to do away with the abnormal and to introduce normal conditions. How vastly better it would be to prevent the abnormal conditions — the long continued life of sin that makes conversion necessary! This is just what a correct conception of child religion effectively realized would accomplish. A religious life beginning with the life of the child and never lost would make conversion unnecessary, because the occasion for it would be obviated.

Is there any good reason for believing that such a religious life is possible? The answer to that question must be found in the facts now to be considered.

The Adult Convert and the Child The very best authorities on the subject of

child character affirm that there are in the infant evil impulses which are not the result of imitation, but spring from heredity, or which are at least congenital. Thus far even the most scientific observers confirm the doctrine of original sin, not in the sense of its guilt or demerit, but of the corruption of human nature in its very beginnings. These evil inclinations vary in different children, but they are found in all, and they are sure to find expression when the circumstances adapted to call them forth are present. But these same observers are equally sure that in the character of the child there are good impulses which are quite as certain to find their expression under suitable conditions. This does not at all disprove the doctrine of original sin, though it does destroy the doctrine of total depravity. The infant, incapable of choosing either good or bad, is, in original character, both good and bad. It is, with the infant, wholly a question of original, as distinguished from acquired, character, and of character as distinguished from conduct. The expression of his infantile impulses, whether good or bad, is neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy. The tendency of his impulses is, however, plain. After a time he may choose either to follow or to deny his impulses.