subject is not in the lesson". He may assure the pupils that we are not undertaking to tell everything with regard to Jesus, referring the children elsewhere for an answer to such questions. In this manner we shall be going contrary both to the method of the radical and the orthodox. The teacher who is well-read in the Higher Criticism or has gone through a change of mind in regard to the historical Jesus, may be eager to explain away the miracles or to suggest how the accounts concerning them arose. But if he proposes to ❝rationalize " about the life of Jesus, he will simply tear it to shreds and the young people will be given lessons in logic, or an introduction into the philosophy of history, while the ethical influence will be ruled out altogether. It would be much like dissecting a musical composition loved by children, showing what points were inferior from the standpoint of a higher music, where it failed to come up to the normal standard, where certain effects were borrowed. I ask, what kind of influence would that musical composition have on the young mind after such a method had been pursued for a length of time? It were far better to look upon the life of Jesus as meaning the Jesus from the first century to the nineteenth, including in it the Jesus of the pictures of the old masters like Raphael or Michael Angelo, letting the young people feel that this was the real Jesus, just as much as the Jesus of the Gospels of the New Testament. In point of fact, as far as influence goes, these pictures have been Jesus. And the religious music which has come down to us, is also a part of the life of Jesus, as well as the architecture of the cathedrals. The church spires pointing upwards and the solemn notes of the organ, all belong to that same life. Without all of these, that life to-day would be bare or barren to us, and we should not know what to make of it. It is a sentiment, therefore, rather than a biography which we undertake to give to the young people in giving an account of this life. We should not hesitate to use the pictures of the Jesus-life from the old masters, or the poetry of master minds such as the "Hymn to the Nativity," by John Milton. The Jesus-face as it has been presented in art from age to age sounds that same key-note: "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you". It is the subject of Tizian's "Tribute Money," and of the child's face in the "Sistine Madonna". In so far as modern art is departing from this method in an effort to be realistic or historical, in my judgment it will play out and pass away, as of no account. The study of religious biographies from the stand point of history or of the "Higher Criticism" belongs to the maturer age. We must leave the mind to work out some problems for itself, and trust to the tendencies of thought that we try to inaugurate. A great deal more is accomplished by the way a teacher throws his emphasis on certain important points and ignores others, than by turning aside and explaining or philosophizing about minor points. Surely at the end of our course there should be adult classes for the study of the philosophy of history, especially from the ethical-religious side. It would be for such classes to go into an examination of the "Higher Criticism," in order to dissect tradition and to find out what is fact and what is myth or legend. But it is rather a tiresome experience and not very fruitful, when this method is applied to religious history. The trouble has been that in that sphere the naked eye has not been able to discern for itself what was fact and what was added on to the fact by the mind, even when the events were taking place. If this was so difficult when history was being made, how much more troublesome must it be for us at the present time to go back into the past where we cannot look with the naked eye? CHAPTER VII. THE INSTITUTIONS: THE STATE. THEN, at the age of twelve or thirteen, we come to the second phase of institutional life—“citizenship," or "one's country". We are to talk of love of country as we talked of love of the home, at the same time discussing all the relationships and obligations involved in citizenship. We begin with the beautiful lines by James Russell Lowell : O Beautiful: my country: ours once more: What all our lives to save thee? We will not dare to doubt thee, But ask whatever else, and we will dare. Our first lessons are to be about what love of country really means. We are to compare citizenship with the home life, and to see wherein they resemble each other and wherein they differ. A good deal could be said as to what we mean by "country" or one's country"; why we use that language; what is involved in it or implied by it; to what extent it is the same as one's native land. We are to talk about patriotism; the meaning of the word and its origin, and what is suggested at the outset by "Fatherland". There comes the great question : "What does our country do for us?" Naturally, at the outset, the boys think at once of "soldiers" and "war," and they say, "It protects us in time of war". And thus we are introduced to the whole subject of soldiers and warfare in connection with the love of country. But the next question arises: "Suppose there is no war, what if there should be no war again to the end of the world, should we have any need of a 'country,' or would our country do anything for us or be of any service to us?" "Yes," comes the reply, "there is war on the inside between man and man, even if there is no longer any war among nations." And the point comes out that our country or our state protects us-alas-from each other; it punishes crime. In this connection it is designed to have the pupils acquire some definite knowledge of how crime is punished. It may seem a gruesome subject and not suitable to be talked over with the young. But after all, boys and girls, at least in city life, do talk about |