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WINNING THE CEH ER 
 FOR CHRIST 
 
 
 
 / EDITED BY 
 
 D. P. ‘THOMSON, M.A. 
 
 Editor of “The Modern Evangelistic Address,’ “Evangelism 
 in the Modern World,’ “Twenty Sermons by Famous 
 Scotch Preachers,” “The Scottish Pulpit,? etc. 
 
 
 
 NEW ” YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1925, 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 ea SF ates 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In a series of Handbooks of Modern Evangelism it 
 is surely eminently fitting that one volume should be 
 devoted to work among the children. No field of 
 evangelistic endeavour requires to be more carefully 
 and thoroughly explored than that afforded by the 
 boys and girls growing up in our homes and Sunday 
 Schools. They are in every sense the hope of the 
 future, and from their ranks not only the pioneers of 
 the Kingdom of God in the coming days, but the mem- 
 bership of the Church in the next generation must be 
 supplied. The interest likely to be taken in a volume of 
 this nature is enhanced by the fact that it appears just 
 at the time when the great World Sunday School Con- 
 vention is meeting in Glasgow, and when attention in 
 this country is focussed to an unusual degree on the 
 all important work of Winning the Children for Christ. 
 
 The present volume is the third of the series, and 
 will be followed in due course by others on The Modern 
 Evangelistic Address; Present-day Methods in Evan- 
 gelism; The Psychology of Evangelism, and The Min- 
 istry of Personal Dealing. As in the previous volumes 
 the Editor has sought to allow for the utmost cath- 
 olicity of outlook and variety of expression consistent 
 with the unity and scope of the subject. Thanks are 
 due to Rev. Carey Bonner (who had himself hoped to 
 
 contribute a chapter) and to Messrs. James Kelly and 
 Vv 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 Ernest H. Hayes for valuable help and suggestions. 
 We would gratefully record our indebtedness to these 
 and other friends for the assistance they have rendered. 
 
 1B AN spin bs 
 GLASGOW. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 EvANGELIsm finds its finest and most fruitful field 
 among the young life of the world, and the readiest 
 and most eager response to the appeal of Jesus will 
 ever be made by those who stand on the threshold of 
 Life. For them the great adventure is only just be- 
 ginning and the unknown future is full of dimly-re- 
 alised possibilities. As the powers of mind and body 
 expand, and the prospect of life in all its many-sided- 
 ness begins to unfold, there comes home to the hearts a 
 sense of longing, and a consciousness of need, that give 
 the evangelist his unique opportunity of presenting 
 Christ as the Lord of Life, Who alone can satisfy its 
 deepest needs and fulfil its loftiest ambitions, Who is 
 worthy of all the passionate devotion and loyalty of 
 youth and Who will prove adequate to every demand 
 it may make. 
 
 The results of modern psychological research have 
 been assimilated and applied with such eagerness and 
 wholeheartedness by Christian thinkers and workers, 
 that we are in little danger to-day of under-estimating 
 either the peculiar problems of the adolescent period, or 
 the unique opportunities it presents for effecting far- 
 reaching decisions in the sphere of character and 
 motive, and for the definite organisation of life round a 
 distinctively Christian centre. The winning of the 
 
 adolescent to a vital Christian discipleship is the avowed 
 vii 
 
Vili INTRODUCTION 
 
 aim of a multitude of organisations that have grown 
 up under the shadow of the Church within the past 
 
 generation. What is not so generally recognised—and | 
 
 is in fact doubted if not denied by many—is that boys, 
 and girls can be won for Jesus Christ before the great 
 psychological and physiological changes that mark the 
 adolescent period have really made themselves felt. | 
 This volume is based on the conviction that the vital 
 work of winning the young for Christ cannot safely 
 be left till the storm and stress of the adolescent period 
 have commenced, and that children of tenderer years 
 can be led into a very real experience of the love and 
 power of Christ. It may be well to state some of the 
 premises on which this conviction rests. 
 
 It is our belief that even children born in a Christian ' 
 country, brought up in a Christian Church, and sur-| 
 rounded by all the gracious influences of a Christian 
 
 home, need to be won for Jesus Christ—that only by ' 
 a conscious and voluntary choice of their own wills — 
 
 can they enter into the full enjoyment of fellowship 
 and service in the redeemed family of God. To say 
 that such a child needs to be won for Christ is not to 
 gainsay the value of a spiritual heritage and a Chris- 
 tian upbringing, nor is it to deny the fact that boys and 
 girls born into a redeemed world, and consecrated to 
 God at birth by believing parents, enjoy unique privi- 
 leges and opportunities. It is simply to recognise the 
 right of every individual to exercise his powers of judg- 
 ment, and to determine the bent of his own character. 
 It is to do no more than justice to that power of self- 
 determination which the soundest philosophy will not 
 allow us to abandon, and which the most scientific 
 
 ' 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 psychology is forced to recognise. It is to take account 
 of what is only too patent to even the casual observer— 
 the utter spiritual indifference, the abject moral failure, 
 and open and unashamed vice, of many who enjoyed in 
 childhood’s years all the privileges of Christian nur- 
 ture and upbringing. It is to plead for the child’s right 
 of determining his own relationship to Christ when 
 he comes to the age of responsibility, and of entering 
 into the conscious enjoyment of his Divine inheritance 
 by the exercise of his own will. It is to concede his 
 equal right to reject the gift of God’s love and refuse 
 His proferred grace, if he so determine. 
 
 The writer further cherishes the conviction that boys 
 and girls can be won for Christ in childhood, not merely 
 that they can be prepared for intelligent and whole- 
 hearted decision during the later adolescent period. In 
 the later pages of this book evidence will be adduced to 
 show that children under fourteen years of age can, 
 and do, enter into a very real experience of the presence 
 and power of Christ, and give evidence of just as 
 genuine and wholehearted a discipleship as many in 
 later life. Even the child of comparatively tender years 
 is capable of appreciating, in a childlike, but very real 
 and exceedingly effective way, something of the beauty 
 and moral value of the kind of life Jesus lived, and 
 of choosing by an act of will to serve and follow Him. 
 And children still younger than this can, and do, learn 
 to love the Saviour with all the affection commonly be- 
 stowed on a mother or father. It is surely better that,’ 
 before the stormy adolescent period comes, the young 
 life should be firmly anchored in Christ and committed | 
 to His care, than that the frail barque should be thrust. 
 
x INTRODUCTION 
 
 out on those troubled waters without the firm hand of 
 the Heavenly Pilot on the helm, and the inspiring 
 leadership of the Great Captain to ensure success in 
 life’s great adventure.| Children have their burdens 
 and sorrows—often very real and very great—and they 
 need a Saviour to share them. They have their hours 
 of loneliness and fear, and they need a Friend to help 
 them. They have their fight with temptation and sin, 
 and only in His strength can they conquer. They often 
 lose father or mother, or both, before their journey is 
 well begun, and they need the comfort of a Heavenly 
 Father’s love and the consciousness of a Heavenly 
 Father’s presence. Further, it must be remembered 
 that the majority of the human race die in childhood. 
 Of the salvation of those who pass away in infancy few 
 to-day have any doubt, but what of those who have 
 come to an age of responsibility—for whom the moral 
 choice has become a reality? Do we not do them 
 a grave wrong if, for the brief years of their earthly 
 pilgrimage and the dark hours of their last journey, 
 we deprive them of the joy and comfort of conscious 
 and happy fellowship with Christ, and eager and child- 
 like service for Him? Let not the memory of forced 
 and unnatural pre-adolescent religious experience blind 
 us to the opportunity—nay, to the necessity—of win- 
 ning to Christ the boys and girls of tender years. 
 ‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid 
 them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” 
 
 A resolute attempt must be made to win the children 
 of our land for Christ. ‘The best brains in our 
 Churches must be given to this task, the most devoted 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 and enlightened service must be directed to that 
 goal. The Church must realise as never before 
 that she is pledged to the winning of the children for 
 Christ. It has been well said that—“Only by winning 
 the young can the Kingdom be won; only by saving 
 the children can the Church itself be saved.”’ It was the 
 considered verdict of Dr. John Clifford, the great Free 
 Church leader, that the Churches “must arrange their 
 whole worship and work, their teaching and preaching, 
 their fellowship and ministry, to win and hold in alle- 
 giance to Jesus the child and the adolescent.” It is, as 
 Lionel B. Fletcher remarked, a great thing to have the 
 testimony of a dozen men of 60 redeemed from a 
 life of sin and shame, and rejoicing in the Saviour’s 
 power, but it is a far, far greater thing to get a dozen 
 boys of 12 into real living touch with Christ. The 
 testimony of the former is to the power of Christ 
 to save from the worst; the lives of the latter will 
 witness through the years to the power of the same 
 Saviour to keep from sin. No generation can afford 
 to forget the dictum of Henry Drummond, that Chris- 
 tianity is not simply a religion for rebuilding human 
 ruins, but even more emphatically and essentially a 
 religion for preventing men and women from ever be- 
 coming ruins. If that prevention is to be effective it 
 must be ensured in childhood years. The law books 
 of to-day are full of statistics of juvenile crime—of 
 Court cases in which children of 11 and 12 years are 
 the offenders. The psychologists have been forced to 
 the conviction that the really formative years belong 
 to the preadolescent period and the Church of Jesus 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 Christ can no longer afford to remain blind to the op- 
 portunities it is losing if it fails to reach out after the 
 child and does not seek to win him for Christ. 
 
 Modern Surgery, we are told, “has proved the value 
 of caring for child life in the tenderest years, when 
 deformities and perversions can often be permanently 
 set right, and abnormal developments brought back to 
 normal.” Modern Education is pushing back its activi- 
 ties to an earlier age and stage in each generation, and 
 is even invading the home so that the environmental 
 influences may be studied. Modern Evangelism cannot 
 afford to lag behind here. If the spiritual side of the 
 child be neglected during these years an opportunity is 
 lost which will never come again, and incalculable in- 
 jury may be done to the growing life. 
 
 The first and greatest responsibthty for the winning 
 of the children to Christ rests with the parents. It is 
 at once the duty and privilege of Christian fathers and 
 mothers to bring their boys and girls into happy and 
 wholehearted Christian discipleship, to awaken in their 
 young hearts a love for the Saviour that will deepen 
 and strengthen with the passing of the years. Few 
 parents, alas, realise this, and comparatively few chil- 
 dren have the joy of a truly Christian upbringing. 
 Parents whose anxiety for their children’s welfare leads 
 them to lay good foundations for everything else, never 
 seem to realise the necessity for laying the foundations 
 of the spiritual life in early years, or, if they do realise 
 it, they display a strange reluctance to undertake the 
 task themselves and betray a surprising willingness to 
 relegate this duty to the Sunday School teacher or the 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 minister. Christian parents who so shirk that respon- 
 sibility and forfeit their privilege, lose one of the rarest 
 joys of life and store up for themselves a possible 
 harvest of misunderstanding and resentment. The 
 sweetest and most natural spiritual experiences of chil- 
 dren are those induced by a parent’s loving heart and 
 words, by the beauty of a father’s life, or the Christ- 
 likeness of a mother’s love, and the happiest and most 
 truly Christian homes are those where the boys and 
 girls are fitted within the sacred circle of the earthly 
 family to enter the larger fellowship of the Father’s 
 Home. 
 
 Next to the parent the Sunday School teacher has 
 the best opportunity of leading the child to Christ. 
 Thousands of children in our Sunday School come 
 from utterly unchristian homes—hundreds come from 
 Christian homes where parents fail in their obligation 
 and forfeit their right of winning the young lives for 
 Christ themselves. Here, then, is the unique opportu- 
 nity of the Sunday School teacher—here his greatest 
 joy is to be found. No one outside the circle of the 
 home is brought into more intimate or happy relations 
 with the child. No one so wins his love and affection; 
 and no one can so easily and naturally lead him to the 
 Saviour. It is the function of the Sunday School— 
 and ought to be its clearly recognised and defined aim— 
 not merely to lay the groundwork of a thorough Chris- 
 tian education and introduce the young mind to the 
 world of spiritual reality, but “to bring every pupil to 
 realise a personal relationship to Jesus Christ, a personal 
 responsibility for active membership in the Church, 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 and a personal obligation to advance the Redeemer’s 
 Kingdom by diligent and consecrated effort.” Any- 
 thing short of that is failure. 
 
 Readers will gather from a study of the contents of 
 this book that the editors allow a place for the Chil- 
 dren’s Evangelist—for the specialist, in making the 
 appeal of Jesus Christ to boys and girls outside the 
 ordinary work of the Sunday School. The reasons for 
 that position are set forth in the concluding chapters 
 of the volume. The need for a more educational type 
 of evangelism is, we feel, balanced by the need for a 
 more definitely evangelistic type of religious educa- 
 tion. The one is as great a desideratum and as urgent 
 a need as the other. 
 
 It is our conviction that effective educational and 
 evangelistic work in this field can only be done by those 
 who are prepared to keep abreast of the splendid re- 
 search work being done in the field of Child Psychology, 
 and that conviction has determined the plan of this 
 book. Its basis is at once psychological and historical— 
 it rests equally on a child’s idea of the child himself, and 
 on the attitude of Christ and His Church to him. It 
 seeks to relate the fruits of scientific research on the one 
 hand, and practical experience on the other, to the re- 
 ligious development of childhood and to the problem of 
 child conversion. It strives to afford some guidance to 
 the Sunday School teacher in the realisation of his 
 more definitely evangelistic aims, and makes some at- 
 tempt to deal with the vexed question of evangelistic 
 meetings for children and to indicate the nature and 
 scope of the fruits of work aimed at—Winning the 
 Children for Christ. 
 
INTRODUCTION XV 
 
 We are keenly aware of the defects of the book, as 
 well as of the questions unanswered in these pages, and 
 of the difficulties for which no solution is offered, but 
 we believe that it represents a useful attempt to grapple 
 with one of the most vital questions of the hour, and 
 we dare to hope that something of real suggestiveness 
 and practical value will be found in its pages. 
 

 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 I THE MIND OF THE CHILD 
 GeorGE H. Green, B.Litt., B.Sc., Lec- 
 turer on Education in the University 
 College of Wales, Aberystwyth. 
 
 II THE FORMATIVE YEARS OF LIFE . 
 
 J. G. Macxenzir, B.D., Professor of So- 
 
 ciology and Psychology, Paton Congre- 
 gational College, Nottingham. 
 
 Ti eoUS AND THE CHILDREN 
 
 Tuomas Paterson, M.A., Minister of 
 Renwick United Free Church, Glasgow. 
 
 IV THE CHURCH AND THE CHILD 
 
 J. WittiAmMs ButcHer, European Editor 
 of the Encyclopzdia of Sunday Schools 
 and Religious Education, formerly Sec- 
 retary of the Wesleyan Methodist Sun- 
 day School Department. 
 
 V THE NORMAL RELIGIOUS DEVEL- 
 OPMENT OF CHILDHOOD 
 THISELTON Mark, Litt.D., M.Ep., B.Sc., 
 Extension Lecturer on Religious Educa- 
 tion, Manchester University. 
 
 VI THE PROBLEM OF CHILD CONVER- 
 BOUIN ESE a3). ; : POR RONe IS! 
 Aubert D. Betpen, B.D., Minister of 
 Crowstone Congregational Church, 
 Westcliffe-on-Sea. 
 
 XVii 
 
 PAGE 
 21 
 
 39 
 
 62 
 
 73 
 
 85 
 
 [06 
 
XVili 
 CHAPTER 
 
 Vil 
 
 VIII 
 
 atb.< 
 
 XI 
 
 XII 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE SUNDAY SCHOOL AS AN EVAN- 
 GELAISINGVAGHNGY )0e yr). 
 
 Ernest H. Haves, Author of “The Child 
 in the Midst,” “The Concise Guides,” 
 ere: 
 
 THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER AS 
 EVANGELIST ; 
 
 W. D. Mitter, M.A., Winter 3 Ruchill 
 United Free Church, Glasgow. 
 
 LAB WCASE chOR?) RVANGELASTICG 
 MEETINGS FOR CHILDREN... 
 
 D. P. TuHomson, M.A., Editor of “The 
 Sunday School in the Modern World.” 
 
 SPECIAL MISSION FOR CHILDREN 
 
 A. W. Burcess, Hon. Secretary of the 
 Home Missions Committee, National 
 Sunday School Union. 
 
 THE CONDUCT OF Steer a 
 MEETINGS . 
 
 D. P. THomson, M.A. 
 
 THE FRUITS OF EVANGELISTIC 
 WORK AMONG CHILDREN... 
 
 One of the Editors. 
 
 PAGH 
 
 116 
 
 130 
 
 143 
 
 155 
 
 165 
 
 184 
 
WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST | 
 
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CHAPTER I 
 THE MIND OF THE CHILD 
 GEORGE H. GREEN, B.Lirtr., B.Sc. 
 
 THE fact which we tend to emphasise to-day, perhaps 
 more than at any other time in history, in connection 
 with the mind of the child, is the fact of development. 
 The mind of the child, that is to say, has not merely 
 to grow in order to resemble the mind of the adult; but 
 has to pass through a whole series of changes. 
 
 The difference between mere growth and development 
 may perhaps be illustrated by reference to a single point 
 which is of great importance to those who deal in any 
 way with children. It is still considered by many people 
 that if a matter be expressed in simple words which the 
 child is in the habit of using, the matter becomes clear 
 to the child. This is no doubt partly true. But we are 
 inclined to forget that the simplest words have not the 
 same meaning for the child that they possess for the 
 adult, and that they cannot possibly possess such mean- 
 ing until the child has passed through a number of ex- 
 periences which can come to him only with the passing 
 of time. This is true even of such words as “father,” 
 “home,” “money,” or “food.” Whenever we say that 
 something “means more” to us than it does to others, 
 we imply that we have passed through experiences 
 which these others have not undergone, and that we are, 
 
 in certain directions, more developed than they. 
 21 
 
22 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 Work with children, therefore, whatever may be its 
 character, depends for its success upon the understand- 
 ing and adoption of, not merely the child’s vocabulary, 
 but the child’s point of view. 
 
 The point of view depends upon experience, and 
 this again upon the surroundings in which the child 
 finds himself. Such simple words as those already 
 referred to possess quite different meanings for the 
 child who lives in a mansion and the one who is brought 
 up inaslum. A lesson or a talk about home, given 
 simultaneously to two children so differently reared, 
 would produce quite different results, since what is con- 
 veyed to each child depends for its effect upon the 
 already existing meaning of the terms employed. Ob- 
 vious as this is when stated, it is in practice often 
 ignored. 
 
 When we speak of the child’s environment, however, 
 we must not think of a big and complex world which 
 surrounds the child, and in respect of which he is 
 passive. Even the environment of the adult is not of 
 this character. We do not know, we do not even attend 
 to all that surrounds us. To some of our surroundings 
 we react a great deal; to others much less. Much that 
 is about us we completely ignore. We speak of great 
 or little interest, or of indifference. 
 
 The direction of interest changes a great deal at 
 different periods of life. For example, there is a time 
 in a boy’s life when he is quite indifferent to girls; and 
 another in which he is intensely interested in them. 
 There are periods in which girls are more deeply in- 
 terested in their dress and personal appearance than at 
 others. 
 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD 23 
 
 It may be well, in discussing the mind of the child, 
 to consider it from the point of view of interest, since 
 it is to existing interests that all who attempt to win 
 the child in any way whatsoever must appeal. We may 
 regard development as implying, in the main, that at 
 different periods of life different interests predominate, 
 so that what will stir the child profoundly at one period 
 will move him but little in another. 
 
 The study of the interests of men and women has 
 given rise to the conception of instincts, some of which 
 we find operating soon after birth, whilst others come 
 into prominence at later stages of life. An instinct im- 
 plies interest in a certain object or class of objects, a cer- 
 tain kind of behaviour independent of learning or ex- 
 perience towards such objects and the experiencing of 
 feeling of a certain kind as such behaviour continues 
 satisfactorily towards its end. Thus, in connection 
 with the instinct of hunger, food is the appropriate 
 object—in the human infant, the mother’s breast—and 
 sucking the natural activity. As the action goes on, 
 the unpleasant craving is replaced by pleasurable feel- 
 ings, and ultimately by the feeling of satisfaction. 
 
 There is no general agreement amongst psychologists 
 as to the number of instincts, or as to the way in which 
 we are to classify them. We may, however, easily 
 recognise hunger, sex, flight, curiosity and self-asser- 
 tion. | 
 
 In the first three years of life the hunger instinct is 
 the most important which comes into play. At first, 
 there are no interests at all outside of food, and the 
 baby who is not feeding sleeps. 
 
 But we may see, even so early as this, the operation 
 
24 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 of the combative instinct. We have but to attempt to 
 separate the baby from the breast or the bottle, and we 
 shall witness struggles to push away the obstacles we 
 interpose and to regain the desired object. 
 
 Our instincts make their presence known to us as 
 impulses from within. The child wants to feed, and 
 knows how to feed, long before he knows why he must 
 feed, and this state of things is essential to his life. 
 Experience teaches him a great deal and enables him in 
 the end to know something of feeding, so that he is able 
 to learn that some kinds of food suit him, some disagree 
 with him, that some he likes and some he dislikes. He 
 learns to control feeding and to reduce it to habit and 
 routine. 
 
 The study of the hunger instinct is very illuminating 
 in respect of the light thrown by it upon the process 
 of transformation of instinctive activities into adult 
 conduct. The object of interest is food. But since 
 food<becomes associated with pleasant flavours, with 
 cutlery, glass and napery, with congenial company and 
 good conversation, some part of the interest, and often 
 the greater part, is transferred to these. A man may in 
 time prefer remaining hungry to dining alone, or to 
 dining in discomfort. Or again, certain experiences 
 may have taught the value of food; as the man ina 
 desert land learns that he must spare no effort, if he 
 values his life, to push on to the lands where food is to 
 be discovered. It was because he was speaking to an 
 audience for whom food had acquired a definite mean- 
 ing that Christ was able to refer to “they who hunger 
 and thirst after righteousness,” and to be certain of 
 being understood by them in a way that would have 
 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD 25 
 
 been impossible to people who had never experienced 
 intense hunger and thirst, or known the need of intense 
 effort if starvation were to be evaded. Ina land where 
 food was scarce and hard to come by, the phrase ‘““Man 
 shall not live by bread alone’ possessed an intenser 
 meaning than is possible of realisation by the bulk of 
 men and women in Great Britain to-day. 
 
 It is true that we make little attempt to appeal to 
 the child of under three years of age through the 
 medium of words, but it is not to be imagined on this 
 account that the period is of little importance. It is, on 
 the other hand, perhaps the most important period of 
 the child’s life, since he is laying the foundations of all 
 his future conceptions of love and duty, with which his 
 whole moral and religious development will be in- 
 timately concerned. Broadly speaking, his mother rep- 
 resents love and his father duty—but this distinction 
 must not be pressed too far. In this period, too, the 
 child learns something of acting or refraining from 
 action for reasons connected with other people. If he 
 acts in certain ways he will be praised by people whom 
 he has learned to love; if he refuses to act in these ways 
 he will be punished—the form of the punishment and 
 its relation to the offence depending upon the father and 
 mother. The demands we make upon the child of three 
 are few, and the punishments and rewards he receives 
 are very insignificant in our eyes. But they are none 
 the less important for him. 
 
 Perhaps the first signs we discover that the child is 
 developing are those which indicate that he is “taking 
 notice” of things. These tell us that the satisfaction of 
 hunger does not now absorb the whole of his waking 
 
26 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 interest. By the time that he is three years of age, the 
 hunger instinct has been developed beyond the instinc- 
 tive stage. The child knows how and when and what 
 to eat. He has formed reasonably regular habits of 
 sleeping. The greater part of his interest is free to be 
 directed elsewhere. 
 
 It seems now to be directed upon himself, and he 
 enters upon a stage of development which we can speak 
 of as purely selfish. It is folly to deplore this, and 
 more than folly to seek to make it otherwise. St. Paul 
 does not advise us to expect from a child other than 
 childish things. We may deplore the concentration of 
 interest upon the self in the adult, who should have 
 passed through and beyond this stage, but not in the 
 child, who learns as he passes through it to know him- 
 self. Excessive praise just now may lead to grandiose 
 ideas about himself. Indifference and neglect may lead 
 him to underestimate himself. In either of these ways 
 we may lay the foundations of excessive self-conscious- 
 ness, the personal deficiency which troubles so many 
 men and women in later life, making some arrogant be- 
 cause they believe themselves to be inferior people, who 
 must demonstrate their superiority by disproportionate 
 efforts; and others shy and diffident, because they feel 
 that they cannot demonstrate by any efforts they make 
 the superiority which they believe themselves (perhaps 
 unwittingly) to possess. 
 
 It is at this stage that the child shows a great in- 
 terest in the toy, the plaything; and it is his interest 
 which makes the toy so worth while to him. But the 
 ball he strikes and pursues, the little cart he pulls, the 
 toy train he directs, are all of them objects through 
 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD 27 
 
 which he learns something of his increasing powers. 
 Simply and naturally he boasts of what he is able to do 
 with the toys, and of their possession. He speaks of 
 “my toys.” He invites favoured adults to “see how far 
 I can throw my ball.” 
 
 It is in this period, then, that the child acquires an 
 interest in those things which a human being is able 
 to do and to know; and this because he has set his mind 
 on being able to do and to know all these things him- 
 self. A frequent form of question is “When I am 
 grown up like you, shall I be able.to drive a motor- 
 car?’ Consequently, it is not surprising that, in the 
 earliest phases of this period, the father is admired as 
 a person who knows everything and is able to do every- 
 thing. He is admired, and he is imitated. The imita- 
 tion is in the main confined to superficial matters, since 
 the child’s powers of analysis are very limited. The 
 father’s hat and coat may be borrowed, his mannerisms 
 of speech and gesture more or less accurately copied. 
 Fathers who leave pipes about will find at some time 
 or other one of their children diligently sucking at the 
 stem of an unlighted pipe, endeavouring to appreciate 
 the experience of being grown up. _ 
 
 Any effort we make, therefore, to.attract the child’s 
 interest at this stage must be conditioned by the fact 
 that his interest already centres about himself. He 
 wants to know something of his own origin, of his own 
 past and future . . . of the things that he will be able 
 to do in the days when he shall be grown up. Other 
 children interest him in the main because they are like 
 himself. Though we speak of other children as his 
 friends, we must bear in mind constantly that the child 
 
28 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 has not the capacity for friendship as the adult under- 
 stands it. His friends are the people who give him 
 various things, who assist him in various ways, who 
 pay attention to him, who are willing to watch him 
 perform the feats of which he is proud, to play with him 
 under his direction. In the earlier phases of the stage 
 of development of which we are speaking, the child in- 
 vents an “Imaginary Companion,’ or even a number 
 of such, to whom he talks and with whom he plays. 
 Any study of the imaginary companion reveals that it is 
 in the main composed of wishes for himself which the 
 child cannot realise fully in the real world. The com- 
 panion does not express merely a wish for companion- 
 ship on the part of the child, but wishes for a com- 
 panion of a particular kind; one who is willing to ad- 
 mire, to assist. Only rarely could a real child take the 
 place of the imaginary companion.* 
 
 The child has a background of experience which 
 enables the story of the contrasted attitude of some of 
 the disciples and that of Jesus Himself to be at once 
 appreciated. Every child has met with people who can- 
 not be bothered with him, who wish him to be seen and 
 not heard, who tell him to go away somewhere where 
 he will be able to play without disturbing people. And 
 he has generally met a few people who seem never too 
 busy to attend to him, to see the things he brings to 
 show them, and to listen to what he has to say. His 
 deep interest in himself has led him to feel keenly about 
 these different types of people, so that he dislikes the 
 
 * The imaginary companion is discussed in the following books. 
 Green—Psycho-analysis in the Classroom, and Green—The Day- 
 dream: A study in Development. 
 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD 29 
 
 former as strongly as he likes the latter. His interest 
 and his experience, then, at this stage, enable him very 
 definitely to group Jesus with the people he likes. The 
 few episodes of the boyhood of Jesus, or stories of 
 Jesus as a man, actually performing deeds which the 
 child wishes to perform, make their appeal on the same 
 grounds. 
 
 It has, in the past, been customary to tell these narra- 
 tives, and then to endeavour to impress a moral. The 
 method does not take into account the mind of the 
 child, but is based entirely upon conceptions of the 
 adult mind. If we are to win the child, we must take 
 into account his interests and his stage of development, 
 as they are, not as we might foolishly wish them to be. 
 We shall choose our occasions. We shall not, at a mo- 
 ment when the child has been punished for some child- 
 ish fault, and is full of rebellious feelings, talk to him 
 of the restriction of the love of Jesus to the good 
 child . . . committing an error which is committed 
 daily by many who deal with children. But occasions 
 may be chosen, and stories may be presented in such 
 a way that the child makes for himself the discovery— 
 “Then He was just like me.” Or he says—“I want to 
 be like that.” Such a discovery, or such a formulation 
 of an aim, has a far greater value when it is made by the 
 child himself, than when we make it for him. It has 
 the further value for ourselves that it ensures us that 
 we have succeeded in our aim. The man who talks to 
 passive children never knows how much attention he 
 is receiving from them, the extent to which he is under- 
 stood, or the results of his teaching. 
 
 A great deal has been written of the child’s imitative 
 
80 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 tendencies at this age. The child who discovers that 
 the people he loves maintain an attitude of reverence 
 towards certain objects, practise certain forms of 
 devotion and follow certain habits of worship, is con- 
 stantly stimulated to imitate at least the outward forms 
 of acts that are religious in character. In this matter, 
 he is best left to himself; being neither unduly stimu- 
 lated or discouraged. Such imitation should be taken 
 for granted. Often, however, people are inclined to 
 imagine that these imitated actions imply more than 
 they actually mean. It is wisest to regard them as 
 expressions, not of the wish to worship, but of the wish 
 to be in all respects like the people whom the child loves 
 and admires. They are not religious, in all probability, 
 but are of a piece with the child’s other actions in which 
 he tries to copy adult behaviour. But they are of value 
 in that they have directed his attention to certain acts, 
 whose significance he will come gradually to know. In 
 proportion as these acts come to possess meaning, they 
 will become religious to an increasing degree. 
 
 It is of the very greatest importance that such imita- 
 tion shall not be made a subject of remark. Extrava- 
 gant praise, unrestrained expressions of pleasure by 
 adults who entirely misunderstand what it is that the 
 child means by such actions, lead to a complete mis- 
 apprehension on the part of the child of what it is that 
 is admired and praised. He comes to believe—as 
 apparently many of the Pharisees believed—that reli- 
 gion is nothing more than the performance of certain 
 actions in order to gain the praise of other people, and 
 in particular, of those people who are placed in positions 
 of authority. The child who merely imitates older 
 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD 31 
 
 people has often enough been taken for a religious 
 prodigy ; the result being the later disillusionment of the 
 people who unwisely hoped for so much from the child, 
 and permanent injury to his own religious development. 
 
 Closely bound up with this matter of imitation is 
 the whole question of suggestibility. All of us, children 
 and adult alike, are suggestible in some measure. Cnhil- 
 dren are, however, in general more suggestible than 
 adults. To say that a person is suggestible means that 
 he is likely to accept uncritically and to act upon con- 
 clusions which are supplied to him by others, expressed 
 in their speech or implied in their actions. The fact that 
 a number of people whom he loves or admires prepare 
 to go to church on Sunday morning suggests to the 
 child that he would like to go also. The sight of a 
 crowd of people waiting to enter a building makes him 
 wish to enter it. 
 
 Suggestions depend for their effect upon the source 
 from which they come to us. They depend upon our 
 attitude towards this source. If suggestions are made 
 by people who enjoy our confidence, whom we love or 
 esteem or admire, they are more likely to be accepted 
 uncritically than when they come from people who repel 
 us or to whom we are hostile. For most people, too, 
 suggestions are more effective when they are repeated, 
 or when they come from a large number of people. 
 When the suggestion is made by many people we speak 
 of it as a massive suggestion. When it is made by 
 some one who is admired or loved we speak of it as 
 depending upon the prestige of the person making it. 
 
 The child’s endeavour to reproduce religious be- 
 haviour depends in part upon the number of people who 
 
82 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 surround him who act in these particular ways. Their 
 actions go to make up a mass suggestion. Then again, 
 these people possess prestige in the child’s eyes. The 
 suggestions which come from the family and the home 
 are therefore very strong ones; possessing a double 
 character which makes them more than ordinarily 
 effective. 
 
 The question of prestige leads rapidly to the con- 
 clusion that before we can hope to win a child for any 
 ‘ cause we have at heart we must first win him ourselves. 
 We cannot win him by threats, or by making him 
 afraid. Nor can we merely win him by telling ourselves 
 that we love him. Time spent in playing with a child, 
 in helping him in those directions in which he wishes 
 for assistance, in endeavouring to understand a point 
 of view, is not wasted; indeed, it is essential that time 
 should be so spent. Many adults who know that it is 
 essential to woo a woman if she is to be won never 
 realise that it is as essential to woo a child as a pre- 
 liminary to winning it. 
 
 This does not in the least imply that an adult is to 
 play at being a child. A man does not woo or win a 
 woman by pretending to be a woman. Manliness in 
 this instance serves him better than any pretence of 
 femininity. The adult who wins the child does so by re- 
 maining an adult; but he endeavours to understand the 
 child. He wishes strongly to know his point of view 
 and the direction of his interests. For the childish adult 
 the child has a great deal of contempt. The actions of 
 people for whom the child has dislike or contempt act 
 as counter-suggestions: the child receives them, per- 
 haps not critically, but with marked disapproval, and 
 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD 33 
 
 generally acts contrary to them. Hatred of religion is 
 often directly traceable to the fact that religion was 
 associated in early childhood with Pen who were 
 strongly disliked. 
 
 We may perhaps contrast this period, in which the 
 child is strongly ego-centred, with that which appears 
 to follow, in which he shows a great deal of capacity 
 for comradeship. From the tenth year to perhaps the 
 fifteenth or the sixteenth he is very interested in com- 
 panions and with tasks which may be carried out co- 
 operatively. The difference between utilising others to 
 carry out one’s own plans and sharing with them in 
 the performance of a course of action directed towards 
 a common end is very great. It is in this stage that 
 the child comes to understand the meaning of what we 
 are accustomed to speak of as brotherhood. 
 
 Comradeship gives a richer and fuller meaning to 
 _the conception of love which the child has already 
 gained as a result of his experience of the world and 
 of others. In the first three years his love is almost 
 purely animal, extending to those people upon whom 
 he relies for food and comfort. Such “cupboard” love 
 is not a high form of love, but it is the utmost of which 
 the child is capable at this stage. From this he passes 
 to a love which is still not a high form, but which is 
 extended to those people who are, speaking generally, 
 of use to him. But in this third stage we reach some- 
 thing that is far higher—love of the comrades whose 
 play and tasks he shares. It is this particular develop- 
 ment of interest that was realised by the founder of 
 the Scout movement, the success of which is adequate 
 testimony to the soundness of the psychological prin- 
 
384 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 ciples on which it was based. The Scout and Guide 
 movements do not call on boys and girls to sit passively 
 and look and listen; but call on them to act together, 
 since it is only in connected action that comradeship can 
 be experienced and enjoyed. 
 
 The subsequent stage of development, which we 
 know as adolescence, has been fully treated by a num- 
 ber of writers; notably by Stanley Hall. Typically it is 
 a romantic period, in which youth dreams wonderful 
 dreams. The concept of love is extended by the idea of 
 devotion and sacrifice. The period is one of great and 
 often lofty enthusiasms. | 
 
 This very brief review of the development of the 
 child from infancy to the early stages of manhood or 
 womanhood will serve to make clear the fact of the 
 difference between children who are living in different 
 stages of development. It is quite true that the child 
 is surrounded by precisely the same world as is the 
 adult, but it is nevertheless not true to say that the 
 child and the adult live in the same world. Each sees 
 it differently, because the interest of each is differently 
 directed. Each asks questions of it and about it, and 
 the questions are entirely different. The question 
 “Who made the world?” is a very different one from 
 “Why is the world made so?” . . . just as “Who made 
 me?” bespeaks a very different outlook from “Why was 
 I ever born?” Both are expressions of curiosity, but 
 curiosity directed through interest to entirely different 
 aspects of existence. 
 
 We have already spoken of instincts, of spontaneous 
 activities directed towards certain objects—of hunger 
 and its connection with food, of fear and its connection 
 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD 35 
 
 with big and overwhelming objects, of self-assertion 
 and its association with objects that may be handled, of 
 combativeness and its association with objects which ob- 
 struct other instinctive activities. During all the 
 periods of development which we have discussed, we 
 see these instincts undergoing modifications. 
 
 Our interest is transferred from the original objects 
 to others. Or we learn something of the effects pro- 
 duced by our actions and so begin to act reasonably 
 and intentionally, to modify our actions, and so to 
 emancipate ourselves to some extent from our impulses. 
 Or again, we learn something of the pleasure which we 
 feel in connection with certain activities, and modify 
 our activities in order to produce more pleasure for 
 ourselves. 
 
 The view that has here been taken of development 
 is that in any one of the several stages of development 
 a single instinct is predominant in the life of the child; 
 and that, in the course of development, this instinct 
 becomes known through experience, through work 
 and play, and becomes controlled. But at each stage 
 interest is directed differently so that we may speak of 
 the child’s interest being directed successively towards 
 food and people who are associated with his food; to- 
 wards himself, his activities and people who are useful 
 in connection with these; towards comrades and the ex- 
 cursions and activities shared with them and finally, 
 towards a single companion with whom he contem- 
 plates sharing all his possessions, his thoughts, and to 
 whom he proposes to devote all his achievements. 
 People who have attempted to win children in the past 
 have succeeded just so far as they have succeeded in 
 
36 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 relating themselves and the things they love to these 
 interests of the child. 
 
 The problem of winning a child is not the same as 
 that of instructing him. More obviously than is the 
 case with adults, the child’s attitude towards things 
 and people depends upon the way in which he feels 
 about them. Adults have to force themselves in some 
 measure to atiend to things they do not like and to 
 perform tasks which do not interest them. But even 
 so, attention wanders, and the unloved task is set aside 
 at the earliest possible moment. Thought is controlled 
 by interest. The child who listens to the story of the 
 Gadarene swine is likely at the end to ask what the 
 owners of the pigs said when they were told of their 
 loss, since he is much more interested in the question of 
 possession, which immediately affects a child who 
 frequently disputes with brothers and sisters the owner- 
 ship of toys, than in any other which arises out of 
 the narrative. But a story of Jesus which shows Him 
 as engaged in the work of healing or preaching, of 
 feeding multitudes of people, of wandering homeless 
 and weary, of entering Jerusalem in triumph, will cer- 
 tainly fascinate the child, since all these things are of 
 interest. In the child’s thoughts, as he thinks the mat- 
 ter over, he puts himself in the place of Christ, and 
 imagines himself acting in precisely this manner ; since 
 children invariably identify themselves with the heroes 
 of their imaginings. It is important not to enter into 
 long, unwanted explanations of stories at their close, 
 nor to ask numerous questions to discover how much 
 the child has been attending. If the child has been 
 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD 37 
 
 attending at all, and if the story has in the least cap- 
 tured his imagination, he will ask questions about it, 
 and will enter upon discussions. “But why did Christ 
 allow the men to beat him?” is the sort of question 
 that is at once asked, at the end of the narration of the 
 events immediately prior to the crucifixion, and it 
 tempts the adult to an explanation of the doctrine of the 
 atonement, which the child will not in the least under- 
 stand. The retort, “What would you have done?” 
 will do a great deal more to maintain the interest that 
 has evidently been aroused. The child replies with the 
 statement, “I would have killed them:” or something 
 very similar. “But why?’ The child will volunteer 
 a statement to the effect that such people should be 
 punished, and at this point it is possible to tell him 
 that Christ did not want them punished and to refer 
 to the words . . . “Father, forgive them. They know 
 not what they do.” We have led the child, through his 
 own interests, and along the path of his own thoughts 
 to a point at which Christ is presented to him in a 
 fuller light than before. The child has already re- 
 alised the possibility of loving those who are kind to 
 him, and has been able to understand that Christ might 
 well be expected to do so too. But we have helped him 
 to realise that in this matter Christ goes beyond him, 
 much as the people he admires go beyond him in other 
 respects. And I believe that we have achieved this 
 much more effectively than we could have done by 
 means of an exposition following on the story. I well 
 remember that when, as a boy, I used to read tracts and 
 religious stories I always skipped the doctrinal perora- 
 
88 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 tion. The few IJ read I have forgotten, though I re- 
 member in some detail a very large number of the 
 stories. 
 
 The child’s mind, like its body, develops through 
 exercise. The child who merely listens is not mentally 
 active in respect of what is told, but is generally day- 
 dreaming in other directions. The person who can 
 capture the child’s attention, who can stir him to won- 
 der, who can lead him to feel and think deeply and in- 
 tensely, is a person who, because he loves the child and 
 sympathises with him, is able to appeal directly to 
 his interest and to lead it out beyond those things 
 with which it is ordinarily occupied. I believe that in 
 the past we have in general paid insufficient attention to 
 the importance that feeling plays in the mental life of 
 the child, and in particular to the importance of the 
 feeling with which certain people and certain actions are 
 invested as a result of the experiences of the early years 
 of life; the feelings which are fundamental in con- 
 nection with conceptions of love and duty} It is these 
 feelings and their later development, which determine 
 the subsequent attitude towards persons, and conse- 
 quently affect very profoundly the problem of winning 
 the child. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 THE FORMATIVE YEARS OF LIFE 
 J. G. MACKENZIE, B.D. 
 
 “ADOLESCENCE,” says Dr. McCurdy, “‘is the period dur- 
 ing which people of either sex are apt to become keenly 
 aware of their sexual and other problems. For this 
 reason most patients date their ‘nervousness’ from this 
 time ; but any one who goes beneath the surface of such 
 phenomena sees that adolescence is merely the time 
 when the faulty preparation for life becomes dra- 
 matically evident, the causative factors lying far be- 
 hind.” 
 
 Dr. McCurdy is here thinking of neurotic patients 
 suffering from one or other of the many nervous func- 
 tional disorders, as Hysteria, Obsessions, Phobias, etc. 
 But his dictum applies equally to those who have failed 
 to win a moral or spiritual life. All neurotic trouble has 
 its roots in some failure in psychological adjustment 
 which in the great majority of cases goes back to early 
 childhood. Adolescence is the time for religious and 
 moral decisions, not because some wholly new factor 
 is brought to bear on the growing young men and 
 women but because at that period the early impressions, 
 moral and spiritual, manifest their natural expression. 
 
 There is no greater fallacy about the formative 
 years than that which holds the adolescent period to be 
 
 the most important. Recent study has drawn de- 
 39 
 
40 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 served attention to the earlier years, especially to those 
 between three and ten. The study of the delinquent and 
 unstable child in the psychological clinics, and the study 
 of the abnormal adult by the psychotherapist show con- 
 clusively that the roots of abnormal behaviour must be 
 traced to those early years. Dr. Pfister’s recent work 
 on “Love in Children” gives numerous examples of 
 “Moral Disease’ arising in the early repression or per- 
 version of the instincts through the thwarting of the 
 love sentiment. 
 
 All this is quite easily understood when one remem- 
 bers that the instincts of the child are first in the field. 
 Long before the child can rationally or morally judge 
 an action the instinctive energies are finding outlet 
 almost unimpeded at first. This brings pleasure and 
 naturally the desire to repeat the experience. Habits 
 are acquired and tendencies indulged which, to a child, 
 have no moral content; but in later years these habits 
 and tendencies may come under the ban of conscience or 
 society. But this time they may have become “com- 
 pulsive”’ and outside the control of the child’s will. He 
 lies, steals ; indulges in perverted habits; and yet mourn 
 over it as he will he cannot better himself. He may 
 have little idea why he lies or steals; neither brings him 
 any conscious good. He is suffering from “moral 
 disease,’ and is unconsciously motived by some re- 
 pressed emotion. When the adolescent gives way to 
 evil habit it is because in the earlier years there has been 
 faulty development. 
 
 The formative years, then, begin at the beginning. 
 From the first the infant is active and not passive. 
 Every mother and nurse knows how quickly an infant 
 
THE FORMATIVE YEARS OF LIFE AY 
 
 learns that in response to its crying it gets lifted up, and 
 made comfortable. Soon the child comes to cry when 
 there is nothing wrong; it wants to get lifted up! Thus 
 the child early begins associating its actions with their 
 results. It is not meant that the babe has any clear 
 ideas; but in some vague way it can associate crying 
 and being lifted up. 
 
 The above is a simple illustration of one of the 
 formative processes of behaviour. From the beginning 
 the child is organising its experience tawards behaviour. 
 Every expression will bring back some impression; 
 and the impression will determine the repetition, modi- 
 fication or inhibition of that expression. 
 
 The starting points of conduct are within the child. 
 They lie in what are spoken of as the instinctive dispo- 
 sitions. A child does not need to be taught to suck; 
 we teach him to play particular games, but he does not 
 learn to play; he plays spontaneously. As he gets older 
 he begins to assert himself; to feel shy; to be inter- 
 ested in other children; to be pleased with and to desire 
 praise or recognition. Curiosity early impels the child 
 to observe strange objects, and, when he is old enough, 
 to ask all manner of “whys” and “hows.” The growing 
 boy may become one of a “gang’’; the adolescent begins 
 to think of sex. Play, assertion, shyness, desire of 
 recognition, curiosity, a liking for the “gang,” sex in- 
 terest, are all forces lying behind behaviour. These are 
 innate tendencies within the child urging him to the 
 kinds of behaviour these terms describe. A normal 
 child exhibits all these tendencies. He expresses him- 
 self through them; it is by the expression of these that 
 he comes into contact with his environment; and the 
 
42 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 impressions he receives help greatly to determine what 
 he will seek from the world. All his early experience 
 is organised round these instinctive centres. With 
 these he starts out to achieve character and personality. 
 
 The problem of character, we may say, is the prob- 
 lem of adjusting instinctive dispositions to moral and 
 spiritual reality. Failure to achieve character, or a 
 spiritual life, is always the outcome of refusal to become 
 adjusted, or of some maladjustment to reality. The 
 fundamental characteristic of our Lord’s life from the 
 psychological point of view was unity. His desires 
 were at one with His moral and spiritual ideals—“TI and 
 my Father are one;” His will, the direction of all His 
 tendencies, were in the same line as the demands of 
 God’s will. “The prince of this world cometh and 
 findeth nothing in Me;” there was no desire, no motive, 
 no active interest in His being to which the evil of 
 this world could appeal. His inner interests and tend- 
 encies were unified and organised round His Father’s 
 Kingdom; and His love of the Father created that 
 affective unity which is the fundamental fact of moral 
 and spiritual life. | 
 
 Now what are the fundamental realities to which the 
 individual must become adjusted if he is to win a 
 moral and spiritual life? Here we need only mention 
 three. é 
 
 Very early in life the child comes up against society.” 
 This is the reality which is for ever checking and re- 
 straining his instinctive activities. It meets him first 
 of all in his home. It imposes its will upon him; his 
 actions must conform to the will of the members of 
 that home else there is restraint and punishment. Later 
 
THE FORMATIVE YEARS OF LIFE 43 
 
 it is the society of his school and school-mates. He 
 does something which the society of the school disap- 
 proves and he is sent to “Coventry.’’ Later still he 
 finds society surrounds him; there is a public opinion 
 about all sorts of conduct; conventions that society 
 expects him to obey; laws relating to his conduct in re- 
 lation to others, the breaking of which mean social 
 punishment. Somehow if he is to get any peace he 
 must come to terms with this society. He must become 
 adjusted to living with others. He must accept its re- 
 straints, or circumvent them, or be restless and un- 
 happy under them. 
 
 At puberty and adolescence the growing youth and 
 
 maid become acutely conscious of sex stirrings. It is 
 not a mere matter of sex curiosity; there are definite 
 physiological and psychological processes occurring in 
 both; and they simply can’t help sex thoughts and feel- 
 ings. Sex is one of the greatest moral realities the 
 adolescent has to face. He or she will be fortunate if 
 nothing has happened in earlier years to make the 
 problem harder. An attitude has to be adopted to the 
 whole of their sex nature and its implications if he 
 or she is to reach a moral life. Is it of the devil or of 
 God? License, control or repression will depend on 
 the answer. 
 
 Finally he comes up against the spiritual reality of 
 God. He finds that the restraints of society are said 
 to have a religious sanction; that moral demands are 
 said to be God’s will. Moreover, he finds the moral 
 conflict within himself and the need for decision. Psy- 
 chologically there is much more that leads to ideas of 
 God than the moral conflict, but the idea of God with 
 
 .* 
 
44 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 some of its implications at least arises in this way and 
 he feels the demand for adjustment. 
 
 These are the three ultimate moral realities to which 
 every growing personality has to become adjusted if 
 the moral and spiritual life is to be achieved. The 
 formative years are spent in preparing to become ad- 
 justed or maladjusted. In so far as we become adjusted 
 to these realities life becomes a joy. We shall deal with — 
 the meaning and attainment of these adjustments as 
 we proceed. 
 
 DAWN OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 Although from the very beginning of conscious life 
 character-forming forces are at work within and upon 
 the child, the first great formative period is the dawn 
 of self-consciousness. It takes place between three and 
 four years of age. Up to this age the child has known 
 no restraint except what has been imposed on him from 
 without. He has lived in the moment; he has been 
 driven by the passing desire; attracted by the present 
 or promised sensation; indeed he has scarcely realised 
 that he is a separate being. 
 
 With self-consciousness all this is changed. He re- 
 alises that he is an individual with desires of his own, 
 a “mind” of his own, a “will” of his own. He can con- 
 ceive past, present, and future: “Mamma, me was 
 naughty yesterday, me going to be good to-day.” He 
 is now able to compare his conduct according to some 
 kind of standard. Conscience has awakened; he knows 
 good and evil; he has passed from the Garden of Eden. 
 
 Another psychological factor which comes into active 
 
THE FORMATIVE YEARS OF LIFE 45 
 
 power at this time is what Shand and McDougall have 
 called the “Sentiment.” Before self-consciousness the 
 child was drawn to objects by its innate interest in 
 them; but the child may now make these objects the 
 end of conscious striving. These various objects 
 organise his inner energies round them; they give direc- 
 tion to his energies; they determine which desires will 
 be indulged, which satisfied. He seeks his Mamma, but 
 he knows he seeks her; he may now love his Mamma, 
 which before self-consciousness was impossible. The 
 good of his Mamma may now become a motive of be- 
 haviour. It is the sentiments which control the in- 
 stincts; they imply interests which may become per- 
 manent; they determine character; indeed they are 
 character. 
 
 With the sentiment is born Will, in both the psy- 
 chological and ethical sense. Up to this time the child 
 has no will. The “self-willed” child is just a child with 
 certain of its instincts over-developed. Will pertains 
 to sentiment and the striving of the personality as a 
 while. In will the energy of many instincts may be 
 organised on behalf of one object. As the number of 
 objects increase in which the child takes a permanent 
 interest the character becomes stable, has direction, and 
 in the true sense is will-controlled. ‘There is only one 
 way of giving a child will-power; it is by strengthening 
 and increasing his permanent interests. 
 
 It is also at this period that the sense of “status” is 
 born. The child, conscious of self, is at the same time 
 conscious of others and its position in relation to 
 others. It innately demands status in the home; then 
 in the school, etc. The refusal of this demand lies be- 
 
46 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 ‘hind the behaviour of many a delinquent. What the 
 Psycho-analyst calls an “Inferiority Complex” is often 
 created by the conscious or unconscious denial of status 
 on the part of the parent or teacher. 
 
 There are other factors coming into play at this 
 period which determine social, ethical and religious 
 attitudes. A sense of justice becomes conscious at this 
 time. Whatever claim a child makes for himself he, 
 by the self-same thought, makes it for the other child; 
 “Ego and Alter are only the same thought with different 
 connotations.” “Whatever I fancy for self in general, 
 with no qualification as to which self it is, remains the 
 same whether afterwards I do qualify it by the word 
 ‘my or by the word ‘YOUR, Whether the ‘you’ or 
 ‘me’ will prevail in any particular child will depend 
 very largely on early training. When a child refuses 
 to grant the claim of the ‘alter’ which he would make 
 for himself, it is because he has been taught or ‘ration- 
 alised’ for himself some ‘difference.’ The aristocrat’s 
 child gives equality to the charwoman’s child until he 
 is taught there is a ‘difference.’ Always and every- 
 where, then, ‘difference’ is the occasion and excuse for 
 ignoring the equal claims.” 
 
 Enough has been said to impress upon any one the 
 need for realising the importance of this early period. 
 Nevertheless, there is more that must be said if 
 we are to understand how we may win the child for 
 Christ. It is at self-consciousness that the child meas- 
 ures himself against others. He intuitively knows how 
 far he can go. That does not mean that we are to 
 “show him who is master”; but it does mean that the 
 feeling must be conveyed to the child that you seek and 
 
THE FORMATIVE YEARS OF LIFE 47 
 
 know what is good for him. He must feel that when 
 you withhold anything from him it is from no arbitrary 
 reason, or caprice. A child will almost instantly accept 
 your judgment when he grasps that there is reason be- 
 hind it. 
 
 More important for our immediate purpose in this 
 volume is the growth in the child’s conception of, and 
 desire for, God. This is undoubtedly linked up with 
 the “love sentiment.” A child has no innate spiritual 
 or moral ideas. But he has what Dr. Hadfield has 
 aptly called “The Urge to completeness.” On every 
 level of his being we can see this urge at work. On 
 the physiological it is that “Vis medicatrix” on which 
 we depend for recuperation and the urge to health; on 
 the ethical level we see the urge manifested in the 
 striving towards our ideal; on the psychological the 
 organising activities of the mind make for unity; and 
 now on the spiritual level we see the love sentiment 
 seeking a perfect object. 
 
 The strongest urge within the child is the love urge. 
 The thwarting of this urge is the cause of more failures 
 to gain a religious and healthy life than all other causes. 
 The child cannot help seeking the warmth, comfort, 
 approval, recognition and inspiration of affection. He 
 seeks them in the parents first of all; then in school- 
 fellows, chums and sweetheart in turn. His very atti- 
 tude to the universe may be finally determined by the 
 
 satisfaction or non-satisfaction of this urge. He meas- | | 
 
 ures God by the amount of love he receives in the’ 
 world. There can be little doubt, no matter what the- 
 ologians and philosophers say, that our final attitudes 
 to God, society and destiny are emotionally motivated. 
 
48 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 A harsh arbitrary father will make it very hard for the 
 child to find any attraction in the idea of God as “Our 
 Father.”’ 
 
 We have now seen something of what psychologically 
 happens with the growing self-consciousness of the 
 child. How tremendously important this period is only 
 those who have had to deal with abnormal adolescents 
 and adults can realise; for in analysis they are nearly 
 always brought back to this period for the causes of 
 failure to become adjusted to the varying experiences of 
 life. The “contrary” or “Bolshevik” adolescent and 
 adult is generally the product of the arbitrary withhold- 
 ing of simple pleasures in childhood. The thwarting of 
 their nature by “authority” invariably tends to create a 
 pathological antagonism to all authority. 
 
 From what has been said of this all-important period, 
 “the parents must already realise the powerful factor 
 the home is in the formative years. The true begin- 
 nings of adjustment to the three fundamental realities 
 are made at this time; and they are made in the home. 
 If by any means one of the parents has roused re- 
 sentment in the child, it may be repressed into the un- 
 conscious; nevertheless the growing boy finds himself 
 with an increasing antagonism to everything which re- 
 minds him of the parent. Kleptomania is not seldom 
 due to unconscious resentment; lying may be induced 
 by the effort to win the status which the attitude of 
 parent or teacher has undermined; masturbation is 
 often the direct outcome of corporal punishment. 
 
 Space, however, will not allow me to treat of the 
 delinquent child. My task is to try and show how the 
 child can be won for the service and love of our Lord. 
 
THE FORMATIVE YEARS OF LIFE 49 
 
 All the inner tendencies of the child may be so directed, 
 or sublimated, that every impulse may become a servant 
 of the Christ sentiment. Christ may become his “‘ob- 
 jective conscience,” the very spirit of Jesus may be 
 made the effect of the child’s love sentiment; His king- 
 dom direct his will; His teaching inform the sense 
 of justice; His life, death and resurrection determine 
 the child’s attitude to God, the soul and destiny. 
 
 From the beginning the parents must consciously, 
 intelligently and patiently help the child to become 
 adjusted to society. The child is at first an individu- 
 alist. His first problem is to become a corporate be- 
 ing; to learn to love and seek the things that gain by 
 being shared. He must learn to rejoice in the success 
 and welfare of his little society. That is no easy task. 
 The young child may envy the presents his brother or 
 sister receives on birthdays; gently the intelligent 
 parent, instead of scolding, will help him to rejoice 
 with those that rejoice; to feel that what success comes 
 to any member of the family all share, When that is 
 accomplished the child is on the way to becoming a 
 corporate individual, seeking not selfish ends but cor- 
 porate ends. He will pass to the school and rejoice in 
 every scholastic or athletic success any member or team 
 brings to the school even though he has had no share in 
 realising it. He will quickly learn to work for the suc- 
 cess of his Form rather than from the morbid desire 
 to be at the top; he will be a team man in group play, 
 etc., etc. When he reaches manhood the Kingdom of 
 God will then become a fundamental motivating power. 
 in all his actions. Unselfishness will characterise his. 
 behaviour to others. Society will cease to be a restrain- 
 
50 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 ing power; it will then constrain him. In his relation- 
 ships with other human beings, and in co-operation 
 with them for social ends, he will find life’s true values. 
 Society will have become the “means of his moral life.”’ 
 Society now constrains him; its good is identical with 
 his good; he neither resents its legitimate restraints nor 
 attempts to circumvent them; they are his guides. He 
 is adjusted to society. 
 
 But for this to happen definite training is needed. 
 When the child becomes self-conscious its education in 
 the home is by way of breathing in its atmosphere 
 rather than obeying its precepts. In a word there is 
 a “public opinion” in the home by which the growing 
 child receives its standard of moral and spiritual values. 
 The content of its conscience is being given. 
 
 There is no subject on which even Christian parents 
 need enlightenment more than that of conscience. The 
 child is born with no innate standard of good and evil. 
 Within the child there is an active tendency towards 
 the conduct he has learned as “good.’’ When this 
 tendency is overborne by the strong desire of some 
 impulse the child feels the “pangs of conscience.” 
 But the child is not given the standard of good. He 
 accepts by suggestibility the standard implicit in the 
 public opinion of the home. It is not what he is taught, 
 but what he observes that is all important. It is what 
 the home and school spontaneously condemn or ap- 
 prove; the good rejoiced in; the evils deplored; the 
 talk at the father’s table; the conversation out of school 
 hours in the dormitory and playground; the attitude of 
 parents to each other, and to life in general, that give 
 the first and lasting content to conscience. The extreme 
 
THE FORMATIVE YEARS OF LIFE 51 
 
 suggestibility of the young mind, and the exaggerated 
 prestige of the parents, teachers, and seniors in school, 
 make it very hard for the growing child to resist the 
 ideals of home and school. They become his standard 
 of values; the measure of his own conduct; the reach 
 of his conscience. The keen conscience is the outcome 
 of an atmosphere wherein whatsoever things are lovely 
 and of good report are conveyed spontaneously. 
 
 All this applies equally well to the standard of jus- 
 tice. By his innate sense of justice the child realises 
 what is meant by playing fair; and there is a tendency 
 to do it. But what is “fair,’’ what is just, he uncon- 
 sciously learns from our actions, conversations and 
 attitudes. 
 
 I must not be understood to imply that there is no 
 conflict between the child’s instinctive desires and what 
 is conveyed to him as good or just. There is always 
 a conflict. Instinctive actions offer immediate satis- 
 factions, intense pleasure. Conscience, on the other 
 hand, often has nothing but hard tasks, remote satis- 
 factions and self-denial. 
 
 It is because there is conflict that discipline is needed. 
 The young tree needs turning to the sun. Love and 
 strictness, discipline and freedom, are not antitheses. 
 If these are not to be made to appear as though they 
 were antagonistic then it must be clearly understood 
 what a sentiment means. The sentiment involves the 
 true and permanent good of the object—in this case 
 the child. An intelligent conception of the permanent 
 good of the child involves strictness and discipline. The 
 chiid has to be taught that life makes moral claims 
 upon him; he has to be guided into moral and spiritual 
 
52 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 freedom. But this means freedom from inward 
 restraints—the domination of isolated impulses; free- 
 dom to act along the line of the ideal. As Pfister puts 
 it: “Genuine strictness is free from arbitrariness; it 
 does not want to play the master for the pleasure of 
 showing its power; it commands and forbids only that 
 which, after mature consideration, it considers good and 
 therefore possible of accomplishment; but having come 
 to a decision it insists on fulfilment.” 
 
 The very nature of the sentiment determines the 
 kind of strictness and discipline needed. The perma- 
 nent good of the child bars out the giving of anything, 
 however much pleasure it may immediately bring, 
 if it is to endanger the permanent good of the child. 
 ‘Many a mother has been tempted to save her child 
 present suffering; but the good of the child as a whole 
 corrects this natural tendency. ‘The essential thing is 
 that the demands of discipline shall not be imposed 
 merely from without, after the manner of a drill ser- 
 geant, or by appealing to base and sensual motives. 
 We must show their connexion with the innermost 
 personality of human beings, and must translate them 
 into the language of that personality. We must show 
 that it is by discipline that the personality frees itself 
 from the tyranny and caprices of selfishness, and gains 
 control over the life of the senses.” It is in this way 
 that the child gains will-control. Lack of self-control 
 does not mean that the child is acting in virtue of some- 
 thing outside the self; but that he is impelled by isolated 
 impulses not yet swept into purposes of the organised 
 or will-self. 
 
 Probably the most important thing we have to keep 
 
THE FORMATIVE YEARS OF LIFE 53 
 
 in mind during these early formative years is the fact 
 that he is unconsciously taking up his attitude to God 
 and the world. It is, as has already been said, an emo- 
 tional attitude in the first instance, however true it is 
 that later a rational basis is sought for the attitude. 
 From the parents’ attitude to religion, and equally their 
 attitude to him, the child derives his attitude to God, 
 the soul and the world. The father is the boy’s first 
 hero; and very largely his God. If your conception of 
 God demands a strictness and discipline that denies 
 simple pleasures, arbitrary inhibitions, religion is going 
 to be hard for your child. Is not God too often associ- 
 ated with our restraints instead of being linked with 
 every pleasure and legitimate joy of the child? It is 
 at this period and not later that the growing heart and 
 mind must be brought into living contact with the idea 
 of God we have seen in Jesus Christ. The need to 
 love and be beloved is active during these years; and its 
 satisfaction ought to be linked with God as the giver 
 of all love. In this way the Christ sentiment is ac- 
 quired. 
 
 The power to form sentiments which becomes active 
 from the dawn of self-consciousness onwards, ought 
 to be utilised to help the child to acquire a permanent 
 interest in those objects, ideas and ideals which will 
 organise his inner energies on behalf of good conduct. 
 Education, as Professor James noted long ago, is just 
 the organisation of the innate and acquired tendencies 
 towards behaviour. An early love of God, Sunday 
 School, Goodness, Purity, etc., will mean that the con- 
 flicts—moral, spiritual and intellectual—of adolescence, 
 will be fought out within these interests and not away 
 
54 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 from them as so often happens. A boy may get away 
 from the organised forces of religion; nevertheless if 
 an early sentiment is acquired it will manifest itself in 
 some cognate service. Many a social worker, outside 
 the Church, is unconsciously sustained by a religious 
 “complex,’—an emotional interest in the Kingdom of 
 God early aroused. Many an adolescent through this 
 sentiment for Church and school has been kept in touch 
 with both when doubt and passion were tearing him 
 away. The “Will to Believe” is determined by emo- 
 tional attitudes; and these, in turn, depend on the senti- 
 ments we have helped the growing boy or girl to 
 acquire. 
 
 PUBERTY 
 
 The second adjustment we mentioned was to Sex. 
 How few fathers or mothers ever look back to the 
 puberty and adolescent stage and recall the habits and 
 the phantasies whose power was the hardest thing they 
 had to overcome in the early days of Christian life. 
 
 We cannot go into detail here on the vexed ques- 
 tion as to how far sex does enter into formative 
 forces of character. All we can do is to insist that 
 wise parents and teachers will never be afraid to 
 deal with these questions. They will lovingly watch 
 for the first stirrings of the sex life and guide them 
 through puberty and adolescence. They will patiently 
 strive to enlighten the growing mind. Personally I 
 agree with Freud’s recommendation that we should 
 answer a child’s questions only to the limit of the child’s 
 understanding. From the first sex questions of early 
 
 mete 
 
THE FORMATIVE YEARS OF LIFE 55 
 
 childhood to the more serious of adolescence and 
 puberty, the whole sex nature should be put on a very 
 high level. Procreation is of God, and not of the devil. 
 It is a prerogative bestowed by God. Therefore we 
 must instil high ideals of purity within our sex nature 
 and not in opposition to it; we must create a chivalrous 
 love of woman, the sense of responsibility to the mate 
 God is one day to send, and to the children that will 
 be theirs. In this way sexual temptation will be robbed 
 of half its power. We must be careful to teach the 
 young that impurity is not a giving way to a lower 
 nature but a crucifying of the higher nature. Love 
 itself would be an impossibility but for this side of our © 
 being; the tender emotion is linked with it, and is 
 generated by it. | 
 
 In helping boys and girls to control their impulses 
 we must be very careful not to inspire repression. 
 We must help them to sublimate; to take their creative 
 energy and turn it into the creative channels of voca- 
 tion, profession, social service, indeed of character. 
 Above all, love objects are the surest safeguards. And 
 if before puberty and adolescence are reached we have 
 been helping our children to acquire true sentiments 
 for God, Christ, Society, Woman, Children, we shall 
 have provided the only real safeguards against sexual 
 pre-occupation. : 
 
 An even more delicate tact is needed in dealing with 
 the shame which rises in a youth who has given way 
 to any sexual temptation. Harshness is fatal; and 
 only leads to neurotic and moral complications all too 
 familiar to the medical psychologist. Corporal punish- 
 ment as often as not drives the trouble deeper. Kind 
 
56 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 and sympathetic guidance alone can keep this kind of 
 shame from wrecking the possibility of a moral and 
 spiritual life. 
 
 ADOLESCENCE 
 
 In turning now to the final period with which I am 
 asked to deal, I cannot but draw your attention to 
 the quotation with which the chapter commenced. 
 Adolescence is the harvest-time of all that has gone 
 before. Nevertheless, there are well defined charac- 
 teristics of this period that make it very important for 
 the reaping of the harvest for Jesus Christ. It is the 
 age of idealism; the age of decision; the age of hopes; 
 of awaking love. The years before will have de- 
 termined the kind of ideals that are likely to appeal; the 
 objects on which decisions will be taken; the kind of 
 hopes suffusing the mind; and what the awaking love 
 is to promise. Just because this period has these char- 
 acteristics the possibility of correction of early aberra- 
 tions is at its maximum. ) 
 
 Already we have seen that this is the time of moral 
 conflict. Moral conflict is only possible where idealism 
 is present. The growing mind is faced with a dualism 
 within; the isolated impulses, desires, ambitions, with 
 their promise of immediate satisfactions come into con- 
 flict with the moral urge to perfection, and the strong 
 urge of the conscience. By his very innate idealism the 
 adolescent cannot camouflage his conscience with the 
 impossibility of his high ideals. Evil 1s never so real 
 again as at this period. The youth not only believes in 
 ideals but he believes in idealism. He thinks in terms 
 
THE FORMATIVE YEARS OF LIFE 57 
 
 of what ought to be; he has no doubt as to whether 
 the ideal can arise amid the actual. To him that is an 
 immediate inference. | 
 
 What makes this period so decisive is the fact that the 
 idea of the Self becomes clearer to consciousness. The 
 human being is a rational and moral being; but these 
 abstract ideas do not play a very important part until 
 now. Habits, desires, etc., have been formed in the 
 preceding years; but at this period the growing mind 
 realises vividly that these are “mine,” “Me.” There 
 comes a more objective view of the self. It comes up 
 for judgment. It is this that makes the moral and 
 intellectual conflict so intense. Though the Self-senti- 
 ment—together indeed with all the sentiments—has 
 been functioning during earlier years, it is now that it 
 ‘may become the conscious integrating factor in char- 
 acter and personality. This ideal Self which can now 
 be objectively seen comes into conscious conflict with 
 the actual Self; and the adolescent may try to break 
 away from the tendencies and desires, etc., which he 
 finds within himself. In any case the self-sentiment, 
 and the idea of the Self which the adolescent has be- 
 come aware, begin to organise experience around them- 
 selves. He now begins to identify himself with his 
 behaviour. He experiences ideas, desires, feelings and 
 actions as “mine,’ and he must settle whether they 
 are worthy of him. 
 
 Again, his ideas of God, of Christ, of the Church; 
 his attitudes, social and individual, are now brought 
 spontaneously to the bar of rational judgment. They 
 must receive rational sanction else there is no inner 
 peace ; no conscious unity; there is a “divided self.” 
 
58 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 It is difficult to over-estimate this vivid awareness 
 of the moral and rational Self as a formative factor 
 in the moral and spiritual life of the adolescent. What 
 the moral self ought to be will depend very largely on 
 previous training; the power rationally to evaluate that 
 self will be determined to some extent by the education 
 received. Yet not wholly. In virtue of his individu- 
 ality the adolescent will have his own point of view, and 
 may demand a greater self than the prevailing moral 
 standards; he may seek a more rational conception of 
 the fundamental realities than his fathers. That is why 
 in the adolescent period “authority” must give way to 
 the innate demand for freedom. When we have tried 
 to instil high moral content to conscience, and un- 
 folded our conception of God in Christ, we must stand 
 aside as it were, that the decision of the adolescent 
 may be his own. There is no danger like a second- 
 hand religion. We must so work that his religion will 
 be his own—a speaking with God as God has spoken to 
 him. 
 
 It is in this period also that volition or will be- 
 comes intensely self-conscious. Up to this time the youth 
 has will in the sense that he makes decisions. But 
 these are motived and determined largely by the vari- 
 ous sentiments he has acquired. At adolescence, there 
 ought to be a tendency towards some sentiment which 
 will organise all the inner energies around itself. Each 
 sentiment will then play its part in relation to this ruling 
 sentiment. There can be no strong, stable character 
 or personality without a dominating sentiment; and 
 the kind of sentiment that ascends the throne of the 
 self will determine the kind of personality achieved. 
 
THE FORMATIVE YEARS OF LIFE 59 
 
 it is these facts that have determined adolescence 
 as the period of moral and spiritual decisions. Few, 
 if any, would question Professor Starbuck’s conclusion: 
 “Conversion is an adolescent phenomenon.” We can 
 see why. For personality, for the satisfaction of the 
 self-sentiment, the self must settle what kind of a 
 self it means to become. Affective moral and rational 
 needs now cry for gratification. The soul demands a 
 universe friendly to its needs. And in so far as 
 Christ is presented as the way, and the goal of those 
 clamant needs, the adolescent will decide for Christ. 
 How hard the decision will be depends almost entirely 
 on the training up to this period. 
 
 Decision, then, is. the most fundamental need of 
 this time. Just as adolescence must decide on vocation, 
 and concentrate on preparation if worldly success is to 
 be gained; so it is the period when it must be brought 
 - home that spiritual decision is even a greater need. The 
 adolescent who wants to be nothing in particular seldom 
 becomes a successful business man. Without decision 
 the strong, unified, moral and spiritual personality is 
 a psychological impossibility. 
 
 It is not within the province of this chapter to dis- 
 cuss the kind of ideas of God, Christ, Pleasure, etc., 
 which ought to be kept in mind throughout all the 
 formative years. Psychology cannot deal with the 
 validity of ideas. Nevertheless psychology can test 
 these ideas from its own standpoint. Moral person- 
 ality from the psychological point of view is char- 
 acterised by unity:—the inner elements of instincts, 
 conscience, individuality, reasons, sentiments, are all 
 co-operating in the interests of the personality as a 
 
60 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 whole. Every idea we try to instil into the young mind 
 can be tested by its effect on the harmony or dis- 
 harmony it produces. Any ideas which mean the 
 repression of any part of our nature stand condemned. 
 The good life is not the life free from passion; psy- 
 chologically that would be a bad life; the good life is 
 that wherein the passions are swept into some large 
 purpose within which the various elements of the per- 
 sonality are being satisfied; it is positive and never 
 negative. 
 
 This to a large extent gives parent and teacher their 
 task. In the first years the child is guided almost wholly 
 by pleasure and pain. Anything that gives satisfaction 
 to the innate tendencies will be desired, and anything 
 that thwarts them will raise resentment, as well as make 
 the child avoid it. We must try to choose wisely for 
 the child the pleasures he will enjoy and the pains 
 he will seek to avoid. But our choice must be made 
 by trying to conceive what is best for the personality 
 asa whole. From the first we must be helping the child 
 and the early and late adolescent ,to sublimate his im- 
 pulses. We must continually be seeking to give the 
 growing mind a many-sided interest in life, morality 
 and religion, rather than a many-sided knowledge. It 
 is interest that matters, and if a deep interest has been 
 created in the home years, the adolescent period may 
 be passed safely, or if not, then that interest will in 
 the long run bring him back “home.” All the early 
 training should keep in mind the final self-conscious 
 decision we desire our children to make for Christ. 
 We must so present Him that the growing Youth will 
 see in Him the ideal he desires to realise; and we must 
 
THE FORMATIVE YEARS OF LIFE 61 
 
 show that in His service the whole nature is satisfied. 
 
 At that:period the work of teacher usually stops. 
 But sanctification is just as necessary as decision or 
 conversion. It is often in the desire for sanctification 
 that the growing Christian comes against the difficul- 
 ties. Very often the cause of the difficulty lies far back. 
 It is now that the minister’s training ought to come in 
 with power. The minister should be an expert in guid- 
 ing the young Christian to sanctification. He ought 
 to understand the difficulties that confront the Chris- 
 tian as well as the doctor knows the difficulties of bodily 
 health, or the psychotherapist the disturbing factors of 
 nervous trouble. It is no use covering up our ignorance 
 by ascribing all backsliding to sin. That gives no more 
 guidance than the doctor would give if he ascribed 
 everything to disease! Certainly it is all disease in the 
 domain of imperfect health. But why one disease 
 ‘rather than another? Was there a predisposition? So, 
 the wise minister will proceed with the growing 
 Christians who find saritification hard. Each one will 
 find it hard at different points. This is not chance. 
 We must then look back through the early training and 
 find its defects either in indulgence or strictness, and 
 correct them. We must not be satisfied merely to win 
 the adolescent for Christ and then leave him as though 
 he would have no temptations. He may have had few 
 till then! We must win them wholly for Christ. That 
 must be the aim underlying the whole of the formative 
 years. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 
 THOMAS PATERSON, M.A. 
 
 “You English,” said King Khama, “take great care of 
 your goods, but you throw away your children.” ‘There 
 is still a sting of truth in the reproach, but we are grow- 
 ing wiser. Everywhere the eyes of thoughtful men 
 are being fixed upon the child. Education has become 
 almost an obsession. The hinge of destiny, we recog- 
 nise, turns upon youth. “All our problems centre in 
 the child. In the treatment of the child the world 
 foreshadows its own future and its faith. All words 
 
 and all thinking lead to the child—to that vast immor-_ 
 
 tality and wide sweep of infinite possibility which the 
 child represents.”—(Du Bois). The welfare of the 
 nation, the Church, the whole human race—the very 
 possibility of the Kingdom of God—lies in the heart 
 of the child. The situation is one we must face. There 
 is no escape. It confronts each new generation afresh. 
 For the Christian mind the norm and mood with which 
 it has to grapple this tremendous problem is the spirit 
 and example of Jesus Christ. The very emphasis which 
 has come to be set upon the value of the child is due 
 directly to the influence of Christ and the spread of 
 Christian enlightenment amongst men. Christ has 
 rescued the ideal of childhood and sanctified forever 
 all that pertains toit. Our inspiration and our guidance 
 
 are to be found in Him. From our comprehension of 
 62 
 
 Gas, 
 ~~ 
 
JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 63 
 
 the spirit of Christianity, we might, without much risk 
 of error, have inferred what our attitude to the young 
 life growing up in our homes should be. Fortunately, 
 we have facts more definite to guide us. Among the 
 sweetest glimpses of the real life of long ago which 
 lies behind the New Testament record is that of Jesus 
 and the children. Throughout these pages which deal 
 with the most momentous issues that affect the human 
 soul—questions as high as heaven and deep as hell—we 
 rejoice to hear the pattering of children’s feet, and see, 
 ever and again, the gleam of bright young faces, eager 
 in the Master’s presence; we hear His voice—‘‘Suffer ° 
 the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them 
 not.” It is like finding violets on a mountain-side. Our 
 faith is humanised, and we are brought into kindlier 
 touch with the days of old. No systems of theology 
 or doctrine can contain the atmosphere and fragrance 
 which meet our spirit there. Omit the incidents of the 
 intercourse of Jesus with the children, as our Church 
 creeds do, and no great principle of Christian faith is 
 touched, nothing of vital moment seems to have been 
 removed. But think again, and one is conscious that 
 something fine and sweet and beautiful has gone. Un- 
 speakable would be the loss. We realise that this 
 portion of the sacred history has now become to us 
 priceless. The tenderest and truest of our thoughts of 
 Jesus comes when we have the vision of Him amongst 
 the children. There is not a single word of His in 
 this regard that we could lightly give up. Every heart 
 that has ever throbbed with the love of a little child is 
 drawn closer to the Master’s side because He loved 
 children too. There we must stand to learn to see them 
 
64 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 with His eyes, and catch something of the very thought 
 of God. Indeed, we almost rejoice that once the 
 disciples made the rash mistake of supposing that “the 
 little children” were of no interest to Jesus, because, 
 by that very gesture, they caused the winsome tender- 
 ness and the gracious spirit of His loving heart to shine 
 so swiftly and so clearly forth. Since that day, what 
 Jesus thought about the children is a question which 
 need be asked no more. 
 
 The essence of true greatness is said to lie in the 
 abiding of the child-heart, and we see this in its per- 
 fection in Jesus Christ Himself. Only in passing shall 
 we speak of the Childhood of Jesus. But it is good to 
 call to mind that He too was once a child, and thereby 
 threw a new lustre upon childhood. Surely behind the 
 brief announcement: “He increased in wisdom and 
 stature, and in favour with God and man,” we can see 
 a sweet, lovable, and loving child in Joseph’s home in 
 Nazareth. There He knew and played with other chil- 
 dren. It was part of His initiation into the knowledge 
 of the life of man, and His appointed lot. Nor could 
 the memory of these days altogether depart from Him. 
 It is difficult to say how much children are impressed 
 by the fact that once Jesus was a child like them, but 
 it creates a sympathetic interest and a link of fellow- 
 ship. 
 
 As for the inner mind of Jesus, we know how early 
 it became a vital, filial consciousness, and so remained 
 through all His earthly days. His whole life was 
 simply a movement in the way of obedience to the will 
 of His Heavenly Father, the accomplishing of His 
 “Father’s business.” He was God’s perfect Son. 
 
JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 68. 
 
 CHRIST’S ATTITUDE TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 The interest of Christ’s attitude is here, that it was 
 the attitude of the perfect man, the Divine Son of 
 God, with clear vision of God’s purpose in man, and 
 towards man, and perfect knowledge of the qualities 
 and needs of human nature. By birth He was of Jew- 
 ish race, and amongst the Jews especially, children have 
 ever been an interest and a joy. That is the pride and 
 boast of Judaism still. Children are appreciated, loved, 
 and nurtured with the utmost care for their place and. 
 part in life. The mere instinct of racial preservation 
 does not account for this. It has its roots in their 
 religious genius, and runs back to their faith in God. 
 “The Jews never neglect any child. This one factor 
 is the key of their supremacy.” So writes one of our 
 modern social psychologists, and it is true. The duty 
 was imbedded deep amongst the injunctions of their 
 religion, and upon every devout Jewish father was 
 laid the strict charge of the careful religious instruc- 
 tion of his family. The very ritual of his worship 
 appealed to childish minds and stimulated the ques- 
 tion: ‘““What mean ye by this service?” A more per- 
 fect opportunity for the beginning of an education 
 which was at once both religious and national cannot 
 be conceived. It was an opportunity which was not 
 neglected. ‘In no denomination,” says Rabbi Green, 
 “does the religious training of children take a higher 
 place than among the Jews” and they have reaped their 
 reward. When Josephus argued against Apion he said), 
 “Our principal care of all is to educate our children.” 
 And in the Talmud, that ancient book of gathered wis- 
 
66 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 dom, it is written, “By the breath of the children the 
 world is preserved.” ‘This was the attitude towards the 
 children with which Jesus came naturally into contact. 
 It was the mind and habit of every devout and thought- 
 ful Jew. It was a high purpose and a sacred tradition 
 which Jesus accepted, and enhanced and enriched. He 
 was more than a pious and thoughtful Israelite. He 
 was the Son of God, and He looked out upon the chil- 
 dren with “royal eyes.’”’ When we see Him then in 
 their company it is as a King disguised. He is com- 
 pletely aware of His Messianic vocation, filled with the 
 infinite love of God in His purpose of Redemption, 
 aware of the endless glory and possibility of human life 
 as no wisest Rabbi ever was. He knew the destiny of 
 the human soul as God knew it. Ina child, Jesus was 
 confronted with the whole potentiality of the life of 
 man for good or evil. There it lay, wrapt up, as yet un- 
 spent and unspoiled, appealing to His wisdom and to 
 His love. How will He reach that young soul? How, 
 respecting its freedom and its immaturity, will He seek 
 to win it and keep it for God? When Jesus is face to 
 face with a little child, it is a situation of teeming in- 
 terest. It is the Love of God, incarnate, in touch with 
 the highest creative work of God, a child, in whom is 
 still a soul of liberty. For we never see the real signifi- 
 cance of a child unless we set it against the background 
 of God. If Tennyson’s thought was lifted up to heaven 
 by his contemplation of the “flower in the crannied 
 wall,” acknowledging that there could be no final in- 
 terpretation of it being unless in the light of the Divine, 
 how much more is all that true when we look upon the 
 living mystery of a little child. it is something so 
 
JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 67 
 
 wonderful, so astounding, so amazing that, as somebody 
 has said, were it not that children really were we could 
 not believe that they were possible. A child is the latest 
 revelation of God’s creative handiwork, the last impress 
 of his wondrous image. “A small immortal, one short 
 step within Time’s portal.’”’ Romance ever clings to 
 the skirts of childhood. 
 
 “And there I see—these sparkling eyes 
 
 These stores of mystic meaning. These young lives 
 
 Building, equipping like a fleet of ships, immortal ships 
 
 Soon to sail out over the measureless seas 
 
 On the soul’s voyage. 
 
 Only a lot of boys and girls? 
 
 Ah! More, infinitely more!” : 
 WHITMAN, 
 
 When we seek to reckon all the elements of wondrous 
 being which are implicit in a child’s existence, and ask 
 what lies behind—‘‘How did they all come to be?’ —we 
 cannot find a better answer than the poet gave— 
 
 “God thought about me and so I grew. 
 How did you come to us, you dear? 
 God thought about you, and so I am here.” 
 
 The pure eye of Jesus looked upon the children and 
 saw the radiance of their creation as a crown upon their 
 heads. He saw them in the thought, and purpose, and 
 love of God, very near to God and very precious in His 
 sight. “Take heed that ye despise not one of these 
 little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their 
 angels do always behold the face of My Father which 
 is in heaven.” Whatever other revelation lies behind 
 these words, they are surely a proclamation of the love 
 
68 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 of God for all little children, whose lives to Him are 
 dear. It was in this spirit, the spirit of gracious love, 
 
 in which Jesus approached the children, and indeed it 
 
 is the only pathway along which we can get near a 
 
 - 
 at 
 
 child’s real heart. They were God’s children, made for | 
 
 fellowship and service. He had breathed into them the 
 breath of life. Not yet were they aware of the splen- 
 dour of their destiny, nor of the assailment and tempta- 
 tion of the world which they must meet. Jesus knew. 
 All He could do was to love them, bless them, and fill 
 their hearts with the love of God. For this was their 
 best defence. The pathos of life for Him was that all 
 men had once begun as “little children,” near to God, 
 close to His love, but had wandered far away on the 
 road of sin. They must come back. “Ye must be born 
 again.” Life must be made over afresh. The child- 
 heart must be the starting-point anew. They must learn 
 to rest in God’s love, and trust in His guidance. When, 
 young or old, we attain this child-like spirit, we hear 
 His voice in, “Suffer the little children to come unto 
 Me and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom 
 of Heaven.” 
 
 As we think again of Jesus and the children we are 
 left with the impression of an attitude more than any- 
 thing else—an attitude of infinite tenderness, reverence 
 and love—the very spirit of the grace of God. It is 
 this attitude we must seek to learn, for in it lies the 
 secret of all wise sympathy, of all true teaching, and 
 that regard for the interest of the child which is a re- 
 flection of the mind of Christ. “Whenever a day comes 
 when I can receive a boy into my school without emo- 
 tion it will be time for me to be off.” So said Dr. 
 
JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 69 
 
 Arnold of Rugby. Dr. Grenfell, talking of teachers, 
 puts the same thought thus, “Shew me a teacher who 
 does not love his boys and you shew me one who is 
 of no use.” They had both learned in the school of 
 Jesus, and they had learned well. 
 
 We have no instance of any formal instruction of 
 the children on the part of Jesus. Most of them, 
 probably, were too young for this. Had the record 
 of even one talk remained it would have been a price- 
 less gem. But there is none. We can but imagine that 
 He who understood them so perfectly and loved them 
 so deeply, would speak of birds and flowers and the 
 great deeds of their race—such things as young hearts 
 love—and lift their thoughts from these still higher, to 
 the reality of the great, good Father in Heaven, stirring 
 and answering at once the “queer unanchored thoughts 
 of childhood,” gently awakening the young soul to life, 
 watching it open to the sunshine of the face of God. 
 He could not talk to them of “the decease which He 
 should accomplish at Jerusalem.” The agony and 
 passion of the Cross were waters far too dark and deep 
 for young hearts to fathom. One day they might come 
 to know that all that was but a deeper plunge of the love 
 of God. The knowledge and understanding of these 
 things lay in the days ahead. We can tell it to our 
 children now and let it make its own appeal. What does 
 remain clear and unmistakable is the loving and rever- 
 ential regard of Jesus for the children. They were 
 precious in His sight. They were God’s. And this 
 must be the Christian attitude always. It is not sur- 
 prising that one of the hardest words Jesus ever uttered 
 was against those who should dare to hurt a child, 
 
70 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 “Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which be- 
 lieve in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were 
 hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in 
 the depth of the sea.” 
 
 Jesus has thrown this defence around childhood, and 
 innocence, and trusted love, and who makes base as- 
 saults on these does so at his eternal peril. Once in His 
 life Jesus called Himself the Good Shepherd, and no 
 good shepherd but has a special care towards the lambs. 
 ‘Surely we are justified in seeing in His last charge to 
 Peter, “Feed My lambs,” a token of Christ’s care for 
 the children, His safeguarding for them a place in the 
 life and love of His people and His Church. The atti- 
 tude of Jesus adds its own glory to even the purest 
 natural affection for the children. It lifts love to its 
 highest level. It tinges it with the glory of God. The 
 service of childhood is the service of Christ Himself. 
 
 It is in this attitude that we must look for the chief 
 teaching of Jesus about the children. But there is one 
 illuminating word which it is worth while to consider. 
 ““Whoso,” He said, “‘shall receive one such little child 
 in My name receiveth Me.” It suggests that God comes 
 very close to the heart that prepares for and receives the 
 coming of a little child as the gift of God’s grace. 
 Christ, in the closest imaginable way, identifies Himself 
 with the children, so that service and love for them are 
 in truth service and love for Himself. ‘True parent- 
 hood has thus a sacramental grace. If we had to deal 
 with the child Jesus, how prayerful, and loving, and 
 tender, we should be in contact with His young life. 
 This is how Jesus would have us approach all children. 
 It is the warrant for the teacher’s most consecrated 
 
JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 71 
 
 devotion, and the guarantee of the glory and the bless- 
 ing of his service. It is a work uniquely acceptable in 
 the Master’s sight. ! 
 
 As regards the response of the children to Jesus, for 
 the most part, only conjecture is possible for us. They 
 appear always on terms of easy friendship. The appeal 
 and fascination of His love could not but win them, 
 for love, as has been said, is the language a child best 
 understands. But on one occasion we hear the sound 
 of their young and adoring voices, and we gather that 
 by it Christ was strangely moved—“Hosanna to the 
 Son of David.” They could hardly have penetrated to 
 the great secret of His personality, but it is quite evident 
 that they acclaimed Him with gladness, as one whom 
 they knew, one whom they loved, and quite easily rose 
 to the thought of Him as some great person destined for 
 highest honour. They were unconscious prophets, and 
 nearer the truth than they were aware. Jesus recog- 
 nised this. The truly child-like heart has a rare gift 
 of penetration, and here it had vision while the world 
 was blind. For them at least there was no incongruity 
 that their friend, Jesus, should be acclaimed the heaven- 
 sent Messiah. “What a child cannot understand of 
 Christianity, no one need try to.” In these words 
 Ruskin has expressed a deep truth. In their voices 
 was the acclaim of coming generations, and as Jesus 
 heard them, something of the voice of God. By the 
 leaping intuition of a pure, loving heart they had dis- 
 covered the soul of truth, and accepted Jesus as their 
 Lord. 
 
 Childlike love and trust in Jesus lead the soul “far 
 ben” into the highest mysteries of God. The logic of 
 
72 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 catechisms has little influence on a child’s mind, but 
 the power of love and personality is certain, Doctrinal 
 definitions have their use, but later. Sufficient to begin 
 with, it is for a child to know Jesus, so that its confi- 
 dence and love for Him are won. On that foundation 
 the noblest life can be erected. I once asked a little 
 child whose heart was held by the appeal of Jesus, 
 why was it that she loved Him so. Her reply was, 
 “T cannot tell.” Pressed to think again, she answered, 
 “Tt must be because I know He loves me more than 
 anybody else does.””’ When we so present Jesus that 
 a child’s heart is enlightened, and responds like this, 
 we have done well. For after all, the greatest fact of 
 revelation of which the Cross itself is but the signal 
 and compelling evidence, is that “God is love,” and 
 when a child has once learned that it has the marrow 
 of all theologies, and a grasp of things eternal. What 
 satisfies a child’s pure heart satisfies the heart of man. 
 It is to feel that we belong to God. “Infancy is the 
 perpetual Messiah which comes into the arms of fallen 
 men and pleads with them to return to Paradise.”— 
 (Emerson). In this response to Jesus, as in so many — 
 other things, “a little child shall lead them.” 
 
 Sir George Adam Smith, in Palestine, once saw 
 a shepherd carrying a lamb. He asked if it had a © 
 broken leg, or was it tired, or why should the shepherd 
 so care for it. The shepherd said it was nothing of 
 that kind at all. He pointed to an old sheep that was 
 gravely trotting by his side and said—“That is the 
 mother, and she has a strange habit of wandering. 
 The only way I can keep her with the flock is by taking 
 her lamb—and carrying it.” 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 THE CHURCH AND THE CHILD 
 J. WILLIAMS BUTCHER 
 I: HISTORICAL 
 
 In theory, the Christian Church has always recognised 
 the importance of Child life, and has made provision 
 for its due training in things “that pertain to life and 
 godliness.’ Practice, however, has not always walked 
 side by side with theory. The methods employed have 
 been mechanical and conventional rather than inspiring 
 _and effective. The energies of the Church have been 
 directed towards the adult, and it has been assumed 
 that the child must reach the “years of discretion” be- 
 fore the Church need greatly concern itself about its 
 welfare. To this indictment there are many and not- 
 able exceptions; it simply states a general, though by 
 no means a universal, condition. 
 
 In the “Book of the Law’’—our Deuteronomy—very 
 careful provision is made for the religious training 
 of childhood, and the Christian Church received this 
 heritage. St. Paul’s words, “Bring them up in the 
 nurture and admonition of the Lord,” are an echo of 
 Hebrew custom, and it is evident from certain of his 
 greetings that the children of the members of the 
 Church were, in the apostolic age, regarded as of the 
 
 Church. Catechetical classes were a recognised and 
 73 
 
74 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 important part of the organisation of the early Church, 
 and whilst these prepared converts for Baptism and 
 gave instruction in the doctrines of the Faith, they 
 provided for the care of children as well as for the 
 guidance of adults. With the growth of the power of 
 the priesthood from the fourth century onward, the 
 Church seems to have contented itself largely with the 
 administration of Baptism and early Confirmation. At 
 the same time it must not be forgotten that such pro- 
 vision for education as obtained was mainly in the 
 hands of the priesthood, or in the excellent schools 
 associated with the monasteries that were dotted all 
 over Europe. 
 
 With the Reformation there came a change. The 
 Reformed Churches realised the necessity for more 
 careful instruction of the child in matters of the Faith. 
 This reacted upon the Roman communion as witnessed 
 by the edicts of the Council of Trent (1545-63) to the 
 effect that “the bishops shall take care that at least on 
 the Lord’s Day and other festivals the children of the 
 parish be carefully taught the rudiments of the faith 
 and obedience to God and their parents.” The Angli- 
 can Church made genuine efforts to secure the religious 
 training of the young, and in 1559 an instruction was 
 issued forbidding children to attend Holy Communion 
 before they had reached their twelfth birthday, and re- 
 quiring that they should “be well instructed before- 
 hand.” 
 
 Then came the days of the Catechisms, and, apart 
 from the powerful influence of the home, religious 
 instruction was mainly catechetical. This is not the 
 place to discuss at length the value of this method. Its 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE CHILD 75 
 
 appeal was to the head rather than to the heart; it 
 cultivated memory rather than intelligence. At the 
 same time it must be confessed that a sturdy type of 
 Christian manhood flourished under the influence of the 
 “Westminster,” the “Shorter” and similar catechisms, 
 that for so many years held the field as the one way in 
 which the Church sought to discharge its task of re- 
 ligious education. 
 
 With the Evangelical Revival of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury there came a marked change over the conception 
 of the relation of the Church to the Child, and of the 
 Child to the Church. Before he came into contact with 
 Moravian influence, while he was still the orthodox 
 Anglican parson of his age, John Wesley had a strong 
 sense of the duty of the Church to care for the spiritual 
 interest of the child. It is on record that in his mis- 
 sionary days in Georgia he admitted four boys to Holy 
 Communion after “having been instructed daily for 
 several weeks.” His approval of the work of Hannah 
 Ball of High Wycombe is typical of his desire that the 
 children should be taught and trained as those for 
 whom the Church was responsible. 
 
 Robert Raikes followed Miss Ball in founding the 
 Sunday School movement, and though at first this work 
 was outside the control of the Churches, yet it soon 
 came to be recognised as a powerful auxiliary, and to- 
 day it is owned as an integral part of all Church work. 
 To link School and Church more closely one to the 
 other there sprang up various organisations, such as the 
 Christian Endeavour, Guilds of various types and, in 
 the Wesleyan community, the Junior Society Class. It 
 would be difficult to estimate the results secured by 
 
76 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 these methods; they have been, and they are, very great. 
 There is, however, a growing conviction that their re- 
 lation to the Church is not sufficiently intimate: they 
 are too often regarded as “auxiliaries,” and the tend- 
 ency is to leave to these institutions that responsibility 
 for the Child that should be the immediate duty of the 
 Church. In other words, the day has come when the 
 Church, gua Church, must concern itself as fully for 
 the Child as for the Adult. 
 
 II: DOCTRINAL 
 
 The doctrines held by the various sections of the 
 Church of necessity affect their practice. There is 
 no trace of any theory of infant damnation in the 
 teaching of the sub-apostolic days, but as the doctrines 
 of “Original Sin” and “Total Depravity” hardened 
 it was inevitable that the question of the relation of 
 children to the Fall, and to its consequent punishment 
 should arise. Salvation was ministered through the 
 Church because the Church was “the Body of Christ,” 
 the company of those who, through faith in Him, were 
 redeemed from the consequences of the Fall. Outside 
 the Church there was no salvation. Hence children 
 must be received into the Church by Baptism: there 
 was no salvation for the unbaptised. This was the 
 teaching of Augustine, and it is the foundation of the 
 dogma of Baptismal Regeneration, a dogma insisted 
 on by the Roman and by certain of the Episcopal 
 ‘Churches of to-day. Inherited sin is washed away in 
 Baptism, and inherited guilt, carrying liability to punish- 
 ment, is cancelled. The implications of this teaching 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE CHILD 17 
 
 are such that the more recent thought of the Reformed 
 Churches has rejected it. So stringent is the necessity 
 of Baptism that in the Churches that most strongly 
 emphasise this necessity “the sacrament may, under cer- 
 tain circumstances, be administered by any one.” In 
 justice to those who thus teach, it should be recognised 
 that the Church sustains towards the baptised child 
 a special responsibility to instruct and train the child 
 in all that concern its spiritual life. 
 
 A strongly defined doctrine of “Depravity” is held 
 by many who reject the dogma of Baptismal Regenera- 
 tion. It is taught that all children are “conceived and 
 born in sin.” Article IX of the Church of England 
 voices the teaching of certain of the Free Churches 
 even of our own days. “Man is very far gone from 
 original righteousness, and is of his own nature in- 
 clined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary 
 to the spirit; and therefore in every person born into 
 this world, it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation.”’ 
 This teaching is supported by “proof texts” that are 
 often passages of Scripture torn from their natural 
 context and made to carry a burden that is not justi- 
 fied. 
 
 The godly men who held this “stern” theology do 
 not seem to have given full place to the redemptive 
 work of our blessed Lord, If humanity was “summed 
 up’ in its one representative—Adam—so that “in 
 Adam all die’; it has also been included in its second 
 and greater Representative—Jesus Christ—and “in 
 Him shall all be made alive.” The “Fall” is countered 
 by the “Cross.” It is surely Scriptural to believe 
 that “Original guilt and liability to punishment on 
 
78 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 account thereof” is fully cancelled by the One who 
 “offered Himself a sacrifice for sin.” The realisation 
 of this fact has given to the Church a more hopeful 
 message and a fuller understanding of the “love of God 
 in Christ Jesus.” 
 
 Largely owing to the teaching of Horace Bushnell, 
 emphasised in our own days by the luminous thought 
 of Prof. G. A. Coe, a new conception of Child Re- 
 ligion has found favour. The oft quoted words of 
 Bushnell refer to the influence of the Christian home, 
 and to the “atmosphere” that affects not only the child 
 from the day of its birth, but has also a definite part in 
 determining the character of the child soon to be born; 
 pre-natal influences count for much. “In the Christian 
 family the Child should grow up a Christian and never 
 know himself as being otherwise.” From the stand- 
 point of the influence of the Church upon young life, 
 Dale of Birmingham voices a similar thought when 
 he says, ‘““The Christian Church should be an institution 
 to render adult conversion needless.” The phrase, 
 “Conversion by Education,” though it be as “heresy” 
 to some, is happily recognised by many as the true 
 interpretation of St. Paul’s words, “bring them up in 
 the nurture and discipline of the Lord.” We are turn- 
 ing with a sense of revolt from the attitude of a mother 
 who, when the superintendent of a Sunday School com- 
 plained of the conduct of her fifteen year old son, said, 
 “Yes, but you see it was necessary that he should go 
 wrong before he could be converted; now I hope he will 
 soon be saved.” The home and the Church alike stand 
 condemned when our children play the part of the 
 prodigal and wander into the far country. It is weary 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE CHILD 79 
 
 work, that sad return. The definite, patient, intelligent 
 care of parents and teachers should rob the “far coun- 
 try” of all its attraction, and make the “home” so full 
 of delight and of adventurous service that it fills the 
 programme both for to-day and for to-morrow. One 
 who looms large in the life of our nation to-day once 
 said, “The greatest peril that confronts Britain is the 
 displacement of the home and the dethronement of the 
 parent.” Is it a fact that whilst the attitude of the 
 Church toward child life has changed for the better, 
 the sense of parental responsibility has weakened? If 
 that be so, then one task that awaits the Church is the 
 rousing of all parents that come under its influence to 
 this, the first and foremost of their duties :—The re- 
 ligious training of their children. 
 
 III: CONSTRUCTIVE 
 
 Yesterday has its message; to-day has its interests, 
 but the call of to-morrow is the most important. So 
 great is the task before the Church if the Nation is 
 to be in fact, as it is in name, a Christian land—if the 
 present indifference of the masses toward things spir- 
 itual is to be changed into a fuller understanding of 
 their nature and destiny—that we, remembering that 
 “the children of to-day are the citizens of to-morrow,” 
 need to think out with great care our plan of cam- 
 paign. 
 
 (a) The Development of the Sunday School. There 
 is a danger lest the advocacy of a new plan should be 
 supposed to imply adverse criticism of the work done 
 by our forefathers. Let it be a sufficient answer to 
 
80 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 say that they lived and wrought in life’s yesterday: 
 we are thinking of to-morrow. Child Psychology has 
 so modified educational method that the workers in 
 Sunday School dare not be content with a policy of 
 what has been, shall be. Much of our work has been 
 void of a well-thought-out, definite purpose: it has 
 been pleasantly casual. This is not the place to attempt 
 a history of the movement; if it were, much could be 
 explained and justified. It was a long time before the 
 Church consented to mother the School. When it did, 
 it placed the “nursery” in dreary premises and employed 
 the untrained as nurses. The planning of the work 
 has lacked true educational purpose and method. The 
 heresy that any one will do for a Sunday School teacher 
 has greatly impaired the spiritual results that should 
 be the one great aim of the work, and has in some 
 quarters produced an unspiritual atmosphere. 
 Happily the last few years have witnessed a change. 
 The connection of Church and School is much more 
 intimate than it was. The growth of the “Graded” 
 system has attracted a better type of worker, whilst the 
 preparation classes, that are an essential part of the 
 system, have fostered a real sense of responsibility. 
 Still much remains to be done. Premises need adapta- 
 tion that the Graded School may be properly housed and 
 equipped. The resources of the School must be hus- 
 banded so that suitable appliances can be provided. 
 ‘Money, that is now spent in treats and prizes and other 
 well-meant but unwise inducements, must be used more 
 wisely, and in every way the School must be made at- 
 tractive for the scholars. For the children the Sunday 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE CHILD 81 
 
 School is ‘‘God’s House;” it should be ‘‘God’s House 
 beautiful.’”” Whilst personal consecration will ever 
 remain the one essential qualification for the work, we 
 must seek to enlist those who have received a liberal 
 education, and urge upon them the Master’s words: 
 “To whomsoever much is given, of him shall much 
 be required.” 
 
 (b) The presence and participation of children in 
 the worship of the Church call for thought. It is 
 generally accepted that the habit of attending the Pub- | 
 lic Services should be formed during the “habit forming 
 years” (that is to say, before the thirteenth birthday) 
 or it will be difficult to draw the young adolescent to 
 take part therein. It is also coming to be acknowledged 
 that if the child be present, he should be made to feel 
 that he is both wanted and welcomed, and that some 
 part of the service should be so ordered as to make its 
 special appeal to him. Where the service is not strictly 
 liturgical this can easily be done. A children’s hymn, 
 prayer and address can be introduced without lowering 
 the tone of the worship. Our young worshippers do 
 not want silly tales or improbable yarns: they will 
 listen to teaching if it be adapted to their understanding. 
 Now and again an adult may object; it might be a 
 timely revelation if he could hear the objections of some 
 children who have to “‘sit still and be good” throughout 
 a service entirely ordered for adults. 
 
 (c) Where a church can rejoice in a large congre- 
 gation and many willing helpers, it 1s wise to organise 
 an evening service entirely for young people. In the 
 morning their place is with their elders, that they may 
 
82 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 sense the unity of the family of God. A somewhat 
 different state of things will obtain later in the day. 
 Earlier hours and brevity are then considerations. 
 
 (d) A readjustment of the time of the Minister ts 
 a clamant necessity. Many congregations demand the 
 impossible. They ask that their pastor shall be a 
 “Children’s man,” and yet fill his life with so many 
 details that really belong to the laity, that what he 
 would do, that he cannot. Also there are ministers 
 whose conception of their ministry is that it is for the 
 benefit of the adults, and who regard work among 
 children as somewhat of a waste of energy. Let such 
 help those who rejoice to minister to the young. Let 
 them teach the teachers and thus enable others to do on 
 « higher plane of efficiency what they prefer to do by 
 deputy rather than attempt themselves. 
 
 (e) When the days of childhood are merging into 
 those of youth, special instruction in all that member- 
 ship of the Church wmplies is not merely desirable, tt 
 is an absolute necessity. ‘The early ’teen years witness 
 the birth of the emotions, and are the days in which 
 youth is specially open to the spiritual appeal. The 
 tables printed in the volumes of Starbuck, Hall and 
 Coe prove this, and their conclusions have been veri- 
 fied by British investigators. It is folly for a Church 
 court to say, “There is no time for these instructional 
 classes.” Time must be found, and if other regular 
 meetings prevent, then careful enquiry must be held as 
 to the relative value of these meetings. It is hopeless to 
 let things slide. Prepare carefully for a definite act of 
 Decision: arrange for the first Communion: “Tend my 
 lambs.” 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE CHILD 83 
 
 (f) The Church must give such a vision of the 
 Christian life that shall claim all the powers of youth, 
 and inspire with a true sense of adventurous service. 
 The mere routine of Church activity fails to prove in- 
 tensely attractive to the sturdy boy of fifteen or sixteen 
 years, as it also fails to win the modern maiden of a 
 like age. Dr. Ritchie has made this very plain in his 
 “The Teen Years.” Those who can see and teach the 
 “Service of Christ’ in the “Service of the Other Man” 
 will not fail in their work among youth. The Church 
 can organise activities outside its special order of 
 services, etc., and thus show “that the programme of 
 Christianity is that of wholeness of life from which no 
 human good is excluded.” Do not let Religious work 
 be confined to, or confused with, Church work. 
 
 (g) There are certain forms of work that are classed 
 under the head of “Auxiliary Agencies.’ Every 
 Church should recognise the value of these in the 
 training of character. Many deplore the influence of 
 the “Gang,” the appeal of the “Team.” It is futile. 
 Utilise rather than deplore. 
 
 There are men and women who will never fit into 
 certain parts of the Church organisation, but they have 
 a rare and beautiful gift of God: they can win and lead 
 youth. The community that possesses such is false 
 to its opportunities if it fails to give them full scope for 
 such service as they can render. We must get rid of 
 prejudices. Brigades, Scouts, Guides, Clubs of various 
 kinds play a great part in restraining from evil and 
 guiding into the good. It has been well said that 
 Youth is “Body-Mind-and-Spirit” and not “Body, 
 Mind, Spirit.” No boy is constructed on the ‘Water- 
 
84 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 tight compartment” principle. Touch him at one point 
 and you touch him at all. Keep his body active, his 
 mind interested in all that is wholesome, and you go a 
 long way to awaken his dormant spiritual facilities. 
 
 (h) Should the Church periodically organise Special 
 Missions for the Young? Very rarely, and then with 
 strict limitations and under the guidance of a type of 
 man that is only occasionally to be found. As a rule, 
 ‘Mass appeals do more harm than good to those whose 
 emotions are so easily excited and whose tendencies are 
 gregarious. Emotion spends itself rapidly and once 
 spent itis hard to reawaken. It is wiser to fish with the 
 line than with the net, which being interpreted means 
 that the direct, affectionate, personal appeal, if more, 
 difficult, is more hopeful as to permanent results than 
 the appeal en masse. 
 
 “The future belongs to the children.” Let the 
 Church prepare them for their great inheritance. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE NORMAL RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 
 OF CHILDHOOD 
 
 THISELTON MARK, D.Lirr., M.Eb., B.Sc. 
 
 THE normal is rooted in the natural. When we know 
 the normal, we know the natural; when we know the 
 natural, we know the normal. At present, of course, 
 we know neither; that is to say, with any approach to 
 completeness. Yet we know one or two heartening 
 things as the result of child-study or developmental psy- 
 chology. We know—even from the physiological com- _ 
 parison of the relative sizes of the head and the rest 
 of the body in babyhood with their relative sizes in the 
 adult—that the boy is born, so to say, brain-foremost. 
 Nature seems bent on guaranteeing him as a thinker. 
 Similarly, with regard to his moral nature. Morality is 
 not a super-normal product, an “extra.’”’ It belongs to 
 life as men live it; the more complete their living, the 
 higher their morality; and vice versa. ‘Moral action is 
 healthy action; or in terms of evolution, “natural 
 selection selects morality.” Morality, in a word, be- 
 longs to man. It stands for the part he has to 
 play. 
 
 Is there any analogy between these things, the child’s 
 normal mental development and his normal moral de- 
 velopment, and what we must regard as that highest 
 
 thing—actually inclusive of the other two and of much 
 85 
 
86 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 besides—his normal religious development? Is that, 
 too, rooted in nature? It was not thought to be so in 
 the days when it was believed (as certain trust-deeds— 
 discreetly, if somewhat compromisingly, hidden from 
 view—still aver) that human nature was universally 
 and totally depraved. Can it be thought to be so in 
 view of the need of which we are all more or less con- 
 scious for conversion, or a new spiritual birth “from 
 above?” Itis the purpose of this short paper to suggest 
 that it can, and that what we call faith is a normal 
 functioning of powers that are natural to us. There is 
 such a thing as “natural religion,’ which is often 
 spoken of independently of Christianity; and there is 
 no advantage either in theory or in practice in failing 
 to see that the religion of Jesus Christ takes up all that 
 is included in “natural religion” into itself—intensify- 
 ing its naturalness, indeed, so enriching and amplifying 
 all that is best and purest in man’s spontaneous thought 
 of God that, rightly understood, the one most supremely 
 
 / natural and satisfying thing in the world is for a man 
 
 to be a Christian. From this point of view we may 
 most happily plan for winning our children to Christ; 
 the most sacred and most beautiful task to which man’s 
 powers of heart and mind can be devoted. 
 
 Is it not evident that, since “‘our basal tendencies de- 
 termine our basal interests,’ we do well to know some- 
 thing of the child’s readiness and capacity for response? 
 Underlying the present study, therefore, must be the 
 question: With what basal or instinctive tendencies 
 is the child endowed which make for his normal re- 
 ligious development ? 
 
 If the idea of God, as Locke was doubtless right 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDHOOD 87 
 
 in saying, is a native intuition of the human mind, 
 by which he meant that so soon as the child is able to 
 understand the word “God” he at once recognises it as 
 representing a reality directly known, we are on safe 
 ground in regarding religion as allied with instinctive 
 tendencies. It is potentially ours by nature before it 
 becomes actually ours by experience. As Helen Keller, 
 the blind deaf-mute from an accident in infancy, re- 
 plied to Bishop Potter, when (the gateways of her 
 mind being marvellously opened) he began to give her 
 religious instruction and sought to convey the idea of 
 God: “I have always known It in my thoughts, but I 
 have not known Its name.”’ 
 
 A little careful study will enable us to see in what 
 way the child’s instinctive tendencies may be rete 
 as related to his religious development. 
 
 I. We may begin with one or two general considera- 
 tions. In the first place, the impulse to think is born 
 with us. How soon the mind of the child awakes to 
 the wonder of everything, and asks questions to many 
 of which religion, especially the Christian religion, 
 alone gives satisfying answers! Christianity writes 
 the name of God as the All-Father across creation’s 
 page. It tells us, for example, as Jesus so beautifully 
 taught, that birds and flowers are both objects, and 
 tokens, of His love and care. These things, that were 
 near to the heart of Jesus, are near also to the heart 
 of the child. Christ’s attitude to the wild flower and 
 the bird are, in quality, the same as the child’s atti- 
 tude. The child’s attitude to God is, in quality, the 
 same as Christ’s attitude to God, so soon as the child 
 understands the name of God in the light of Christ’s 
 
88 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 revelation. Quite spontaneously a little child in a 
 Liverpool Infant’s Day School corrected her teacher, 
 who was describing the scene of Moses and the burn- 
 ing bush, and saying, “And Moses was beginning to 
 be just a little bit afraid.’ “Why,” said the child, 
 “should he be afraid? God 1s a good man.” 
 
 Jesus and children, to put it very simply, are—as 
 in His gracious and beautiful life on earth they were— 
 naturally at home with each other. Quite reverently 
 one may say, in view of Christ’s own words, “Of such 
 is the Kingdom of Heaven,’ that Christ and children 
 are interested in the same beautiful and natural way 
 in the same beautiful and natural things. The thought 
 of God which so filled the heart and mind of Jesus 
 Christ easily finds its way into the heart and mind of 
 the child. Jesus and children are naturally friends. 
 That is what we mean by calling Him “the children’s 
 Friend.” All that is necessary on our part is to heed 
 the Divine behest: “Suffer the little children to come 
 unto Me; and forbid them not.” The question at once 
 puts itself: How may we actually help the children to 
 come? The mothers of Salem had discovered the 
 secret. They brought, in many cases no doubt carried, 
 their little children to Jesus “that He might touch 
 them.’ ‘Their action was in its own way as symbolical 
 as was Christ’s response when He took them up in 
 His arms and blessed them. His words “Suffer them 
 to come,” however, imply one thing more; and that 
 the most vital of all. They suggest not only that Jesus 
 wanted them, but that the little ones were showing 
 their own eagerness and “wanted to go” to Him. 
 That kind Friend, Whom they trusted at sight and Who 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDHOOD 89 
 
 understood them! “Oh, let them come!’ said Jesus. 
 
 Our part, therefore, as parents or teachers is, so to | 
 speak, to put the children in the way of Jesus; to \ 
 bring them consciously to where He is. If we have 
 our own regular meeting-times or meeting places with 
 Him, our children will know of it, and will be deeply 
 impressed and influenced by it. Actual experience has 
 proved this many times. If our daily practice shows— 
 and it is true enough whether our practice shows it or 
 not—that we cannot live without Jesus Christ, our chil- 
 dren will grow to know Him, and will be irresistibly 
 won into His fellowship. To illustrate in a simple 
 way. In the village where the writer lives there is a 
 little church to which a father and a mother came 
 regularly with their children on Sunday mornings. 
 One little girl of five or six used to enter into it all so 
 heartily that her voice was heard delightfully filling up 
 the intervals between the lines of hymns or between 
 the verses. Before she was seven she became very ill, 
 and was soon to leave her earthly home. Her mother 
 was one day at her bedside, talking with her and trying 
 to say words of farewell. The child listened tenderly 
 enough, and then replied, “I love dadda and mamma 
 very much; but I love Jesus best.” In that case the 
 little chapel and the Sunday morning singing in the 
 House of Jesus helped to strengthen the hold of the 
 Divine love upon the child’s heart. It helped to put 
 the child in the way of Jesus. And that is really the | 
 chief part of our task: to bring the children and Jesus © 
 together. Not to teach much, not to plead or to urge, 
 but to bring them near to Him that He may “touch 
 them,” 
 
90 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 II. Next, a word or two from the point of view of 
 the normal development of childhood and youth. 
 
 (1) So far as the infant years are concerned, they 
 are the parents’ hour of opportunity. The teacher 
 is by the nature of the case well nigh at a loss. Re- 
 ligion almost must be of and from the home. But in 
 childhood proper, say from the sixth to the end of 
 the ninth year, school of some kind is necessary to sup- 
 port and, so to say, objectify the child’s religious ex- 
 perience. The home still takes the lead, but school 
 comes in to corroborate and to reinforce, and to broaden 
 the basis of the child’s religious experience. Nothing 
 that it is in a teacher’s heart to impart is lost upon 
 the child in the Day School. But the Sunday School, 
 with its essential Primary Department, probably counts 
 for more. 
 
 A very distinguished teacher has called these years 
 of childhood the period of the “birth of a character.” 
 Quite distinctly, it may be a period of religious choice, 
 amounting almost to religious decision ; in some cases— 
 though perhaps not normally—actually amounting to 
 religious decision. An attachment may be forged be- 
 tween the soul of the child and Jesus Christ which no 
 after experience will ever completely sunder. 
 
 Evidently, it will be a help to us to know as in- 
 timately as we can the heart and mind of the child 
 during these years. Psychologically speaking, two fea- 
 tures are in the foreground. (1) The enjoyment of 
 the world in its rich and varied- appeal to his sense- 
 powers the child has carried forward in an intensified 
 form from his “infant” years. Sights, sounds, people, 
 behaviours—in actual experience or as idealised in 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDHOOD 91 
 
 picture and story—enter into the child’s growing con- 
 ception of the world he lives in, enter absorbingly and 
 quickeningly. The richer and the more filled with the 
 beautiful the appeal is the better. (2) The wonder- 
 impulse being now also, relatively speaking, at its 
 height, the world—the one world, seen and unseen— 
 becomes naturally to him God’s wonder-world. He en- 
 joys the Book of Revelation; and he understands it 
 better than the average grown-up person does. The 
 Bible, as he knows and loves it, is his Wonder Picture 
 Book. Religion need not be separately defined or spe- 
 cialised for the child. It is a natural interpretive light 
 which illumines all his experience, casting the halo of 
 higher glory about the things that excite his wonder. 
 
 The essence of a child’s religion lies in his openness 
 to the wonders of the Divine, and in an intuitive un- 
 derstanding and instinctive acceptance of these wonders 
 as Divine. The world, if so regarded by those about 
 him, easily becomes God’s world to him; peopled with 
 angels as well as men; glorified by all that he knows 
 about Jesus Christ. It was not by accident that it was 
 Christ Who first really called the world’s attention to 
 the freshness and fulness of the child’s mind and heart 
 and spirit—filled with the very life and glory of the 
 Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 Though it is well thus to emphasise the naturalness 
 of religion and its meaning in terms of the tender and 
 beauty-loving instincts of childhood; we need to re- 
 member not only that wonder merges into reverence and 
 awe, and thus becomes worship, but also that awe and 
 the reverence which the Old Testament describes as 
 “the fear of the Lorp”’ may be awakened independently. 
 
92 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 The thunderstorm has to be reckoned with no less than 
 the flower ; the wind that tears up the trees no less than 
 the birds that nest in them. The greatness and the 
 might of God, whom somehow these phenomena also 
 reveal, make His loving kindness more wonderful to 
 the child, and to us all. But one deliberately says less 
 on this point, because there is so real a danger of our 
 touching upon the grandeur of God, in which His 
 might and His beauty are blended, with too little care. 
 There is a risk (of which those who have observed how 
 prone some religious workers are to use the Divine 
 Name glibly, and even in humorous connections, will 
 be aware) that the holiest and the highest should lose 
 its awesomeness for us by familiarity. Once let a 
 child hear a “religious joke,” and no amount of teach- 
 ing from the same lips can ever efface its ill effects; 
 nor can the same lips pick up the thread of religious 
 teaching with the same unmarred effect, whether the 
 child hears the joke or not. Sitce, then, it is easier 
 to be true to ourselves when we are discovering to chil- 
 dren the naturalness and the kindliness of Christ and 
 of God, as Christ and nature and human love reveal 
 Him, it is well for all concerned that it is this aspect of 
 the Divine which fits the impulses and meets the in- 
 ward hungers of childhood. 
 
 (2) Our whole being with all its powers does not 
 wake up at once. The life unfolds. Boyhood and 
 girlhood, say, between the ages of nine and thirteen, 
 differ considerably from childhood. Not because they 
 “put away” any of childhood’s native impulses, but 
 because they add new impulses to them. Intellect, the 
 thought-powers of the mind, are rushing healthily to the 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDHOOD 93 
 
 fore. To go on massing experiences would create 
 confusion. The period of sorting out impressions and 
 of the quest of truth, accordingly, has dawned. We 
 have passed from the period of the “birth of a char- 
 acter” to the period of the “nourishment of a char-v 
 acter.” 
 
 The first ingredients of faith have already appeared 
 in the child’s eager acceptance of experience, and in 
 his wonder at the wonderful. But there are other 
 ingredients in full-grown faith. And the way of 
 these is prepared, and the beginning made in boyhood. 
 For faith has to be “the proving of things not seen,” 
 the offspring of clear judgment concerning what is 
 highest. Hence, the boy’s instinct for reality, for 
 the positive truth of things, and for the play of his 
 ‘own intellect in the forming of opinions, is a vital 
 phase in the unfolding of the religious consciousness. 
 To the boy, the Bible is a book of the actual. He needs 
 to meet with its real men, its real places, its real mean- 
 ings. First and best of all, his Bible study needs to be 
 the basis for opinions which he by the light of his own 
 acute judgment—acute because so little overlaid—can 
 arrive at as his own. 
 
 If the child comes naturally to Jesus and to God 
 by ways of the heart, ways of trust and gratitude and 
 affection and sympathy, the boy (9 or 10 to 13) comes 
 more naturally by ways of thought and judgment. 
 Without excluding the play of affection, to him Christ 
 and God appeal as the Supreme Truth. The most con- 
 vincing token we have of this is in the one recorded 
 scene from the boyhood of Jesus; a scene which more 
 than one great artist—with what inadequacy they would 
 
94 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 be the first to confess—has striven to reproduce. Won- 
 der and reverence are still there. This is seen in those 
 mysterious words: “the things of My Father!” But 
 most conspicuously, the impulse which caused the boy 
 Jesus to remain behind and the centre of the scene as 
 a whole are in the words: “They found Him sitting in 
 the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and ask- 
 ing them questions: and all that heard Him were 
 amazed at His understanding and His answers.” ‘This 
 one glimpse of the ideally typical boyhood of Jesus, 
 shows us the natural attitude of mind and spirit between 
 “childhood” and the “teens.” It is the birth-moment 
 intellectually speaking, of sound judgment; in the re- 
 ligious life, it is the natural birth-moment of a strong, 
 clear faith. Lest one should be misunderstood, this 
 does not mean that we must tell the boy what to be- 
 lieve. On the contrary, we must place facts before 
 him. Approach a parable as a “puzzle-story” (ages 9 
 to 11), or a “problem-story” (ages 11 to 13), of which 
 we have to find the meaning. Similarly, with many 
 passages and lesson stories in the Bible. And let him, 
 by learning to judge for himself, learn how to believe. 
 That is the vital matter at this stage. And this the 
 boy or girl between nine and thirteen is ready for. 
 
 (3) From boyhood and girlhood the unfolding life 
 passes on to the stage of adolescence. Before the youth 
 in his “teens’’ life and the world open out as an arena, 
 wherein he feels that he is called upon to play his part. 
 This is the period for the “exercise of a character.” 
 Now the uppermost note is the wistful,—the wistful 
 and the practical. Life appeals to youth’s craving to 
 be and to his will to be. He is conscious—more deeply 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDHOOD 95 
 
 than we commonly allow—of life’s two ways. Huis 
 discovery of his power of choice and of responsibility 
 for his own decision is accompanied by a keen sense of 
 the fatefulness of his own choosing. When he would 
 do good, evil, he finds, is ever present with him. It 
 is a battle for the dear fellow. Every breaking of the 
 Divine law leaves its scar, its consciousness of sever- 
 ance. No fall is for him a “fall upwards!’ His heart 
 craves restoration and harmony. Though he may not 
 as yet (save in rare cases) be conscious of the power 
 of God or of Christ to bear him through the fight, he 
 is conscious of the need for coming back, and of the 
 fact of coming back, into a state of forgiveness. This 
 is, as perhaps with most of us, his experience of con- 
 -version—the restoration of broken harmony; an ex- 
 perience which may be many times repeated before we 
 arrive at that fuller experience and Higher Conver- 
 sion, the experience of the power of Christ “to keep 
 us from falling, and at last to present us faultless.” 
 
 What a memorable Sunday morning was that, when, 
 unable owing to heavy snow to reach his own church 
 in time, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a youth of fifteen, 
 turned into a Primitive Methodist Chapel! No min- 
 ister arrived.. One of the few laymen present spoke. 
 He spoke awkwardly enough, to all outward seeming. 
 There was little in his ten or twelve minutes’ sermon 
 but the text, Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends 
 of the earth; and the application, which was directly 
 addressed to young Spurgeon. “Young man, you look 
 very miserable. And you always will be miserable if 
 you do not obey my text. Young man, look to Jesus! 
 Look, look, look.” Says Spurgeon, “I did, and, then 
 
96 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 and there, the cloud was gone. I could have risen on 
 the instant and sung with the most enthusiastic of them 
 . . . Oh, that somebody had told me before!’ Let 
 any one of us just tell that story to a class of thought- 
 ful youths in their early “‘teens.”’ It will have its effect. 
 It points the way of a decision for which many at that 
 age are ready. And if we could but follow it up a 
 little later with a persuasion to listen to the Divine 
 Voice that speaks within every one of us, taking Soc- 
 rates and Marcus Aurelius, if you will, for examples 
 as well as selections from numberless Biblical instances ; 
 we shall have introduced them not only to the knowl- 
 edge of Jesus Christ as Saviour but of the Holy Spirit 
 as Guide and Strengthener. (Cf. Isa. xxx. 21; Prov. 
 iii. 6; St. John xiv. 26.) 
 
 It is a critical period. Somewhere about twelve and 
 somewhere about sixteen are marked out as youth’s 
 moments of decision. Conversion is “a natural 
 phenomenon of adolescence.” During this period 
 failure is poignantly felt. Now, if at any time, the 
 instinct of fear, purified from its weaker phases (albeit 
 even so sometimes serviceable), enters directly into 
 the religious consciousness; the fear to lose life’s better 
 possibilities, the fear of the lash of conscience, the 
 fear attendant upon the sense of responsibility and of 
 incurring penalty through sin. It is a moment of 
 the heart’s natural hunger for Christ. 
 
 And few are those in the early adolescent years 
 who do not know that Christ is the One who, if they 
 stand with Him, can decide the issue for them, and give 
 them victory. “In working class districts,” said Mr. C. 
 E. B. Russell, in his book on Manchester Boys, and 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDHOOD 97 
 
 none knew them better, “‘instances are not at all rare 
 where the close friendship of two boys is based not 
 only upon a natural liking one for the other, but upon 
 a common wish to pursue an ideal which they may but 
 partly realise, a perfection which they never hope to 
 reach, yet do not abandon. They represent this ideal, 
 seldom indeed in explicit utterance, but quite clearly and 
 consciously by the name of Jesus Christ.” Whilst, as 
 another says, “the years between twelve and fifteen 
 often witness a deepening of the boy’s religious ex- 
 periences; whilst he begins to realise more vividly the 
 gulf between things as they are and things as they 
 ought to be,” the hopeful words of Canon J. M. Wilson, 
 when headmaster of Clifton, hold good: ‘We possess 
 the ear of a boy during all those years when his aspira- 
 tions rise highest, when reverence is most natural, when 
 goodness and greatness are most inspiring.” 
 
 We cannot here, even if one had oneself the vision, 
 pursue the unfolding of so rich and profound a reality 
 as the religious life in all its bearings; nor, indeed, more 
 than touch upon the course of religious development 
 as—were it free and in every way helped—it would 
 naturally manifest itself in childhood, boyhood, and 
 youth. Nor must the brevity with which one writes be 
 allowed to give the faintest impression of watertight 
 periods of unfolding. Growth is always both reminis- 
 cent and anticipative. All that has ever entered con- 
 structively into our life at any stage goes forward 
 with us. Wonder, thoughtfulness, the chivalrous im- 
 pulse to choose Christ as the Captain of our warfare, 
 once awakened “perish never.” As for the antici- 
 
98 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 pativeness which belongs to growth, there is always a 
 foregleam within the life of that next and larger thing 
 which is to be: a foregleam in childhood of boyhood, 
 a foregleam in boyhood of youth, and so on. And he 
 alone really deals with the unfolding life helpfully 
 and inspiringly who keeps the vision—not of child, boy, 
 youth, as they appear before us merely, but also of 
 the greater things already astir, of the life that is in 
 the making. In religious education this is pre- 
 eminently important. For the very spirit of religion 
 is a going on to possess rather than a possessing; an 
 achieving rather than an achievement; a “growth in 
 grace’ rather than a “state of grace.” 
 
 Just enough has been written to suggest that religious 
 development does more than run alongside of our 
 normal development; that, in an absolute sense, it 1s our 
 normal development. There are beautiful words of F. 
 W. Robertson’s in his sermon on The Early Develop- 
 ment of Jesus. To recall them may sum up the spirit 
 of what has been here so imperfectly written. “First 
 religion is a kind of instinct; and if a child does not 
 exhibit strong religious sensibilities, if he seem heed- 
 less, untouched by awe or serious thoughts, still it 
 is wiser not to interfere. He may be still at home with 
 God ... Very mysterious, and beautiful, and won- 
 derful, is God’s communing with the unconscious soul 
 before reflection comes. . . . Our second life is re- 
 flective. There is a moment when the life spontaneous 
 passes into the life reflective. Those are fearful, soli- 
 tary moments. The soul first meets God alone. So 
 with Jacob when he saw the dream-ladder: so with 
 Samuel when the Voice called him: so with Christ. So 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDHOOD 99 
 
 with every son of man. God visits the soul in secrecy, 
 in silence, and in solitariness. And the danger and 
 duty of a teacher is twofold. Ist. To avoid hastening 
 that feeling, hurrying that crisis-moment, which some 
 call conversion. 2nd. To avoid crushing it. . 
 When God comes to the heart, and His presence is 
 shown by thoughtfulness, and seriousness, and distaste 
 to common business, and loneliness, and solitary mus- 
 ings, and a certain tone of melancholy, straightway we 
 set ourselves to expostulate, to rebuke, to cheer, to pre- 
 scribe amusement and gaieties, as the cure for serious- 
 ness which seems out of place. Some of us have seen 
 that tried; and, more fearful still, seen it succeed. And 
 we have watched the still, small voice of God in the soul 
 silenced. And we have seen the spirit of the world 
 get its victim back again. ... And they that loved 
 him did it.” 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 y THE PROBLEM OF CHILD 
 CONVERSION 
 
 ALBERT D. BELDEN, B.D. 
 
 Tue Christian Churches have passed during the last 
 generation or so through a strong reaction against the 
 idea of Child-Conversion. One of its earliest expres- 
 sions was Horace Bushnell’s great work “Christian 
 Nurture,” a book still worth careful reading. Bush- 
 nell’s contention was that the children of our Christian 
 homes should grow up, or rather, be nurtured up, in- 
 sensibly into Christ. They should never know the 
 time when they were not Christian. Any critical choice 
 on their part should be to go out from the Church 
 rather than to come in. In this way he believed that 
 the Church could by sheer Christian nature “outpopu- 
 late’ the world. Bushnell complained that current re- 
 vivalistic methods made nothing of the family or the 
 Church, treating even the children of Christian parents 
 as though “they were so many Melchisedecs in their 
 religious nature, only not righteous at all—without 
 father or mother, without descent.” 
 
 This protest was justified largely by the harsh and 
 condemnatory attitude of much of the Evangelicism of 
 the period towards the child. Whilst, however, we may 
 agree to a certain value in his point of view as compared 
 
 with the somewhat crude and ultra-adult child-evan- 
 100 
 
THE PROBLEM OF CHILD CONVERSION 101 
 
 gelism that called forth his protest, yet a good deal of 
 water has flown under the bridge since then, and the 
 rise of modern psychology has prepared the way for a 
 more comprehensive view of the subject. 
 
 THE UNSULLIED LIFE 
 
 There is scarcely a problem of more poignant interest 
 for Christian people than this one. Every true parent 
 knows the unutterable yearning of the father-mother- 
 heart over the moral and spiritual destiny of its off- 
 spring. “What shall this child be?” is the constant re- 
 frain of thought in the true Child-Lover whether he be 
 priest or minister, teacher or parent. Great as may be 
 ‘the achievement of turning an adult sinner from his 
 drunkenness or profligacy to a new life in Christ, it is 
 not the supreme Christian achievement. Greater far 
 is it so to lead, so to influence, the innocent child that 
 it is brought through to decided, consecrated, Christian 
 manhood or womanhood unsullied and unspoiled. No 
 one can deny that this is the supreme thing to accom- 
 plish—prevention is better than cure—the conservation 
 of the whole life for Christ is better than the reclama- 
 tion of a part, especially of a part depreciated in value 
 by the consequences of sin. The present writer stresses 
 this valuation because the apathy still existent in the 
 Churches with regard to the Christian nurture of child- 
 life is very gross, being due of course to the unconscious 
 bias and prejudice of the adult-mind in favour of adult 
 interests. If once the vision of the successful Con- 
 servation of the total Childhood of the Church in this 
 generation laid hold upon the mind of the Christian 
 
102 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 Community as a whole, there would be such a leap for- 
 ward in interest and achievement as would provide a 
 new and startling era of Christian witness. In large 
 measure the findings of modern psychology encourage 
 us to hope for a success of this magnitude, for they are 
 unveiling in a dramatic and convincing way both the 
 urgent need of child-life for religion and the deeper in- 
 stinctive movements of the child-soul towards the ap- 
 propriate satisfaction for its need. 
 
 FROM ONE EXTREME TO ANOTHER 
 
 The opposition to the idea of Child-conversion has 
 been due in large measure to reaction against the Puri- 
 tan and Calvinistic view of the child as being “born in 
 sin’ and “totally depraved” by reason of its relation 
 to Adam, and needing in its nature, therefore, a more 
 or less violent wrench away from sin. This violent or 
 dramatic right-about-face was its conversion. Un- 
 doubtedly the doctrine tended to produce its own appro- 
 priate results. Children are born sub-conscious tmita- 
 tors, and they soak up the mental and emotional atmos- 
 pheres of their adult society as sponges soak up water. 
 Being so taught, therefore, and being surrounded by 
 such religious expectancy, with vivid examples of 
 adult conversions of this type constantly brought to 
 their notice or present in the thought and feeling about 
 them, it is not surprising that they themselves fre- 
 quently responded in just this way and presented in- 
 stances of child-conversation accompanied by great 
 emotional upheaval and convulsion and often consider- 
 able mental torture and strain. Whatever view domi- 
 
THE PROBLEM OF CHILD CONVERSION 103 
 
 nates the adult mind, because of the atmosphere it 
 creates, tends to reflect itself in the actual experience 
 of the children. Similarly, in the modern absence of 
 belief in convulsion conversion, such changes amongst 
 the children seldom occur even when methods that 
 assume them are used, the reason being that there is no 
 longer exerted upon the minds of the children the 
 pressure of a real belief in such stormy ideas. Unfortu- 
 nately, however, we have swung so far in the opposite 
 direction that we are in grave peril of so idealising the 
 child-nature as to expect nothing in the shape of a 
 religious crisis. We tend to make the process now so 
 placid and so uneventful that issues are blunted and 
 blurred, and what should be a critical and essentially 
 romantic blossoming of the child’s spiritual powers is 
 left all too often at a very dull and trivial level of ex- 
 perience. If it is possible for souls to become Christian 
 so gradually, so uneventfully, that they hardly know 
 when or where they pass the rubicon, and could 
 scarcely tell you at any one time if they have “arrived” 
 or not, surely something vital in the perspective of 
 Christian experience is lacking. This is the danger that _ 
 threatens us—the peril of a colourless discipleship. 
 
 THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CHILD 
 
 What is the truth as to the moral condition of the 
 child? The view of modern psychology is that the child 
 is born neither good nor evil, but with a capacity for 
 either. To begin with the infant is a delightful litJe 
 animal, non-moral but differing from all other animals 
 in the sacred potentialities of moral and spiritual being 
 
104 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 that it possesses. —Two mighty Shadows bend above its 
 cradle prepared to distil themselves in sublime or awful 
 baptism. The one is the Shadow of the world—blended 
 of Adult Character on the one hand—the result of 
 the accumulated wrong choices of the past—and En- 
 vironing Social Institutions in so far as they are un- 
 christian on the other. This is the Shadow of Original 
 Sin—a shadow that pursues us not only in the form 
 of Heredity, but much more in our Social Inheritance. 
 The other is the Shadow of the Almighty and the All- 
 Good. If Original Sin is a terrible fact, Original 
 Goodness is a greater fact. This greater fact has also 
 its twofold human channel in the accumulated good 
 choices of the past and in environing social institu- 
 tions in so far as they are Christian. This Shadow, 
 however, attends us in a threefold form. Heredity, 
 Social Inheritance, and in Person—the ever-brooding 
 Holy Spirit of God. 
 
 Now the individual child follows in general the line 
 of development of the race itself. First, then, comes 
 the animal-existence, the principle of which is pre- 
 dominantly that of Self-Preservation developing to an 
 intense degree the custom or ethic of Self-Preference. 
 This condition in Man would seem to be the climax of 
 God’s purpose in Nature which is obviously to produce 
 the Individualised Soul—the clearly outlined self-con- 
 scious Ego. As Benjamin Kidd has shown us so 
 clearly in his “Science of Power’’ the struggle for self 
 is “the law of individual growth.”” Consequently—and 
 Providentially—the first decade of a child’s life is essen- 
 tially a self-regarding period. Says one authority con- 
 cerning the years one to six—‘It is the animal, the 
 
THE PROBLEM OF CHILD CONVERSION 105 
 
 egoistic feelings, those that arise and end in the child’s 
 physical and animal nature, that are central.” And, 
 again, “The instinctive feelings of hunger and thirst, 
 of pain and pleasure, of curiosity and wonder, of selfish- 
 ness and cruelty, fear and anger, are prominent.” If 
 this is true no wonder our forefathers were misled 
 about the child-nature when contrasting it with Chris- 
 tian character. They did not realise as we do that this 
 is an inheritance from the level of Nature, and, what 
 is more, a necessary inheritance if the soul is to become 
 as strongly individualised as a truly moral life demands. 
 It is by this very means that the child comes to that con- 
 dition so aptly expressed by Tennyson in “In Memo- 
 riam”’ : 
 
 “But as he grows he gathers much 
 
 And learns the use of ‘I’ and ‘Me’ 
 
 And finds ‘I am not what I see’ 
 And other than the things I touch. 
 
 So rounds he to a separate mind 
 From whence clear memory may begin 
 As thro’ the frame that binds him in 
 His isolation grows defined.” 
 
 CONVERSION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENON 
 
 Now, if we allow modern psychology to continue 
 our story of the development of the child-soul it will 
 begin at this point to speak in terms that approach 
 very near to those of Christian Evangelism. It advises 
 us that as the adolescent stage begins, from the age 
 of ten onwards, there is a natural conversion of the 
 child-mind away from this predominant interest in it- 
 
106 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 self to an awakening interest in others. Should the 
 child be under the influence of altruistic or Christian 
 teaching such a change is likely to be accelerated and 
 rendered more permanent. Now, whilst Psychology 
 as a science does not presume to utter a verdict upon 
 the relationship of this change to Religion, there are 
 certain schools of psychological thought that would 
 explain this change as being due merely to those bodily 
 developments which shape the life for its social purposes 
 of sex and reproduction. They would go on to explain 
 the outburst of religious interest that often accompanies 
 the change as due in the main to the transference of 
 energy from the necessarily repressed sex-instinct. Re- 
 ligion is one of the main forms under which the sex- 
 instinct becomes “‘sublimated’””—that is directed towards 
 a more sublime end. Mr. Chapman Cohen presents this 
 type of interpretation, with a distinct bias against re- 
 ligion, rather elaborately in his “Religion and Sex.” 
 It is, however, an interpretation which begs the question 
 at issue, for it leaves untouched all consideration of 
 whether a higher directive force is necessary behind 
 that sublimation if it is to carry with it a harmonising 
 of the whole personality. 
 
 HIGHER INSTINCTS FOR HIGHER DESTINY 
 
 Infinitely preferable is the interpretation offered by 
 a Christian Psychology—such as is represented by 
 Prof. Mackenzie’s excellent little book on “Modern 
 Psychology and Christian Personality,’ which inter- 
 prets this movement in the child-soul as being the 
 expression of an instinct more radical than any: of 
 
THE PROBLEM OF CHILD CONVERSION 107 
 
 the instincts common to man and the animal world. 
 Just as a person travelling in a lift rises to a level at 
 which the wealth of other departments lie open to 
 him, so humanity, rising from the animal level, finds 
 itself registering the pressure of new and richer in- 
 stincts. These new and vaster instincts are three in 
 number: Self-Hood or Individuality, Reason and Con- 
 science, and they represent the pressure of a New 
 Order of Divine Life—they are higher instincts for 
 higher destiny. | 
 
 It is impossible, and would be inappropriate, in the 
 scope of this chapter to survey the total issue between 
 religion and psychology but it may suffice to indicate 
 briefly that in acquiescing, as it does, in the absolute 
 and urgent need for the “sublimation” of our animal- 
 instincts, the materialistic school of psychology gives 
 away its case against religion. For religion is notori- 
 ously the most successful of all sublimating powers. 
 Yet, if religion be emptied of reality—if belief in its 
 objective validity is discredited—how shall this urgent 
 need for sublimation be met? Psychology is in danger 
 of accompanying its analysis of the human mind with 
 such bias as to bring the highest operations of that 
 mind to a standstill like the small boy who breaks the 
 works of his watch and then complains that it doesn’t 
 tell him the time. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN INTERPRETATION 
 
 The facts are not denied; they are as science states; 
 it is the interpretation of the facts that makes all the 
 difference. To the average mind it would seem 
 
108 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 peculiarly providential that, just when so devastating 
 a passion as the sex-instinct—and one so capable of 
 being turned to essentially selfish ends—is rising into 
 power in the child’s experience, a deeper instinct for 
 others, and, therefore, for the supreme Other, should 
 come into evidence as a restraining and guiding force. 
 It does not seem extravagant, nor can it be judged 
 unscientific, to speak of this as the Overshadowing 
 of the young life by Divine Grace, by the Holy Spirit 
 of God. Certainly we cannot fail to see how this 
 striking and fundamental change in the child-soul 
 approximates to the typical Conversion of the Chris- 
 tian Gospel. From Self to Others—from Self-Pres- 
 ervation to Self-Sacrifice, from the service of one’s 
 own interest to that service of God which is found 
 in the service of humanity even to “the least of these 
 my brethren’”—this is the Great Change that wells 
 up from God through Nature, and that Jesus Christ 
 lived and died and reigns to make finally secure in 
 the souls of men. 
 
 Imagine a plant meant to climb a very high trellis 
 being started some little distance from it, at the foot 
 of a stake thrust in the ground. Round and round 
 the stake it grows, but at last it flings a wider sweep 
 of tendril and lays hold upon the trellis. Attached to 
 the trellis, it begins a new life of richer scope. Had 
 it failed of attachment to the trellis, it would have 
 speedily exhausted the stake and its life have been 
 stunted and spoiled. So the child-soul grows first 
 along the line of self-regarding individualism. This 
 is permitted in the hope that the child will carry a 
 strong individuality into the wider movement yet to 
 
¢ 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHILD CONVERSION 109 
 
 come, when it shall attach itself to the new and limit- 
 less line of altruism and the love of God. 
 
 To envisage this movement of God in the Child- 
 Soul—to realise that it is present in some degree in 
 every child—is a great gain for the evangelist. If it 
 explains the success of even crude and mischievous 
 methods in the past, it holds promise of an enormous 
 harvest for the evangelism that at last understands. 
 
 The investigators into this matter conducted by 
 such expert Christian psychologists as Dr. Starbuck 
 and Professor George Coe are by this time familiar 
 in the Churches, and the impressive statistics they 
 have collected may be studied in their well-known 
 volumes. 
 
 The general result arrived at in these investigations 
 is that of the cases of conversion dealt with, 75 per 
 cent. occurred between the ages of 12 and 20, and 
 that there is a strong grouping of cases around the 
 periods 12-13, 16-17, and 19-20. 
 
 It has been suggested that too much can be made 
 of the connection between adolescence and conversion, 
 on the ground that the doctrine of conversion has in 
 the past derived its strongest support from men of the 
 type of St. Paul, John Wesley, or George Fox, who 
 were not converted till later in life. Whilst we may 
 agree that Dr. Starbuck is too pessimistic when he 
 says that “if conversion has not occurred before 20 
 the chances are small that it will ever be experienced” 
 we must nevertheless bear in mind the’ fact that it is 
 not until recent years—a period marked by the growth 
 of the Sunday School movement—that the religious 
 experiences of the adolescent have been taken very 
 
110 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 seriously. Doubtless an enquiry into the condition 
 of men like Wesley and Fox during adolescence would 
 bear out the emphasis placed upon this period by mod- 
 ern psychology. The present writer, however, desires 
 humbly to offer some personal judgments upon this 
 matter. In a recently held meeting of some twenty 
 Free Church ministers each one present told briefly 
 the story of his critical awakening or conversion to 
 the religious life. The result was a striking con- 
 firmation of the importance of adolescence. The aver- 
 age age of such experiences was 14 years, and strong 
 emphasis was placed in a number of cases upon “sec- 
 ond awakenings,”’ so much so that the interesting sug- 
 gestion was made that doubtless certain types are 
 converted in stages. Every experienced Christian 
 knows how strangely, even sadly, possible it is always 
 to find some greater depth, some further degree yet , 
 to go, in personal surrender to God. This fact tends 
 to corroborate a further finding of modern psychology 
 to the effect that sudden ebullitions of critical and 
 emotional religious change are, as it were, wave-crests 
 of a movement that is much more prolonged than it 
 appears to be. Mr. R. H. Thouless in his excellent 
 “Introduction to the Psychology of Religion,” borrow- 
 ing a phrase from Dr. Jung, describes this movement 
 as “unconscious incubation,” and says, “We seem able ¥ 
 to give an adequate account of this (adult conversion) 
 by assuming the presence of a growing sentiment kept 
 unconscious by a resistance, which finally overthrows 
 that resistance and establishes itself in a dominant 
 position in the conscious life.” Now is there not 
 here, in this conception of the relation between sub- 
 
THE PROBLEM OF CHILD CONVERSION 111 
 
 conscious and conscious elements of the conversion 
 experience, a twofold suggestion of great value? 
 First, it suggests very strongly that the climacteric 
 periods of youthful conversion already noticed, have 
 also been preceded by “unconscious incubation,” that 
 indeed they may be late in their arrival because this 
 deeper process in the soul has lacked attention. Sec- 
 ondly, it suggests that the chief difference between what 
 we may call religious awakening or gradual conver- 
 sion and decisive or critical conversion is due not to 
 any difference in their inherent spiritual value, but 
 simply to the degree and character of resistances due 
 to the moral and spiritual experiences of childhood 
 or due purely to temperament and type. 
 
 It is the present writer’s strong conviction that in 
 dealing with the children we are continually a year or 
 so too late. He believes that the ages referred to as 
 climacteric are so because they represent cases which 
 have occurred in the absence of a scientific precision in 
 this matter. They represent the old haphazard “hit or 
 miss” evangelism. The well-known reserve that set- 
 tles down upon the adolescent—due to his difficulty in 
 understanding himself and the failure of adults to 
 enlighten him—causes him to hide much of his secret 
 eager interest in religion. The rise of the gang- 
 instinct too, tends to make him conform to the type 
 in possession, viz., the reserved misunderstood type 
 outwardly nonchalant in regard to religion. In other 
 words, we are faced with the vicious circle of youth 
 uninstructed in sex becoming reserved and hiding its 
 deeper feelings, and in its turn creating a fashion of 
 such reserve amongst fresh adolescents as they arrive. 
 
112 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 Yet God has woven into the very physical structure 
 of youth the evidence of the true high-tide of the 
 spirit. The physical change strikes the hour for not 
 only does religion then become a most urgent need, 
 but the mind instinctively grows tender to its recep- 
 tion. The age of puberty should be the age at which 
 the Christian influences of Home and Church should 
 move harmoniously to their appointed climax in the 
 definite acceptance by the Child-Soul of its Saviour. 
 
 INFERENCES AS TO METHOD 
 
 From the foregoing facts there are certain indica- 
 tions as to the method of our evangelism of the chil- 
 dren. Remembering the old dictum “forced develop- 
 ment at one stage means arrested development at a» 
 later’? we shall beware of subjecting children of tender 
 pre-adolescent years to the challenge for decision. 
 Bearing in mind also the pressure of the herd-instinct 
 upon the adolescent we shall beware of inducing ado- 
 lescents to take public action which may be the merest 
 imitation of older example. It cannot be too strongly 
 emphasised that if Conversion is as we have defined 
 it—the movement of the highly Individualised Soul 
 away from its own self-centre to free alliance with 
 Others in and with God—it must be essentially the 
 act of an individual, and the soul’s full responsibility 
 must be fostered and mustered as completely as pos- 
 sible. 
 
 This does not mean that public evangelism of ado- 
 lescents is a mistake. We have no more right to de- 
 prive youth of the inspiration and constraint of com- 
 
THE PROBLEM OF CHILD CONVERSION 113 
 
 mon human feeling than any other age, but it does 
 mean that the approach to decision should be of a 
 personal and private rather than a public kind. It is 
 a real injury to the child-soul to hurry it to a premature 
 decision from which it must inevitably react. Whereas, 
 if the child is carried in his whole self into a decision 
 the poles of which he clearly visualises, with time for 
 reflection and with the emphasis placed, by such a 
 method, upon the dignity of his self-hood in relation 
 to God, such a decision can hardly fail to be final and 
 permanent. 
 
 This means, of course, that the conversion of the 
 child is to be in the main the work, under God, of 
 its parents, its teachers, its minister—the occasional 
 evangelist fitting himself into the work they have 
 done with the utmost discretion. We must insist that 
 parents are deeply responsible for the spiritual salva- . 
 tion of their children. If the confidence of the child 
 is to be retained in the years of adolescence, there must 
 be wisely graded sex-instruction—nothing else can pre- 
 vent the cloud of reserve descending upon their rela- 
 tionship. Parents need to be advised that a wealth of 
 reward in affection and trust awaits their discharge of 
 this sacred stewardship. 
 
 Beyond the parents the Sunday School or Bible 
 Class teacher and the Pastor have their place, and 
 with this threefold influence well harmonised it ought 
 to be possible to bring every child in the Church to 
 its Golden Hour with God. This means keeping care- 
 ful watch on all the adolescents of our Christian Com- 
 munities—letting none slip through these years un- 
 guided and unshepherded. The evangelist may think 
 
114 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 that this leaves little place for him, but that is not 
 so. We need very badly preachers to adolescents who 
 can convey the true religious atmosphere in a really 
 powerful way. Their work is to stimulate, to clarify 
 and to interpret the workings of these new Divine 
 impulses towards Otherness in the soul of youth. We 
 gather our adolescents for their own specific forms 
 of worship all too seldom and study their needs in 
 this way all too little. There will always be room for 
 the specialist preacher to the young. But the harvest 
 is best reaped, blade by blade, plant by plant, and if 
 possible by those whose relationship to the child 1s 
 confidential and more permanent. 
 
 THE SENSE OF SIN 
 
 One last question remains. ' Little has been said in 
 the foregoing about that sense of sin which has always 
 been assumed traditionally to accompany Christian 
 Conversion, Yet surely never was there a greater 
 fallacy than to imagine that folk become sensible of 
 sin simply by being told that they are sinful. To 
 argue direct from Biblical statement to the child-mind 
 that it must as a matter of duty consider itself sinful 
 is artificial in the extreme. The lives of hosts of 
 our Christian Children are sublimely innocent of wilful 
 sin. The inherent selfishness of the animal-nature is 
 eventually challenged by the rise of the social-instinct, 
 and this by its presentation of a new ideal at once 
 precipitates the sense of sin. This can be assumed as 
 a constant factor in the adolescent though its intensity 
 may differ. But over and above this a certain tendency 
 to shame results from the strain and stress of sex- 
 
THE PROBLEM OF CHILD CONVERSION 115 
 
 interest and control. Indeed, the deep sense of un- 
 worthiness and depression that afflicts the adolescent 
 calls rather for our sympathy and aid than for our 
 exploitation in the interests of a theological tradition. 
 If the Christian Ideal is plainly enough presented the 
 sense of sin will take care of itself. Moreover, if the 
 sense of sin is interpreted, as it should be, as being 
 the shadow cast upon the imperfect by the Perfect, 
 the pressure of the Divine upon the human, then it 
 will be encouraged and not discouraged and made a 
 means of blessing and not an obstruction. 
 
 In conclusion, let us affirm that there are evidently 
 three periods in life when the human soul in its nat- 
 ural orbit swings full into the rays of the Sun of 
 our Souls. First, when childhood breaks into Youth 
 and with the rise of the Other-regarding instincts 
 yearns for the supreme and Perfect Other. Secondly, 
 when Youth breaks into Manhood and Womanhood 
 and the soul yearns to find the Best Life for itself 
 and those it loves. Thirdly, when Manhood and 
 Womanhood cross the line between Middle-Life and 
 Age—when thoughts of lost opportunity and judgment 
 lie heavily on the soul and when strange yearnings 
 for deeper change and final salvation are felt. 
 
 It is well if the Church has its message and its 
 gift of Divine power for the human soul in these 
 later periods—or at any time in between when the 
 struggle between Good and Evil in the soul sinks be- 
 low the surface. But best of all is it to persuade the 
 soul in its first great visitation to fulfil its destiny of 
 dedication and to taste, at the Divinely appointed hour, 
 the ineffable joy of responsible conscious union with 
 its Maker and its God. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TAS AN 
 EVANGELISING AGENCY 
 
 ERNEST H. HAYES 
 
 From its very nature and purpose, the Sunday School 
 should be the most fruitful evangelising agency con- 
 nected with the Church. Imagine for a moment the 
 Church stripped of the young life that gathers in and 
 around its Sunday School, and then estimate its chances 
 of soul-winning in the community! Or cut out from 
 the membership roll of the Church those members who 
 have been recruited directly through the evangelistic 
 work of the Sunday School, and the remnant would be 
 both weak and small. 
 
 The fact is that, to a degree rarely comprehended 
 by the leaders of the Church, the Sunday School side 
 of its work is vital to its very existence. Under its 
 charter the School gathers about sixty per cent. of 
 the children of the land within its walls week by week 
 for religious instruction, and it requires no great exer- 
 cise of the imagination to grasp the enormous field 
 for evangelising the country offered by the School. 
 Further, the fact that on an average seventy-five per 
 cent. of the Sunday scholars come from homes not 
 otherwise connected with any form of organised Chris- 
 tianity, has an important bearing on this subject.. 
 
 If it is conceded that the School gathers and trains 
 116 
 
SCHOOL AS AN EVANGELISING AGENCY 117 
 
 the children for the Church, the next point for inves- 
 tigation is the extent to which the average School is 
 functioning properly as an evangelising agency. This 
 question is often asked to-day by. critics of the graded 
 method of Sunday School teaching, like the one who 
 wrote to a religious paper recently asking for any 
 direct testimony as to whether “there are more con- 
 versions among the little ones.” We must at the out- 
 set dissociate ourselves from those who measure the 
 success of a Sunday School by the standards of the 
 successful evangelist among adults. The time has 
 gone by, surely, when enthusiastic but misguided min- 
 isters or school officers seek to organise an “earnest 
 united effort to secure the conversion of the whole 
 school.” A record of such an effort, carried through 
 some years ago in a school of three hundred members, 
 deserves mention here as an example of a negative 
 kind.* In this case the minister and superintendent 
 put a “wholesale conversion’? scheme before the 
 teachers, | 
 
 “After a few Sabbaths’ teaching to this end the 
 minister said, standing in the pulpit after the opening 
 exercises : ‘If any of the pupils desire to become Chris- 
 tians, let them come to these vacant seats at my right.’ 
 I bowed my head to ask that some would come, but | 
 the prayer was never offered, for the sound as of an 
 army marching was heard, and I raised my head just 
 as the Pastor said (seeing almost the entire school 
 upon their feet) ‘Remain where you are; we will come 
 to you.’ I shall never forget that afternoon. The 
 Sabbath School convened at 2.30, and we were kept 
 
 * Reported in the Christian Herald, April 16, 1913. 
 
118 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 working with each one individually, till nearly time for 
 evening service. I believe that story could be dupli- 
 cated in many a Sabbath School, if only the right 
 means were employed and officers and teachers were all 
 brought to feel their responsibility.” 
 
 Knowing the gregarious instincts of children we 
 can be quite certain that the last sentence in this report 
 is perfectly accurate. We have seen children of four 
 and five trooping into an enquiry room when once a 
 move has been made in that direction by other children, 
 like lambs following a flock. Any preacher or teacher 
 who dares to use the ordinary appeals to urgent peni- 
 tence, with denunciation of gross sins, and threats of 
 Divine anger, that are the stock-in-trade of the mis- 
 sioner to adults, can get the above results at any time 
 in any Sunday School session. ' 
 
 But apart from the outrage to child nature of such 
 methods, it can easily be demonstrated that there is 
 little, if any, gain to the Church that makes such use 
 of its Sunday School. Not only the teaching of mod- 
 ern psychology, but practical experience gained from 
 the new methods of religious education, compel us to 
 revise our tests and find a new standard of evangelism 
 in Sunday School work. Since we are forced to the 
 conviction that “‘child conversion,” as the term is com- 
 monly understood, is not only unnatural but unscrip- 
 tural, we must seek other and better ways of making use 
 of the Sunday School as an organisation for winning 
 the children for Christ. In brief, we have to substitute 
 an educational evangelism, based on the natural re- 
 ligion of a child, for an evangelism of conversion based 
 on the experience of an adult. | 
 
SCHOOL AS AN EVANGELISING AGENCY 119 
 
 Fortunately, we are not taking a leap into the dark, 
 nor trying out a novel theory, when we urge a policy 
 of educational evangelism. Ever since the founding 
 of Christian homes by Christian parents, this method 
 has been tried and found successful—in other words, 
 educational evangelism is as old as Christianity itself. 
 It is the New Testament way of Winning the Children 
 for Christ. Although St. Paul claimed Timothy as 
 his son in Christ, it is clear from his letter to his be- 
 loved disciple that he recognised that the foundations 
 of character had been laid for Timothy by his grand- 
 mother Lois, and his mother Eunice. St. Augustine 
 has told us in his “Confessions” how he drank in the 
 name of Jesus with his mother’s milk, with the result 
 that at its best the world could never satisfy him. 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher has placed on record that 
 “more than any recognised influence of my father 
 or my mother upon me, more than the social influ- 
 ence of all the members of my father’s household; 
 more, so far as I can trace it, or so far as I am made 
 aware of it, than all the social influences of every 
 kind, Christ has had the formation of my mind and 
 of my disposition. My hidden ideals of what is beauti- _ 
 ful I have drawn from Christ. My thoughts of what — 
 is manly and noble and pure have almost all of them 
 arisen from the Lord Jesus Christ . . . whenever 
 there has been the necessity for it, I have sought— 
 and at last almost spontaneously—to throw myself into 
 the companionship of Christ; and early, by my imagi- 
 nation, I could see Him standing and looking quietly 
 and lovingly on me.’ * 
 
 * “Sermons by Henry Ward Beecher,” vol. 1. 
 
120 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 Beecher’s experience takes us to the very heart of 
 educational evangelism. Not by any sudden “right- 
 about-face” as of a prodigal in the far country turning 
 back to God, does a child become Christian, but by 
 a gradual unfolding of the mind and heart. The ex- 
 perience of countless Christians, nurtured in the at- 
 mosphere of Christian homes, demonstrates to us how 
 all the wealth of a developing personality can be cap- 
 tivated by Jesus Christ when He is truly presented to 
 _ the quick imagination and warm affection of the child. 
 
 We suggest that the true function of the Sunday 
 School is to provide that spiritual atmosphere and re- 
 ligious training that its scholars have missed through 
 not having the priceless privilege of being born into a 
 Christian home. In other words, in the same way that 
 many children from Christian homes naturally develop 
 such a Christian character that they cannot definitely 
 point to any time or place for their “conversion,” so 
 under good teaching in a right atmosphere our Sunday 
 scholars can be won for Christ by an educational evan- 
 gelism. 
 
 Let no one be frightened or prejudiced by that word 
 “educational.”’ A method is not made less spiritual 
 because it is educational. Jesus used the educational 
 method of the parable and the paradox in all His 
 teaching, and it was by an educational evangelism that 
 He trained His first disciples until, by what we call 
 to-day a “training question,’ He led Peter to discover 
 for himself that illuminating truth that found expres- 
 sion in the glowing confession, “Thou art the Christ.” 
 
 The graded Sunday School, with its insistence on 
 a spiritual atmosphere and its demand that training 
 
SCHOOL AS AN EVANGELISING AGENCY 121 
 
 in worship shall be included in its curriculum, has a, 
 genius for winning the children for Christ in a way 
 both natural and Scriptural. The ungraded school 
 cuts directly across child nature, and is therefore fight- 
 ing to win the child for Christ with one arm tied be- 
 hind its back. The problems of disorder, inattention 
 and unproductive teaching that face the worker in 
 ungraded schools, indicate how much that school is 
 handicapped as an evangelising agency. It follows, 
 therefore, that a first and long step towards success 
 in winning the child is to grade the school, and by 
 adopting the new methods make it a training ground 
 for worship.* 
 
 The use of graded lessons that present Jesus to the 
 child in a fresh and developing light at each stage of 
 its development, will do wonders in training the child 
 for a Christian life. In a modern Primary depart- 
 ment we find that the child will artlessly declare, “TI 
 love Jesus,” without a tinge of priggish self-conscious- 
 ness or artificial piety. No wonder that when such a 
 child was asked by an evangelist of the old type “How 
 long have you loved Him?” she replied, in open-eyed 
 astonishment at such a senseless question. ‘Why, 
 ever since I have known about Him, of course.” 
 
 The Junior boy and girl will quite naturally make 
 Jesus their hero when our Master is rightly presented 
 to this hero-worshipping and might-admiring stage 
 of development. Thus when educational evangelism 
 is properly worked out through the Junior Department, 
 we often find that about the eleventh birthday there 
 
 * See The Child in the Midst, by Ernest H. Hayes, for a fuller 
 treatment of the point, also Children’s Worship. 
 
122 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 comes a religious crisis in the scholar when quite spon- 
 taneously Jesus will be chosen as the hero who outtops 
 the crowd of heroes who command the adoration of 
 children of this age. In many cases this dedication of 
 the life to Jesus the Hero may become a permanent de- 
 cision if the work of the Intermediate Department 
 builds four-square on this foundation. With the com- 
 ing of adolescence, with its craving for ideals, the wise 
 teacher can present Jesus as the life ideal, with the 
 result that scholars in their teens may be led to follow 
 in the steps of Henry Ward Beecher and find their 
 hidden ideals in Christ as he did. 
 
 This brief and cursory survey of the graded Sunday 
 School will indicate how an educational evangelism 
 can be worked out by a method within reach of every 
 School. This should enable us to look for the same 
 results from the children of worldly parents that we 
 may expect from those in Christian homes—for a 
 Divine Providence has ordained that environment shall 
 have greater power in a developing life than heredity. 
 But how can one hour a week in Sunday School 
 counteract the doubtful influence of a worldly home? 
 The question will be asked, and it is a fair one. Much 
 can be done by the concentrated work of the Sunday 
 School session, but this must of course be followed 
 up by catering for the spiritual and physical well-being 
 of the scholars during the week, and by the unsparing 
 service of the teacher. We can no longer call in the 
 services of a special missioner to work up an emotional 
 crisis that will secure the sudden “conversion” of the 
 scholar as a kind of reward for the regular work of 
 the teacher. Therefore we must aim to secure that 
 
SCHOOL AS AN EVANGELISING AGENCY 128 
 
 every teacher becomes a soul-winner, not only by his 
 lesson in the Sunday School, but by living the Christian 
 life during the week, in the company of his scholars _ 
 as often as may be. 
 
 It is unnecessary to enlarge upon the point that the 
 teacher’s intimacy with his scholars fits him, under the 
 Holy Spirit’s blessing, to be the most successful type 
 of evangelist that the Church can ever entrust with 
 soul-winning work. 
 
 It has been urged that a general policy of educa- 
 tional evangelism cannot entirely take the place of the 
 older method of special missions or campaigns. It 
 must be admitted that under any system there is al- 
 ways a peril lest the golden hour for decision be al- 
 lowed to pass without a definite choice being made. 
 It has always been recognised as a weakness in Sunday 
 School work that minister, superintendent and teacher 
 have each left it to the other to secure the conversion | 
 or, as we prefer to call it, the dedication, of the scholars 
 to Jesus Christ. To guard against this, many earnest 
 teachers have welcomed the observance of Decision 
 Day as an annual campaign for decision. Others have 
 adopted the plan of using the scholar’s birthday as an 
 appropriate item for broaching the all-important ques- 
 tion. In some schools the annual Children’s Day or 
 School Anniversary has been made the occasion for a 
 special appeal to the older scholars to make the great 
 surrender. 
 
 Critics of these times and seasons for decision have 
 argued that every day should be Decision Day, and 
 that every lesson should have as its climax an earnest 
 personal appeal for decision, whatever the subject may 
 
124 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 be. Other critics contend that this supremely impor- 
 tant choice should not be pressed automatically on all 
 scholars alike or in any stereotyped way, urging that 
 we must respect the rights of the individual, and that 
 the proper time for decision is at those psychological 
 crises in the scholar’s development when the decision 
 will be a natural and a permanent one. 
 
 In order to test the practice of a number of Schools 
 in this supremely important matter, a religious paper * 
 a few years ago sent out a questionnaire to over five 
 hundred Schools belonging to several denominations, 
 and in widely separated localities, on this subject. 
 Only one hundred and forty-two replies were received, 
 and these showed that two-thirds of the Schools relied 
 upon the observance of Decision Day for the one spe- 
 cial effort to lead the scholars to decision for Christ. 
 Only two Schools reported a continuous and systematic 
 effort to secure the decision of every scholar. Fifteen 
 Schools had no plan at all, while others had various 
 ways, such as revival meetings, pastor’s classes, prayer 
 for the unsaved, and “urging teachers to secure de- 
 cision.” 
 
 A careful examination of all the replies sent in did 
 not produce very encouraging results from the point 
 of view of securing decisions, and it was abundantly 
 clear that a very large percentage of teen-age scholars 
 do not get a direct personal invitation to accept Christ. 
 A further question as to plans adopted for “keeping 
 in touch with young converts to train them for Chris- 
 tian service” revealed the disconcerting truth that not 
 one-half of the Schools replying had any special plan 
 
 * The Sunday School Times, 1919. 
 
SCHOOL AS AN EVANGELISING AGENCY 125 
 
 whatever for follow-up work after decisions were 
 made. 
 
 After allowing for the fact that there is a risk in 
 basing a general argument on special examples, it is 
 clear that the Sunday School must largely fail as an 
 evangelising agency unless definite steps are taken to 
 ensure that every teen-age scholar at some time or 
 in some way is urged to make a decision for Christ. 
 Opinions may differ as to how this principle is to be 
 carried out, but on the principle itself there is no room 
 for discussion. Psychology has taught us that there is 
 infinite variety in religious experience, but it has also 
 made perfectly clear that God’s way with young life 
 is to provide seasons of spiritual awakening through 
 which all must pass. It is easier, therefore, to state 
 our problem than to solve it. We must find a way of 
 pressing the claims of Christ upon the individual dur- 
 ing this period of religious awakening, and so plan 
 our Sunday School work that no scholar passes out 
 of this period or out of the School without having 
 seriously considered the claims of Christ and His 
 Church. And because the need is so urgent and the 
 task is so delicate and individualistic, the alert Sunday 
 School Teacher cannot be satisfied until he has dis- 
 covered the golden moment for proposing the great 
 question. Realising the delicate nature of his task, the 
 Teacher will know that there is no short cut to success, 
 no hard and fast rules to observe, no ready-made plan 
 that can be applied. With some scholars it will be 
 perfectly easy to secure a decision, for it will be the 
 natural climax to the process of Christian education. 
 Other scholars will need the impetus of a special occa- 
 
126 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 sion or the example of others to “step over the line,” 
 but in every class group there will be some who by 
 disposition or circumstances can only be approached 
 after very careful and prayerful thought and through 
 a most intimate knowledge. The records of evangel- 
 istic work among adults show that some people fail 
 to respond to any of the methods that ordinarily ap- 
 peal, and eventually are won by a “chance” word or 
 unexpected incident. In just the same way there are 
 adolescents who are scared by, or are indifferent to, 
 Decision Day appeals or ordinary ways of approach, 
 and so must be the subjects of special plans. It is here 
 that the Sunday School Teacher will often succeed 
 after every one else has failed. 
 
 The argument that individuality must be respected 
 and that no evangelistic method: can be applied to all 
 scholars indiscriminately, cannot be allowed to rule 
 out definite times for decision in the Sunday School. 
 Granted that we must proceed very tactfully and must 
 be prepared to use other methods in certain cases, the 
 demand holds good that a Decision Day must be in- 
 cluded in our Sunday School work among older chil- 
 dren. Its occasion and its method must be adapted to 
 local needs and a knowledge of the scholars concerned, 
 but a place must be found for it, and in any case 
 adequate preparation is essential. Whether it be a 
 day universally recognised or a “red letter day” in the 
 calendar of a particular School or class, must be left 
 to the discretion of the workers. The date is unim- 
 portant compared with the necessity for ensuring that 
 after adequate preparation every scholar shall have the 
 
SCHOOL AS AN EVANGELISING AGENCY 127 
 
 great choice put before him definitely at special times 
 or seasons, In some cases the time has been governed 
 by the course of lessons taken in the Intermediate 
 section of School, a course of studies of the Life of 
 Christ being so planned that the dedication of the 
 scholars’ lives to His service will be prayerfully antict- 
 pated as “the expression” of the impression made by 
 the lessons. 
 
 Where an annual Decision Day is considered the 
 best plan, experience proves that the permanency of © 
 the results obtained is governed by the adequacy of 
 the preparation made. Special lessons for a month 
 are chosen to prepare for it, and members of the Church 
 and Sunday School staff mobilise all their prayer forces 
 for it. The co-operation of the parents is invited. 
 When “the day” arrives a special service of decision 
 and consecration is held—not during the afternoon, 
 when the mental faculties are not at their best, nor at 
 the evening service when an emotional appeal may pro- 
 duce an atmosphere of excitement—but on Sunday 
 morning early, or at morning School. In the fresh- 
 ness of the morning hour, when all the faculties are 
 alert and the youth feels braced to meet any demands 
 made, the Christian life should be presented as a dar- 
 ing adventure and a call to give the utmost for the 
 highest, without any attempt to minimise the sacrifice 
 demanded or to disguise the high ideals set up. by 
 Christ for His followers. To such a challenge, pre- 
 sented in such circumstances, the young adolescent will 
 usually make a joyous response and can be invited to 
 register the decision in black and white in “a Book 
 
128 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 of the Covenant” lying ready for the purpose on the 
 Communion Table. A Decision Day carried out with 
 set purpose and in this spirit, is likely to produce per- 
 manent results, especially if it is followed by special 
 classes for the training of all who have signed the 
 Covenant, in the practice of the Christian life and the 
 responsibilities of Christian service. An annual Cov- 
 enant Service for a renewal of vows and re-dedication 
 to service will not only help to keep young people 
 faithful to their pledge, but will also gauge the per- 
 manent success of such a plan. 
 
 The value of the Sunday School as an evangelistic 
 agency through its Primary training class must also 
 be recognised. A passionate desire for service is often 
 manifested in the young adolescent before he has 
 grasped the necessity for a public confession of faith. 
 This has resulted in whole classes of adolescent schol- 
 ars volunteering for teaching work in the Primary 
 Department. In some cases these offers have been 
 sternly refused and such harsh terms as “unconverted 
 teachers’ have been used, the result being that the 
 rebuff has literally produced “unconverted adults.” 
 More discerning workers have hesitated to pass judg- 
 ment in such cases, with the happier result that these 
 Primary helpers, under the spell of the work and 
 through the agency of the Primary Training Class, 
 have speedily made public confession of their faith. 
 The fact of the matter is that “the Spirit bloweth 
 where it listeth,’ and in many instances our older 
 scholars almost unconsciously and often secretly make 
 their decision for Christ and express it in the form 
 of a desire to serve Him. We have to recognise that 
 
SCHOOL AS AN EVANGELISING AGENCY 129 
 
 this manner of decision requires as tactful handling 
 and as careful encouraging as any of the more ordi- 
 nary forms of decision in public that are accepted 
 without question—and which may often be more 
 
 ephemeral. 
 
Cuapter VIII 
 
 THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER 
 AS EVANGELIST 
 
 W. D. MILLER, M.A.* 
 
 For their function as evangelists it is particularly true 
 that Sunday School Teachers must ultimately train 
 themselves. Here most intensely the work relates it- 
 self to their personal spiritual condition and depends 
 upon their own spiritual habits and discipline. The 
 most perfectly organised School with the most fully 
 equipped Teachers is only the scaffolding, the supremely 
 necessary scaffolding, within which the spiritual temple 
 is to be reared. If teachers are to understand their 
 function and appreciate their privilege they must keep 
 before them the true relation of the child to the 
 Kingdom of God as Jesus reveals that relation in the 
 Gospels. 
 
 THE CHILD AND THE KINGDOM 
 
 No reader of the first ten verses of the eighteenth 
 chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, or of the fourteenth 
 verse of the nineteenth chapter of the same Gospel, 
 can fail to understand the truth Jesus declares. Ac- 
 
 * While these pages were passing through the press news came 
 of the sudden death of our contributor. For many thése last 
 words of one of Glasgow’s most esteemed and successful minis- 
 ters will be invested with rte peaainiaine. 
 
 13 
 
SCHOOL TEACHER AS EVANGELIST 131 
 
 cording to Jesus, every child born into this world is 
 born inside the Kingdom of God, not outside the 
 Kingdom—is born to salvation not to condemnation. 
 That every child is also born into a state of sin and 
 misery is painfully evident and true, but that fact does 
 not annihilate the other fact, any more than the gross 
 conditions which constitute the heritage of many a 
 child born in slums and elsewhere, annihilate the 
 heritage of such a child as a child of God. Jesus 
 claims every child as His from the beginning and 
 makes good the claim in the name of God. That 
 there is “original sin” in all, sin in the nature, is a 
 painful and incontestable fact, but that there is “orig- 
 inal good” in all, imparted and maintained by the 
 Spirit of God, is a glorious and equally incontestable 
 fact. To the warfare between these two all are born, 
 but the Redeeming Christ makes it plain that He gives 
 a place in His Kingdom to all souls, and that it is 
 there they begin their conflict with the promise of vic- 
 tory, the assurance of salvation, the Presence and 
 Power of their Saviour always with them. 
 
 OBJECT OF SUNDAY SCHOOL EVANGELISM 
 
 There is a saying of Vinet which was a favourite 
 quotation of the late Principal Denney :—‘‘In preach- 
 ing the object is of more importance than the subject.” 
 The saying does not under-rate the subject of preach- 
 ing, but it emphasises the truth that the definite object 
 of it places the preacher at once in the right relation 
 
 both to his subject and to his hearer. To make every \ 
 scholar a true and real disciple of Christ is the definite 
 
 s, 
 “ 
 
132 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 object of Sunday School Evangelism. This involves 
 equally clear and definite aims in the whole scheme of 
 Spiritual Education for which the Sunday School ex- 
 ists. What are some of the requisites on the part of 
 teachers if they are to be successful evangelists? 
 
 BE THE FRIEND AND WIN THE CONFIDENCE OF 
 EVERY SCHOLAR 
 
 If it be possible for any teacher to give a contribu- 
 tion to the education of any scholar without getting 
 into personal and intimate friendship with the scholar, 
 it is not possible for the Sunday School Teacher to 
 do his or her best without this. It is the supreme 
 Friendship that is to be cultivated and the Sacrament 
 of that is the human friendship between teacher and 
 scholar. Wherever possible the teacher should know 
 the homes from which the scholars come and be the 
 friend of the family as well. A short time spent 
 in talk with the members of the class as they assemble 
 and before the School opens keeps the friendship in 
 repair and it is never difficult to thus win the confidence 
 of each scholar. Just in proportion as Christ is real 
 to the teacher will He become real to the scholar. The 
 world of youth can be made, and should be made, the 
 Christ world. Among all the real figures of parents 
 and friends, and among even the fairy and phantom 
 figures of the wonder world of childhood, there should 
 be realised the Figure of the Son of God, as Child 
 and Boy and Youth and Man hallowing and transfig- 
 uring the whole. To imprint this picture on the child 
 imagination, to impress the whole realism of the Gos- 
 
SCHOOL TEACHER AS EVANGELIST 133 
 
 pel history on the young mind, so that when with grow- 
 ing intelligence the childish things of wonder and of 
 fancy fade away, this in all its glory and tenderness, 
 its majesty and simplicity, will only become more vivid 
 —this is the function, the high and holy function of 
 the Sunday School Teacher. 
 
 AIM AT ESTABLISHING DEFINITE SPIRITUAL HABITS 
 
 True Evangelism means change of habits, the dis- 
 placement of the evil habit by the good. “The ex- , 
 pulsive power of a new affection” was the great de- 
 scriptive phrase of Dr. Chalmers. Sunday School 
 Evangelism should mean that boys and girls are 
 equipped for life with the good habit already estab- 
 lished, and therefore the preventative of the evil find- 
 ing a lodgment in the character. There are three defi- 
 nite spiritual activities which every teacher should, 
 through all the subjects of teaching, keep clearly in 
 view. ‘These are Prayer, Penitence and Obedience to 
 Christ. It is a complete mistake to suppose that these 
 habits cannot be taught. Quite definite instructions 
 can be given varying with the lesson taught but all 
 converging on the one end. The teachers’ efficiency 
 will depend constantly upon the practice and strength 
 of these same habits and activities in their own lives. 
 
 (a) PRAYER 
 
 It is never difficult to teach a scholar to say a 
 prayer, but saying prayers is one thing and praying 
 is another. To get scholars to understand that pray- 
 ing is simply “speaking to Jesus about everything” 
 
134 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 and then listening to what Jesus will say—is to lay 
 the foundation of the habit of prayer and of true 
 spiritual communion. The whole Gospels become 1il- 
 lumined when a reader realises that answer and re- 
 plies can be expected from Jesus now, as real and clear 
 as those He gave to His disciples in Galilee or in the 
 upper room. It has been a fatal blight on the Christian 
 character that prayer has been regarded as largely 
 offering petitions rather than holding “consultation” 
 with God. Sunday School Teachers have it in their 
 power to do no less than transform the spiritual habit 
 of prayer in a generation. 
 
 It can be made clear to any scholar that prayer is 
 a real communion with God when it is a “speaking 
 to Jesus” and there need be no confusion in the mind 
 either of the teacher or of the scholar between praying 
 to Jesus and praying to God. “He that hath seen Me 
 hath seen the Father” said Jesus, and this means also 
 that “he who speaks to Me speaks to the Father and 
 he who hears Me and receives an answer from me, 
 hears the Father and receives an answer from Him,” 
 
 The injunction to “pray without ceasing’ can be 
 understood and obeyed when it is made clear that 
 prayer means being always in touch with Jesus and 
 leaving no part of daily life outside the region of 
 prayer. The fatal defect in the character and practice 
 of most professing Christians is that large tracts of 
 life and activity are excluded from prayer, and so 
 prayer often becomes largely a confession of the blun- 
 ders and mistakes made there instead of a planning out 
 with Christ of what is to be done and how it is to be 
 done. One morning a Mother was hearing her boy say 
 
SCHOOL TEACHER AS EVANGELIST 135 
 
 ‘his prayer. On that day another boy, not quite a 
 congenial companion, was to spend the day with him. 
 When he had finished his usual prayer he added, after 
 a pause, “and, Lord Jesus, help me to be decent to 
 Willie to-day.” The world would be a happier place 
 if more Christians prayed such prayers. If our youth 
 can be taught to pray for those they do not like, or 
 for those with whom they have quarrelled, they will 
 “understand the meaning of the Lord’s command: ‘‘Love 
 your enemies.” (Teachers should master Chapter xxi, 
 of Law’s Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.) 
 Nothing will so help and impress any class as united 
 prayer for an absent or sick scholar, nor will anything 
 so instruct and inspire every member of the class as 
 the knowledge that their teacher is praying for each 
 of them. 
 
 (b) PENITENCE 
 
 Repentance means that perpetual readjustment of 
 our lives to God’s will, and the renewal of our heart’s 
 response to His love, without which the Christian char- 
 acter can never be made' stable, nor the Christian life 
 effective in service. Matthew Henry, the commenta- 
 tor, says that it is not sinning that ruins men but 
 sinning and not repenting, and when we see the coarse, 
 aggressive, evil-speaking type of character among our 
 youth, we see the result of accumulated evil in the 
 absence of repentance. That every scholar should early 
 learn that spiritual action, practice and habit which 
 breaks the connection between the will and the evil 
 or wrong said or done, and so prevent any wicked 
 or unworthy thing becoming a permanent part of the 
 
136 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 character, should be the distinct aim and prayer-sought 
 object on the part of the teacher. 
 
 The real difficulty of the teacher is to implant in 
 the heart of each scholar the true and permanent mo- 
 tive force which will always lead to repentance. Very 
 early in life a child does feel the sense of wrong-doing 
 and does realise that there is something amiss in its 
 relation with God, and if not well guided may quickly 
 drift into a state of hopeless misunderstanding when 
 prayer will become quite unreal or even cease. The 
 dread of punishment will never produce the right mo- 
 tive of repentance. With the utmost patience the 
 teacher should endeavour to instil into the mind and 
 heart of the scholar the truth of the holy sacrificing 
 love of Jesus as manifested in the Gospels, in His in- 
 vitations, His works of kindness and healing, and 
 finally in His death and rising again and coming to 
 His disciples in their loneliness and sorrow and despair. 
 Particularly His treatment of Peter and of Thomas 
 should be emphasised in seeking to give the right feel- 
 ing as to the way we treat our Lord. 
 
 A very wise and devoted Mother once had a time 
 of difficulty with her little girl who was being taught 
 at home before being sent to school. The child took 
 a rebellious fit and would learn no lessons. Her teacher 
 and her mother tried all manner of discipline, giving 
 lines to write and commit to memory, and when all 
 failed even punishment was tried. One day an ar- 
 rangement had been made for the child to accompany 
 her mother on a very happy visit and she was to start 
 when her lessons with her teacher were finished. She 
 was more rebellious that day than usual, apparently 
 believing that nothing could be permitted to interfere 
 
SCHOOL TEACHER AS EVANGELIST 137 
 
 with her promised enjoyment, and when the hour came 
 for her to go, her teacher had to report that she had 
 not done her work and that she had still so many 
 lines to learn and repeat. The mother decided that 
 the engagement must be sacrificed and at once went 
 herself to the schoolroom, took her place at the little 
 daughter’s desk and said, “Now, Mother must take 
 your punishment for you” and so began to learn the 
 lines prescribed. She did not leave the desk until 
 she had repeated all that the teacher had commanded 
 should be done by the child, but before she had finished 
 her child had broken down completely making the 
 simple confession, “I thought you were all angry with 
 me, Mother, I did not think you were so vexed with 
 me.” If the children of our Sunday Schools were 
 wisely taught that all the wrong they do, and all the 
 evil things done in the world, are inflicting pain and 
 sorrow on the heart of Christ now, as really as the 
 nails driven into His hands and feet did when His 
 body hung on Calvary, the true meaning of His life 
 and of His death would gradually unfold to their 
 minds and the true motive of repentance be lodged 
 in their hearts. 
 
 (c) OBEDIENCE, OR DOING THINGS FOR CHRIST’S 
 SAKE 
 
 To consult Christ on every step in life, to seek to 
 do all things for His sake each day, is the highest ed- 
 ucation and the noblest equipment our youth can ex- 
 perience and it is the function of our Sunday Schools 
 to send such “living epistles of Christ’’ into the world. 
 In youth all things are possible and all the possibilities 
 are present in their most intense form during the years 
 
138 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 of Sunday School life. It is also now clearly seen 
 that Christianity must be seriously tried and seriously 
 applied to all life if the world is not to perish. Never 
 in history have the words been so completely vindi- 
 cated “there is none other Name under heaven given 
 among men whereby we must be saved.” To get our 
 children and youth to have the holy and exhilarating 
 experience of doing things for Christ’s sake, to enable 
 them to acquire the fascinating interest that living for 
 and with Christ gives to each day—is the work of 
 the Sunday School Teacher. 
 
 There are two elemental truths to be instilled into 
 the mind in this connection. Furst, that each 1s a 
 - servant of Christ and He is our Master. It is under 
 this aspect that all Christ’s work for us, and all His 
 relations to us, can best be explained to a young and 
 healthy mind. Discipleship began in this way. An- 
 drew and John literally followed Jesus along the road 
 where they first met Him and so also did the first 
 company of disciples. The word of Jesus which sum- 
 moned Matthew and drew the others from their ordi- 
 nary callings was “Follow Me.” ‘This came to mean 
 following with the mind, the understanding and the 
 will. Often they lagged far behind but they followed 
 on to know their Lord. Simon had followed for long 
 before he confessed “I am a sinful man, O Lord.” 
 Every child and every youth can understand what is 
 meant by taking Jesus as Master and by following 
 Him. By so doing the real foundation of the Chris- 
 tion character is laid and the true preparation begun 
 for all the Christian experiences of conviction of sin 
 through failure, and discovery of Christ as Saviour 
 
SCHOOL TEACHER AS EVANGELIST. 139 
 
 and Sanctifier. The great structure of Apostolic char- 
 acter and service was reared on this foundation and 
 Paul calls himself ‘a servant of Jesus Christ’? in in- 
 troducing himself in his letter to the Romans. It is 
 also on this simple but all-embracing truth that the 
 appeal to come to the Lord’s Table can be based. In 
 all senior classes definite opportunity should be given 
 to the scholars to learn the meaning of the sacrament, 
 either by their teacher explaining this or by inviting 
 them and encouraging them to attend the classes con- 
 ducted by the minister for communicants. By the 
 ages of 15 or 16, Sunday School scholars should wish 
 to come to the Table. In youth there are certain nat- 
 ural crises which occur which furnish the psychologi- 
 cal moments of spiritual awakening and enlightenment 
 and which may be called times of conversion; but 
 every case of catastrophic conversion among our Sun- 
 day School scholars raises the question of the failure 
 of the home and school nurture to accomplish their 
 real object. Along the line of being “servants of 
 Jesus” our youth should come by process of growth 
 into the experience of Salvation.* 
 
 Second, that each has a mission in life-—The great 
 blight on the young life of our time is “aimlessness.”’ ' 
 ‘The supreme miracle of the New Testament, the Res- 
 urrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead, had as its 
 consequence and vindication the moral and spiritual 
 miracle of the transformation of the baffled and de- 
 spairing disciples into the heralds and missionaries of 
 the Cross with a mission and commission to “make 
 
 * Teachers with great benefit might consult a little book, 
 “Thoughts on Christian Sanctity,;’ by Bishop Moule. 
 
140 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 disciples of all nations.” There is no “election,” either 
 in the Old Testament or in the New, of any soul or 
 nation to merely personal or national salvation; it is 
 always that “all families of the earth” be blessed. The 
 great revelation of the incarnation of Jesus is that 
 God needs human life in which to make Himself 
 known and accomplish His purposes on earth. To 
 reveal some of God’s thoughts our minds are given 
 us, to translate into actual human history some part 
 of His purpose and daily to be a link between heaven 
 and earth God has given us the gift of life. The mind 
 of youth should be cleared of the unhealthy belief that 
 this world is meant by God to perish in wickedness 
 and that the saved are to be rescued from the ruins. 
 It is to be won for Christ, it is to be the scene and 
 sphere of His Kingdom, and its end is not to be 
 tragedy and failure but salvation and triumph. To 
 attain this consummation all are called to be workers 
 together with Christ and, as in the day schools, it is 
 a definite part of the teachers’ duty to train the scholar 
 for citizenship and to guide each in the choice of a 
 craft or a career so it should be the Sunday School 
 teachers’ concern to train scholars for citizenship in 
 Christ’s Kingdom and a career in His service. Wise 
 and prayerful counsel here would go far to prevent 
 the leakage of the adolescent from the Church which 
 has been the baffling problem for so long. 
 
 THE TEACHER’S INSPIRATION 
 
 That is a very wonderful saying of Jesus ‘Take 
 heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for 
 
SCHOOL TEACHER AS EVANGELIST 141 
 
 I say unto you that in heaven their angels do always 
 behold the face of My Father which is in heaven.” 
 Manifestly our Lord here uses the beliefs of the time 
 about guardian angels to emphasise in the most direct 
 way the truth, that all the Spiritual powers and 
 agencies at His Father’s disposal gather to the help 
 of every soul in its struggle, and of every soul that 
 seeks to originate or direct spiritual impulses in an- 
 other soul. There are heavenly teachers and workers 
 interested and engaged in the work of the Sunday 
 Schools and they with the great band of teachers on 
 earth are workers together with God, with Christ and 
 with the Holy Spirit. This should be the inspira- 
 tion of all teachers and should banish all thoughts of 
 defeat or despondency. 
 
 AIDS TO TEACHERS—THE CONSECRATION SERVICE 
 
 It has proved a very helpful experience in some 
 Sunday Schools to have a Consecration Service at the 
 beginning of a new session at which all teachers are 
 gathered in the presence of the congregation to dedi- 
 cate themselves anew to their service. In very simple 
 words the aim of the Sunday School can be expressed 
 and the teachers can all unite in words of consecration 
 to the service of winning the children for Christ. Such 
 a service reminds parents, teachers and all in the con- 
 gregation of their responsibility for the youth around 
 them and unites the homes with the School in the 
 common service. 
 
142 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 FAMILY WORSHIP 
 
 It has also been found helpful to the work of the 
 teachers to get families to use the Golden Text Book 
 with Daily Readings all bearing on the Sunday lesson. 
 Even in homes where Family Worship has not been 
 conducted it has been found possible to get the chil- 
 dren who come from such homes to begin it and 
 even to get their parents to join with them. They 
 can read the portion of Scripture for the day together 
 and then unite in the Lord’s Prayer or read the 
 prayer for the day given in the Text Book. The 
 children thus become evangelists in their own homes. 
 
 CONFERENCES 
 
 Much more use should be made of the meeting or 
 bi-monthly meetings of Teachers for Conference on 
 how best to win the children, and the whole question 
 of Decision Day, or Days, should be thoroughly dis- 
 cussed, and if decided upon carefully prepared for by 
 such Conferences. It is wise to make such Decision 
 Days coincide with Communion Day in those Churches 
 where the Sacrament is dispensed quarterly or even 
 not so frequently. It has also been found helpful for 
 the Minister of the Congregation to have the Com- 
 munion elements placed upon the table on the platform 
 when the scholars meet, so that he may explain to 
 them simply the meaning of the rite and the signifi- 
 cance of each part of the service. This, however, 
 should be done rarely as its impressiveness would be 
 lowered by frequent repetition. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE CASE FOR EVANGELISTIC 
 MEETINGS FOR CHILDREN 
 
 D. P. THOMSON, M.A. 
 
 THE past few years have witnessed a sharp and wide- 
 spread reaction against the idea of holding evangelistic 
 meetings of any kind for children, The movement 
 to abolish the mass appeal altogether in favour of 
 educational and environmental evangelism appears to 
 be gaining ground steadily. Many of the pioneers 
 of modern Sunday School methods, to whose energy 
 and enthusiasm we owe so much, do not hesitate to 
 express their disapproval of the Children’s Mission 
 and the Children’s Missioner as means of winning 
 the boys and girls of to-day for Christ. It is their 
 contention that as the home and the Sunday School 
 are the real nurseries of Christian character, to the 
 parent and the teacher alone belong by right the privi- 
 lege and responsibility of leading the children to Christ. 
 
 The antipathy to this form of evangelistic work 
 among children so noticeable in many quarters to-day 
 —and so obvious in many Churches and Sunday 
 Schools where up to date methods of grading and 
 teaching have been introduced—is based on three 
 grounds. It rests on a growing realisation of what 
 is implied in the findings of a scientific Child Psychol- 
 
 ogy, on careful observation of the fruits of successive 
 143 
 
144 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 series of special evangelistic meetings for young people, 
 and on some considerable familiarity with the type 
 of men and methods generally employed. The three- 
 fold argument is a weighty and impressive one, and 
 a strong case can be made out against the whole idea 
 of holding evangelistic meetings for children under 
 any circumstances whatever. 
 
 The psychologist has succeeded in convincing most 
 workers among the young of the limitations of the 
 child mind and of the extreme suggestibility of child 
 nature. The child, we are told, is quite unable to 
 comprehend either the subtleties of Christian doctrine 
 or the implications of Christian discipleship, is in- 
 capable of realising the responsibilities of the moral 
 choice, and is altogether unready for anything in the 
 nature of religious decision. He can be easily moved 
 through his emotional nature, either to public confes- 
 sion or private resolution on the matter of personal 
 religion, but such decision is almost certain to be of 
 the most limited duration and is more than likely to 
 result in violent and dangerous reaction. ‘There is, 
 further, the probability that the reality and depth of 
 the spiritual life will come to be judged in future 
 years by these experiences of childhood and will be 
 discredited accordingly. 
 
 Psychologists and religious educationalists who have 
 pursued their investigations into the after experience 
 of those affected by Children’s Missions, and have 
 analysed the results of successive decades of evangelis- 
 tic meetings for boys and girls, have produced an array 
 of facts that call for the most serious consideration. 
 It is undeniable that tens of thousands of children 
 
CHILDREN’S EVANGELISTIC MEETINGS 145 
 
 in previous generations have been subject to the crud- 
 est forms of appeal in the name of Evangelism, that 
 feelings have been played on, and innocence and purity 
 unwittingly but none the less deeply wounded, by 
 those who ought to have known better, and to have 
 realised what their Master meant when he spoke with 
 such anger of such as offended one of His little ones. 
 It is unquestionable that children have often been 
 moved to tears and public confession by the recital 
 of a few pathetic stories, that evangelists working 
 among the young have not hesitated to measure their 
 success by the hysterical condition induced in the meet- 
 ing, and that all the terrors of hell have been used to 
 shock sensitive young lives to what was called re- 
 pentance. 
 
 These facts make painful reading, but it is well 
 that we should face them. More painful still have 
 been the after-effects in such cases. The numbers of 
 the so-called “converts” of such meetings who have 
 been for ever repelled from evangelical Christianity can 
 scarcely be estimated, and of the remainder it is hardly 
 too much to say that the greater proportion have either 
 settled down to the dead level of a nominal Christianity 
 or have arrived at the sceptical conviction that there 
 is nothing whatever of value in religious experience— 
 that it consists simply of the enthusiasm, aspiration and 
 imagination we put into it. 
 
 It is hardly to be wondered at that ministers, teachers 
 and educationalists—with these facts in mind—have 
 come to the conclusion that evangelistic meetings for 
 children are to be avoided even at the cost of lost 
 opportunities. The risks are so great, and the results 
 
146 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 in many cases so disastrous, as to create the reluctant 
 conviction that any deep and lasting success attained 
 is too dearly bought at the price. Some knowledge of 
 the type of men frequently engaging in this form 
 of work at the present time, and of the methods they 
 tend to adopt, only serves to strengthen their con- 
 viction and to confirm them in their hostility to this 
 particular line of work. 
 
 It may well be asked, in view of the arguments that 
 have been advanced, and the facts that have been 
 adduced to support them, whether any reasonable plea 
 can be made for evangelistic meetings for children 
 under any circumstances whatever, or any substantial 
 case built up in their favour. The writer would un- 
 hesitatingly answer that question in the affirmative. 
 It is his growing conviction that there is a very real 
 place for such meetings, and that the religious edu- 
 cationalist who fails to recognise this is doing less than 
 justice to all the facts of the situation. The question 
 of the methods to be adopted, and the type of men 
 and women best fitted for the work can safely be left 
 till later. 
 
 Here we are primarily concerned with the justi- 
 fication of the evangelistic meeting as a method of 
 approach to the boys and girls of to-day on behalf 
 of a Church anxious to recruit young life for her 
 Lord and Master. 
 
 (1) The evangelistic meeting for children is the only 
 effective means of reaching large classes of boys and 
 ¥ girls in our industrial and urban communities—to say 
 nothing of many outlying country districts in all parts 
 of the land. There are tens of thousands of children 
 
CHILDREN’S EVANGELISTIC MEETINGS 147 
 
 in the great centres of population whose environment 
 is altogether unfavourable to the normal growth of 
 Christian character, and whose parents manifest not the 
 least concern in their moral and spiritual welfare. A 
 considerable number of them are accessible to the 
 Sunday School, the Band of Hope and kindred or- 
 ganisations, and not a few are being reached and won 
 by the splendid educational evangelism for which the 
 modern grading system at its best is responsible, but 
 for a large proportion of these children the Sunday 
 School possesses no attraction. Their parents are un- 
 willing to co-operate with the teachers in securing 
 their regular attendance. The children themselves find 
 the School at once too dignified and too dull. Run 
 on really attractive lines, the evangelistic mission for 
 children stands a very good chance of gaining their 
 interest, and may very well succeed in providing the 
 means by which the gulf which separates them from 
 Sunday School and Church will ultimately be bridged. 
 The lively choruses, enthusiastic and even crowded 
 meetings, lantern lectures or chalk talks, almost insep- 
 arable from such gatherings, make a much more effec- 
 tive appeal to the slum child—an habitué, even at a 
 tender age, of the Cinema and the Music Hall—than 
 does the Sunday School with its great regularity, 
 decorum and discipline. Given a Missioner of the 
 right kind, using methods at once sane, healthy and 
 psychologically sound, these children may be brought 
 under permanent impression and kindly Christian in- 
 fluence, and led, by gradual stages, through the Sunday | 
 School and into the Church. Above all, they can’ 
 really be won for Christ. 
 
148 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 The slum child is not the only one more readily 
 accessible to this type of evangelistic approach than 
 to any other. The child at the very opposite end of 
 the social scale is often in a strangely analogous posi- 
 tion. There are thousands of wealthy parents who 
 would not dream of allowing their children to attend 
 a Sunday School, and who make no provision what- 
 ever for the spiritual needs of their boys and girls. 
 The children of such parents are left to grow up in 
 complete ignorance of what Christianity can mean in 
 personal experience, and are in danger of going out 
 into the larger world of adolescence and adult life 
 dominated by purely materialistic conceptions, and 
 robbed of just that ideal and dynamic which they need 
 - most, and which Jesus Christ, alone can supply. The 
 experiences of the Children’s Special Service Mission, 
 alike in the preparatory and public schools and at the 
 holiday resorts, has abundantly demonstrated the pos- 
 sibility of reaching and winning children of just this 
 class by means of Sand Services and special types 
 of evangelistic meetings. What the C.S.S.M. has 
 done, others have done and are doing, all over the 
 country. 
 
 Intermediate between the two classes mentioned, it 
 is not unreasonable to suppose that there is a large 
 proportion of the children of the middle-classes de- 
 prived of definitely Christian influences in the home, 
 and not readily accessible to the Sunday School, which 
 can be reached along similar lines. Is all this great 
 army of young life, it must be asked, to be left ex- 
 posed to the attacks of the enemy unprotected and un- 
 equipped? Is it to be left at the mercy of all those 
 
CHILDREN’S EVANGELISTIC MEETINGS 149 
 
 influences that operate so powerfully in an unchristian 
 environment? Surely not! 
 
 (2) The evangelistic meeting for children is the 
 one generally effective means of bringing mto per- 
 sonal relationship with Jesus Christ hundreds of boys 
 and girls in our congregations and Sunday Schools, 
 whose teachers—either through lack of traning, or 
 through want of personal spiritual experience—neg- 
 lect the opportunities afforded them of winning their 
 scholars for Christ. 
 
 It has been urged, not unreasonably, that many 
 Sunday School teachers lead their scholars up to a 
 certain point but no further. The children, year after 
 year, are getting instruction but remain outside the 
 Kingdom; they come regularly to school but do not 
 come to Christ; they learn to love their teacher, but 
 they do not learn to love the Saviour. If they remain 
 in School they may join some senior class, and under 
 an earnest teacher be led into the Church, but will they 
 remain? The vast majority do not. At 14, when they 
 go to work, they consider themselves too big for the 
 Sunday School, and they begin to “drift away.” It 
 is here, in town and country alike, but perhaps more 
 especially in the country districts, that “Children’s 
 Missions” find a place, and succeed in meeting a very 
 real need. 
 
 (3) The evangelistic meeting for children is the 
 most effective means of reaching and winning certain | 
 types of young people in all our Churches and Sunday 
 Schools. There are boys and girls in every congrega- 
 tion and school who are much more accessible to the 
 Missioner than to their own parents or teachers, and 
 
150 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 much more susceptible to the appeal of the mission 
 meeting than to the environmental influences of home 
 and Sunday School. Because of some peculiarity of 
 temperament, or by reason of some psychologically de- 
 termining experience in early years with its resultant 
 “complex,” they will open their hearts much more read- 
 ily to a stranger than to one whom they know well, 
 and in not a few cases, will avail themselves of the 
 opportunity afforded by a season of special meetings 
 for making what proves to be a genuine and lasting 
 decision for Christ. Again and again in the course 
 of his own work the writer has experienced this, and 
 others similarly engaged in widely different fields cor- 
 roborate his testimony. 
 
 These three lines of argument combine to produce 
 a very strong case in favour of evangelistic meetings 
 for children under certain circumstances and in certain 
 places, but there is another line of evidence which 
 ought not to be overlooked, its definitely psychological 
 significance making it the more impressive. If during 
 a special evangelistic effort in a congregation or a 
 community, no meetings for children are held, and no 
 opportunity is given for their being personally dealt 
 with on spiritual things in some one or other of the 
 meetings, then the unfortunate impression will be cre- 
 ated in many young minds that the love and grace 
 and power of Jesus Christ are not for them, and that 
 they must wait until they are older before they can- 
 become Christians. Many a sensitive child has wept 
 sorely and suffered excruciating agony at the thought 
 of being left outside when others were getting the 
 blessing. 
 
CHILDREN’S EVANGELISTIC MEETINGS 151 
 
 Lest it should be thought that such cases represent 
 abnormal—or even distinctly pathological—types it 
 may be well to adduce the testimony of one of the 
 most authoritative religious psychologists of the pres- 
 ent day—Dr. J. Bisset Pratt. In his recently pub- 
 lished book, The Religious Consciousness, Dr. Pratt 
 has a deeply interesting chapter on “The Religion 
 of Childhood.” “Children,” he says, “are often very 
 unhappy; in fact a sensitive child may be as utterly 
 wretched half a dozen times in one day as his father 
 is in the course of a year. . . . Nor are children, say 
 from eight to fourteen, by any means so innocent as 
 we like to think them. Many of them consciously 
 break more moral laws than they ever will in mature 
 life. And accompanying these actions, often goes a 
 sense of sin, and an inward tumult which we never 
 guess because they are deliberately hidden from all us 
 outsiders,” * . 
 
 The effect on the minds of such children of the 
 impression—however unwittingly conveyed—that they 
 are too young to be the subjects of the redeeming grace 
 and power of Christ can more readily be imagined 
 than described. 
 
 Almost more serious are cases of the type to which 
 Mr. Tiplady refers in his Social Christianity in the 
 New Era. In one of the chapters of that book he 
 tells of how a boy of ten, anxious to dedicate his young 
 life to the service of Christ, and waiting behind after 
 a meeting for the purpose of being spoken to, was 
 passed over by workers whose sole concern seemed 
 to be with the reclamation of drunkards and hardened 
 
 * The Religious Consciousness, by J. Bisset Pratt. 
 
152 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 sinners. Brooding on the incident in the months that 
 followed, and weighing it in the light of the preach- 
 ing under which he sat, that boy came to the terrible 
 conclusion that before he could become a Christian he 
 must first become a prodigal and go out into “the 
 far country.” Then, after a riotous and ungodly life, 
 he would have something of which to repent, and for 
 which to seek with penitence the Divine forgiveness, 
 and then, at last, the Church would welcome him back 
 with open arms. Appeals to him to give his voung 
 life to Christ in the freshness of youth, to which 
 he listened from time to time on Children’s Sunday, 
 left him with a feeling of unreality. “One felt,” he 
 wrote long afterwards, “that the teachers just wanted 
 to keep us safe until we come to years of under- 
 standing. . . . The child’s acceptance of religion was, 
 it seemed, but the false dawn, the real dawn could 
 not come until one reached the teens.” 
 
 The very human document from which these words 
 are quoted—and it is selected from a mass of similar 
 evidence—serves to show what impression is made 
 on the child’s mind, and what the consequences of 
 that impression may be, if he gets the idea that vital 
 Christian experience cannot be entered on before ado- 
 lescence. It suggests what may very well happen if 
 no provision is made for effective work among chil- 
 dren during special evangelistic meetings. 
 
 Finally, we may sum up the case for evangelistic 
 meetings for children by citing the mature conviction 
 of one whose Presbyterian upbringing and environ- 
 ment and typical Scottish caution—whose long experi- 
 ence in the ministry, and painstaking psychological 
 
CHILDREN’S EVANGELISTIC MEETINGS 153 
 
 study—give him some title to be heard. In his re- 
 cently published book, “The Psychology of Christian 
 Life and Behaviour,’ Dr. W. S. Bruce of Banff, the 
 well-known Scotch theologian and ecclesiastical leader, 
 puts some searching questions on the validity of this 
 form of religious enterprise. “Should Gospel Missions 
 to the children be encouraged?” he asks. ‘‘Practically 
 are they desirable? Religiously are they beneficial? / 
 Psychologically are they justifiable?’’/ And this is his > 
 considered verdict :—“Putting the last question first 
 we have no hesitation in giving an affirmative answer. 
 
 _ Psychology commends them. It justifies their object, 
 while it conditions their methods and limits their 
 range. The answer to the first two questions is to 
 be found in the right consideration of these limiting 
 conditions.” Dr. Bruce then goes on to describe the 
 ideal Children’s Missioner, and to give some of his 
 own experiences of the work. This method of work 
 in seeking to win the children for Christ his balanced 
 judgment leads him warmly to commend, and of the 
 significance and value of such a testimony there can 
 hardly be two opinions. 
 
 What has been said in these pages is not to be taken 
 as in any way justifying all types of evangelistic meet- 
 ings for children, or even as an endorsement of that 
 particular method of approach as the best in every 
 or any place. Everything depends on the local cir- 
 cumstances, and on the way in which such meetings 
 are planned and conducted. There are types of evan- 
 gelistic missions to the young to which no educated 
 Christian man can fail to take exception. There are 
 methods employed, and lines of approach adopted— 
 
 wv 
 
154 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 even by men who profess to be specialists in this 
 department—which in no way commend themselves to 
 our judgment. 
 
 In Chapter X Mr. Burgess deals with the Special 
 Mission to Children, and in the succeeding chapter I 
 have made some attempt to indicate the lines on which 
 evangelistic meetings for children should be conducted. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 SPECIAL MISSION FOR CHILDREN 
 A. W. BURGESS 
 
 In these days of cost accountancy, business efficiency 
 and keen competition, every industrial department is 
 subjected to analysis and is expected to pay. It is 
 true, however, that some departments are more profit- 
 able than others. If this form of cost analysis and 
 comparative results is extended to Christian service, 
 it will be found that work among the young is more 
 fruitful than any other. In the Sunday School move- 
 ment, it is possible to influence those who before long 
 will cast their spell upon others, and the child has 
 before him the possibility of consecrating his whole 
 life to the highest of all services. 
 
 There is to-day a movement to put the child in his 
 rightful position in Church and State, and modern 
 religious thought in placing the emphasis upon the 
 child is only following the Master’s injunction to 
 “Feed my Lambs.” 
 
 The apathy in so many homes regarding spiritual 
 matters, as well as the absence of family life in certain 
 sections, make the Sunday School a far greater in- 
 stitution than it has ever been, and the Sunday School 
 teacher has a calling which is an heroic enterprise of 
 
 faith and courage. 
 155 
 
156 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 THE TEACHERS LEAGUE OF SUPPORTERS 
 
 Many means are capable of employment in the great 
 task of winning the young life for the Master, and 
 Adam Smith’s theory of the Division of Labour has 
 its effect on the many contributory causes which have 
 Decision or Conversion as their result. No wise 
 teacher or organiser will overlook the causes which 
 have fitted him or her for the holy task, or will neglect 
 the other outside influences at work. 
 
 It has become common in some parts for foot- 
 ballers to form a Supporters’ Club, and the latter, as 
 its name implies, has as its two-fold object the attend- 
 ance at all matches and the encouragement which 
 comes from the lusty shout. In the same way, the 
 sprinter knows what it means to hear the applause 
 as he passes a competitor in the race. No Sunday 
 School teacher would desire to work alone, and while 
 reward has no place in our economy, a supporters’ 
 league is a great asset. The co-operation of parents 
 is helpful, and the teacher’s visits to the home are a 
 part of Christian service, perhaps as vital as direct 
 class-teaching. Modern school methods and equip- 
 ment are working on behalf of the teacher, and the 
 week-night meetings assist in attaching the young mind 
 to School and Church. The minister’s Sunday talks to 
 the children are for the sole purpose of winning them, 
 and behind him and the teacher stands the influence 
 of public and private prayer. All these strengthen the 
 hands of the teacher, and the Special Mission for 
 children must be considered from the same standpoint. 
 
SPECIAL MISSION FOR CHILDREN 157 
 
 NO TABULATION NECESSARY 
 
 The tabulation of the results of Special Missions 
 is to be deprecated, because complete results of any 
 form of spiritual seed sowing and reaping are im- 
 possible. At the same time, evidence exists in the 
 records of the National Sunday School Union and 
 elsewhere to show that these Missions are well worth 
 while. Workers at home and abroad who received 
 their soul awakening at Special Services testify to the 
 accuracy of this statement. It can be recalled that 
 frequently one hears the statement “converted at the 
 Mission conducted by So & So,” while an atmosphere 
 entirely its own is created in the minds of many by a 
 reference to such services. 
 
 THE OBJECTS OF A SPECIAL MISSION : 
 
 A Special Mission will aim at focussing attention 
 on the need for the acceptance of Christ as Saviour; 
 it will proceed on the basis of the desirability of the 
 definiteness of conversion, but it will also promote a 
 spirit of expectancy and prayer, and can be judged 
 as ineffectual if the Church and School are not up- 
 lifted at its close. Apart, therefore, from the imme- 
 diate results on the scholars, the teacher should find 
 at its termination an atmosphere exactly adjusted to 
 the requirements of a teacher’s calling. 
 
 ESSENTIAL PREREQUISITES 
 
 A business is not made in a day; a sermon is not 
 solely the work of hours, and a Special Mission needs 
 
158 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 as careful preparation as the one, and the contribu- 
 tion of as much personality as the other. The mes- 
 sage and method of the Special Missioner are useless 
 without prayer and preparation. The work begins, 
 continues, and ends in prayer, but preparation must 
 go hand in hand with it. 
 
 We get out of our Christian Service, out of business, 
 out of life, just what we put into it, and this applies 
 equally to the Special Mission. There is great ad- 
 vantage to be derived often from the new voice, and 
 there is often equal gain arising from the new method. 
 The advertisement hoarding, the form of invitation 
 adjusted to the needs of those it seeks to interest, 
 the very titles of the Missioner’s addresses, the crea- 
 tion and maintenance of active interest of Minister, 
 Church Officers, Congregation, and School are the 
 alphabet of successful preparation. If it is worth doing 
 it is worth doing well, and if it is organised thought- 
 fully in prayer, there is no need to doubt the result. 
 Not only will a Special Mission assist the Minister 
 and teacher in their normal duties, it will bring in 
 boys and girls, many of whom attend no Sunday 
 School; boys and girls in as great a need as those 
 Raikes found and harboured. Properly handled, the 
 Special Mission is a dynamic, and the Church and 
 School rising to its joint responsibility will seek to 
 meet the new needs of those clamouring for spiritual 
 food. It will be seen that nothing should be permitted 
 to interfere with the series of meetings, and that care- 
 ful consultation as to details is essential before they 
 begin. 
 
SPECIAL MISSION FOR CHILDREN 159 
 
 THE SPECIAL MISSIONER 
 
 The Special Missioner is necessarily a specialist; 
 he knows his Master, he understands the child and 
 usually the adult, and he possesses the grace of attract- 
 ing both. He will forbid anything in the nature of 
 sensationalism; he will adopt sane methods, and will 
 leave young and old the opportunity to make the all- 
 important decision without the least suggestion of com- 
 pulsion or pressure. He will know that team play 
 is a characteristic of Christian service, and he will 
 consider himself as one who co-operates with Minister, 
 teacher and parent. The teacher will watch his ways, 
 and will learn something of the difficult art of Per- 
 sonal Evangelism. 
 
 A SUCCESSFUL PLAN 
 
 In a normal Special Mission, it is very desirable 
 to begin on a Saturday and to close on the following 
 Tuesday week. The value of two Sundays in which 
 to get at home with the Adults will be appreciated, 
 and usually the second Sunday is a time of rich 
 harvest. 
 
 The first Saturday is a “Welcome” night, at which 
 Missioner and workers join hands in prayer, and it 
 should be a time of personal searching of heart. 
 Every worker should be able to work enthusiastically 
 as a result of the previous prayer meetings and the 
 “Welcome” Meeting, and on this basis alone is co- 
 operation possible. It will be arranged of course to 
 give the Special Missioner one clear day’s rest during 
 
160 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 the week. Throughout the whole time he will need 
 the prayers of those associated with him, and it will 
 encourage him to see teachers and scholars together 
 at the meetings. 
 
 A Special Missioner needs to be able to deal with 
 adults as well as the boys and girls, and in this case 
 two meetings each evening are possible, one, say, at 
 6.30 p.m. for juniors, and the other at 8 p.m. for 
 adults. The Missioner may hold a ‘““Museum Service” 
 at which objects mentioned in the Bible are exhibited, 
 and the teacher will be surprised at the interest and 
 art manifested by the youngsters in securing the ex- 
 hibits. He will doubtless arrange for afternoon Bible 
 Readings, and for evening Lantern Lectures. 
 
 It is usual to restrict the age of the Juniors so 
 that only those of eight and upwards are invited, but 
 great emphasis can be laid upon the adolescents, for 
 whom such meetings as Football Services are possible. 
 In Canada and the United States, the young people 
 are invited to Banquets and Suppers, and the methods 
 are almost limitless. 
 
 On the two Sundays, the Special Missioner should 
 share or occupy the pulpit, and in the afternoon he 
 will be available for the Sunday School. 
 
 CONTINUATION EDUCATION 
 
 Stress has been made within recent years of the 
 need for education after school. A Mission does not 
 end when the doors are shut at its close. The Chris- 
 tian Life is a progressive experience—it is a journey 
 and not a rest on a mile-stone. The young converts 
 
SPECIAL MISSION FOR CHILDREN 161 
 
 will require training and guidance. They are just 
 recruits, but the wearing of a uniform is not sufficient 
 in the Army or in the King’s Service. The Church 
 and School will be well advised therefore, before the 
 Mission is held, to decide as to the form of the “‘After- 
 care” work, and in this extension no one will be more 
 pleased to assist than the Minister himself. 
 
 SPECIAL OPEN AIR MISSIONS 
 
 _ There is a particular form of the Special Mission to 
 which reference should be made, and if it differs in 
 method from that already described, it will be appar- 
 ent that its aim is the same. 
 
 The holiday months present a great opportunity to 
 win the boys and girls for Jesus Christ. The Na- 
 tional Sunday School Union, the Children’s Special 
 Service Mission, and other organisations and individ- 
 uals conduct services at the seaside, and their common 
 object is that of witness and decision. The Sand 
 Services conducted by the former body here described, 
 are doubtless indicative of the work carried on gen- 
 erally by other organisations. 
 
 THE KENT COAST SAND SERVICES 
 
 The N.S.S.U. Evangelist, Rev. Newton Jones, com- 
 menced these services thirty-four years ago at Mar- 
 gate, and services are now held under the N.S.S.U. 
 banner every August at Margate, Ramsgate, Broad- 
 stairs, Tankerton, Birchington and Herne Bay. 
 
 The general plan is to arrange for a short swim 
 
162 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 in the early morning for those youngsters who care 
 for it, to hold an hour’s Gospel service from II a.m. 
 to I2 noon, and to spend the afternoons in rambles, 
 games, picnics, and studies. While the work is essen- 
 tially for the boys and girls, adults are not overlooked, 
 and special arrangements are made for Sunday School 
 workers, 
 
 Each centre has a leader and an assistant, is pro- 
 vided with a tent or bungalow, a piano or harmonium, 
 medals for prizes, hymn sheets and sports outfit. The 
 spiritual results have always been satisfactory, and a 
 review of hundreds of letters from adolescents has 
 revealed the power of this form of Christian service. 
 The games and rambles are adjuncts so arranged as 
 to give the workers opportunities to talk personally 
 with the young people about the “Great Adventure.” 
 
 It has been possible at each centre to secure the 
 services of volunteers to assist the leaders, and the 
 whole work is planned to the smallest detail months 
 ahead by the Superintendent. 
 
 The Sports side is organised as a separate depart- 
 ment on account of the size of the work, and one 
 minister superintends all the heats and finals. A chal- 
 lenge trophy is presented to the winning team as well 
 as individual medals. 
 
 The leaders exchange “pulpits,” and a few “free 
 lances” assist at the various centres. Special picnics 
 at which addresses to Christian workers are given are 
 arranged each week, and for this purpose the six 
 centres meet at two separate places. ‘This work is also 
 organised as a separate department, and is in the hands 
 of a minister. 
 
SPECIAL MISSION FOR CHILDREN 163 
 
 Arrangements are being made this year for a choral 
 competition, and it may be that this will constitute a 
 similar separate organisation. 
 
 The Gospel Services are varied, and include Sand 
 
 Text Competitions, Museum Services, Harvest Fes- 
 tivals, Temperance Lectures, and it is not difficult to 
 attract large crowds. The boys and girls are regis- 
 tered, and punctual and regular attendance rewarded. 
 Parents in general do not object to their children at- 
 tending the services, and many children have been the 
 means of bringing their parents. 
 _ The appeal thus made to the modern boy and girl 
 is almost irresistible, and one finds an enthusiasm at 
 all the centres sufficient to testify to the appreciation 
 of the work. 
 
 SAND SERVICE EXTENSION 
 
 It has been possible to train ministerial students for 
 the Sand Services, and as a result help has been given 
 to local Sunday School Unions who desired to en- 
 gage in this class of work. After all, the personality 
 and equipment of the leader for this and any form 
 of outdoor Christian service is of vital importance. 
 
 At Swansea, very successful services have been or- 
 ganised on the above lines, and the finances have been 
 met. Local friends at Southport have carried on work 
 inaugurated there by the Superintendent of the Kent 
 Coast Sand Services. 
 
164 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 SAND SERVICE FINANCE 
 
 The National Union has been able to free the serv- 
 ices of its Evangelist in the summer for Sand Service 
 work, and the cost of central administration apart 
 from this is practically mil. Each leader and assistant 
 receives a small honorarium and travelling expenses, 
 and apart from this item there is no great expense. 
 The Superintendent is able to secure donations which 
 normally cover the expenses. Each centre incurs small 
 expenses and secures contributions, but collections are 
 usually forbidden by the authorities, and, so far, no 
 centre on the Kent Coast can be regarded as self- 
 supporting. 
 
 The cost, however, is not heavy, and it is not essen- 
 tial to organise everything on the Kent Coast lines. 
 As an attractive form of Special Missions for children 
 there is very much to be said for the Sand Services, 
 and there should be an extension of the movement as 
 soon as this fact is appreciated. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE CONDUCT OF CHILDREN’S 
 MEETINGS | 
 
 D. P. THOMSON, M.A. 
 
 IN a previous chapter the conviction was expressed 
 that the vindication or condemnation of the evangelistic 
 meeting for children as a method of approach to young 
 life on the part of the Church was more a matter of 
 men and methods than of anything else. The writer“ 
 wishes to emphasise that point. It cannot be too 
 strongly urged that the Missitoner who succeeds in 
 commending himself and his work to the ministers and 
 teachers with whom he co-operates in winning the 
 young life of the country for Christ, is worthy of of- 
 ficial recognition and of a definite place in our Chris- 
 tian educational programme. Guided by wise hands, 
 and conducted on sane lines, meetings such as we are 
 discussing may be productive of untold good, and will 
 certainly result in blessing out of all proportion to the 
 thought and energy expended. Led by the type of man 
 whose line of approach and method of appeal are alike 
 psychologically unsound and spiritually valueless, they 
 are almost certain to result in greater damage to grow- 
 ing minds and hearts than can easily be realised. Hu- 
 manly speaking everything depends on the Missioner. 
 
 In his suggestive book on Religious Psychology, to 
 165 
 
166 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 which reference has already been made,* Dr. Bruce 
 discusses the qualifications of the ideal Children’s 
 Evangelist. “He must be a man specially endowed and 
 fitted for the work. Such endowments are rare in- 
 deed. It needs a mind that delights in the pictorial; an 
 imagination that can seize the children’s standpoint, can 
 construe the world to the childish view, can view all 
 truth with the young eye, and see its bearings on young 
 life, on play, on lessons, on companions and parents, on 
 brothers and sisters. Few have got this wondrous 
 faculty. But the man or woman that has it is the in- 
 valuable missioner to children. Further, illustrations 
 must be sought and found in all sides of child life. 
 The Missioner must excel in the number of side-lights 
 which he can throw upon the great truth which he eluci- 
 dates. He must be apt in telling stories, and they must 
 be such as children thoroughly understand, and such 
 as do not sidetrack the truth.” 
 
 This is not by any means a complete picture, and, as 
 Dr. Bruce remarks, here as elsewhere, the ideal is all 
 too rarely found. What then, we must ask, are the in- 
 dispensable qualifications for one who would undertake 
 this work? 
 
 The children’s evangelist must needs be a man (or 
 woman) of winning personality, with something of that 
 fine combination of strength and tenderness for which 
 the young people of both sexes will insensibly look. A 
 well-developed imaginative faculty must be supple- 
 mented by sufficient critical and constructive powers to 
 
 * The Psychology of Christian Life and Behaviour, by W. S. 
 Bruce, D.D. 
 
CONDUCT OF CHILDREN’S MEETINGS 167 
 
 ensure the salient facts of Child Psychology being ade- 
 quately handled and related to the needs of the work. 
 The Missioner must know the child-mind, with its 
 limited horizons and undeveloped powers, its innate 
 fondness for the pictorial and the concrete, and its com- 
 plete inability to appreciate the abstract; the child heart 
 with its wonderful capacity for loyalty and affection, 
 for high resolve and generous self-sacrifice; the child- 
 soul, so singularly sensitive to the promptings of the 
 unseen, so filled with vague aspirations and longings, 
 and visited so often by strange disquiets. He must 
 shave not merely a very real background of personal 
 spiritual experience, but some grounding in practical 
 work among both boys and girls both inside and outside 
 the walls of the Sunday School and the Church. 
 Above all, there must be that humble dependence on the 
 Holy Spirit, without which no vital work for the King- 
 dom of God can be done. 
 
 Next in importance to the personality of the speaker, 
 are the methods adopted in the conduct of the meetings, 
 and the form in which the message is delivered to the 
 children. There are many different types of meetings 
 embraced within the scope of our discussion, and it will 
 perhaps be well to begin with a consideration of the 
 Special Mission, or series of meetings, so ably intro- 
 duced by Mr. Burgess in the previous chapter. The 
 suggestions advanced in this connection will prove more 
 generally applicable than such limitation of our subject 
 would seem to suggest, and the questions presenting 
 themselves for answer will raise implications involving 
 the whole field of evangelistic work among children. 
 
168 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 What holds good of the meeting that forms one of a 
 series, will be found to hold good in many points of 
 the single meeting as well. 
 
 The first question that presents itself in connection 
 with the planning of an evangelistic campaign concerns 
 the nature and extent of the constituency to which the 
 appeal is to be addressed. That question comes with 
 _ peculiar force in the case of a Young People’s Mission. 
 Are the meetings to be strictly confined to children, or 
 should they be thrown open to all? Is the Missioner 
 to aim at a specialised audience consisting entirely of 
 young people under 14 or 15, or at a family gathering 
 to which fathers and mothers will come accompanied by 
 their children? Difference of opinion exists on this 
 point, and probably there is room for it. There is much 
 to be said on both sides. The open meeting with its 
 appeal specially addressed to children gives the Mis- 
 sioner a unique opportunity of getting the ear and gain- 
 ing the interest of men and women who would not read- 
 ily attend any other kind of evangelistic meeting. 
 Parents come with their children, the importunity of 
 the boys and girls who have been gripped on the open- 
 ing nights of the Mission being such that mothers, and 
 even fathers, find it difficult to resist their appeal. On 
 the other hand, where the meeting is confined to chil- 
 dren, (except for the monitors or workers whose 
 presence may be considered necessary for the purpose 
 of keeping order,) the speaker has it in his power to 
 specialise the message in a way that it is not easy to 
 do otherwise. Experience has shown that the latter 
 type of meeting is much more difficult to handle, 
 especially when the numbers are large, and the Young 
 
CONDUCT OF CHILDREN’S MEETINGS 169 
 
 People’s Evangelists of the Scottish Churches, with 
 whose work the writer is familiar, have generally 
 adopted the other method. Doubtless they feel not 
 only that the opportunity of reaching the parents is too 
 good to be lost, but that their very presence in the 
 meetings makes for increased interest and impressive- 
 ness so far as the children are concerned. While practi- 
 cally and experimentally this type of meeting may have 
 much to commend it in the eyes of many, from the all- 
 important point of view of adaptation of the message to 
 the child-mind Graded Evangelism is undoubtedly the 
 ideal. 
 
 With graded methods in the Sunday School most 
 of us are now familiar, and the Primary, Junior and 
 Intermediate Departments at least, are prominent fea- 
 tures of our religious educational system. If the 
 premises on which such division rests are sound, then, 
 as a logical development from this, some form of grad- 
 ing in Evangelistic work must inevitably follow. In 
 ‘America, perhaps more than in our own country, the 
 principle of adaptation has already come to be observed 
 in some quarters as applicable to young people’s evan- 
 gelism, particularly through the medium of the Sun- 
 day School. ‘We assume,” says Mr. Frank L. Brown, 
 in a recent book on this subject,* “that the character 
 of the appeal for the Christian decision of the scholars 
 should be graded. Different motives, experience and 
 knowledge are found at each stage of development, and 
 these must be taken into account if we do not wish to 
 develop some cases of stunted growth or arrested 
 development’’—and, we might add, if we wish to 
 
 * Plans for Sunday School Evangelism, by Frank L. Brown. 
 
170 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 avoid that bane of all young people’s work, spiritual 
 precocity! It is surely unreasonable to expect the 
 same evangelistic address and appeal to do justice to the 
 child of 6 or 8 and the boy or girl bordering on the 
 teens. “Each age,’ we need to be reminded, “has its 
 own characteristics spiritually as well as intellectually, 
 and what is good and necessary for one period of de- 
 velopment may be positively harmful for another.” 
 These considerations must guide us in all our work. 
 
 But, it may be asked, granting its desirability, is 
 Graded Evangelism practicable? And the answer is, 
 that it depends altogether on the amount of trouble we 
 are willing to take, and the amount of time we are 
 prepared to spend in making the necessary arrange- 
 ments. The writer has experitnented with the graded 
 method in adolescent evangelism, and has followed with 
 interest the experiments that others have been making 
 in the same field. In the future he hopes to test the 
 principle more thoroughly, but enough information has 
 already been gathered abundantly to demonstrate not 
 only the practicability but the wisdom of this method. 
 What has been—and is being—done successfully among 
 adolescents, could be carried out even more effectively 
 among children, the difference between the early and 
 later stages of adolescence being hardly as great as 
 between the Primary and Intermediate child. 
 
 When the preliminary problem of the range of 
 appeal to be aimed at and the type of meeting to be 
 adopted has been solved, the children’s evangelist. dis- 
 covers his next task to be that of finding an effective 
 point of contact with his youthful constituency. The 
 probability is that he will decide to use either the lan- 
 
CONDUCT OF CHILDREN’S MEETINGS 171 
 
 tern or the blackboard as a means of attracting atten- 
 tion and gaining interest, and if his Chalk Talks, Song 
 Services, or Lantern Addresses have been well inti- 
 mated and advertised beforehand he may reasonably 
 expect to find a considerable audience gathered on the 
 opening night. If his Mission begins on a Sunday he 
 will have the opportunity of addressing the forenoon 
 congregation and of speaking to the Sunday School 
 later in the day. So far as the children of the congre- 
 gation are concerned, everything will depend on the 
 kind of impression he makes there. But there remain 
 the children who are to be found neither in Church nor 
 in Sunday School, and for whom minister and missioner 
 alike must feel no little concern. How are they to be 
 reached? Judiciously worded advertisements and at- 
 tractively drawn-up cards of invitation may do much, 
 but a personal visit to the Day School will do far more. 
 It will provide the missioner with an opportunity of 
 impressing his personality and message on those very 
 children who are most difficult to reach, and it may very 
 well win for him the sympathy of the teachers. Per- 
 mission to pay such a visit is generally readily granted 
 to an accredited worker, the Bible Hour being placed at 
 his disposal on one or more days. The writer has had 
 the experience of being invited to use that hour morn- 
 ing by morning during his stay in a town, and has 
 found it an invaluable opening. The outcome of such 
 a visit will very largely depend on the missioner’s per- 
 sonality and gifts, and on his power of attracting and 
 interesting the children. 
 
 In his Summer Caravan Work among the villages, 
 Mr. Pratt, the artist evangelist of the United Free 
 
172 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 Church of Scotland, makes a habit of visiting the 
 local school as early as possible during a Mission. 
 - Armed with a fresh canvas and his brush and colours, 
 he finds his way to the school-room on the Tuesday 
 or Wednesday morning and entertains the fascinated 
 children for the best part of an hour with a homely talk 
 or story, illustrated by a painting done before their 
 wondering and admiring eyes. Only an artist of Mr. 
 Pratt’s gifts could do this with success, but in his hands 
 it becomes a most effective and telling method of 
 approach and appeal, and long before the hour is over 
 the studied indifference or thinly veiled antagonism of 
 many a teacher is broken down, resulting in a pressing 
 invitation to return the following day, and perhaps in 
 a visit to the caravan, or a heart to heart talk in the 
 quiet of the school-room parlour on the biggest things 
 of life. What Mr. Pratt accomplishes in his own 
 unique way, others may succeed in effecting by means 
 of a blackboard talk or an object lesson address, or even 
 in the case of those not so gifted, by the medium of 
 speech alone. 
 
 The lantern and the blackboard are very largely used 
 in evangelistic meetings for children, some workers 
 preferring the one and some the other. The black- 
 board demands special gifts, and even if the speaker be 
 an adept at the work it should be prepared beforehand. 
 The curiosity of the children is roused by the presence 
 of the draped or paper covered board, and their interest 
 is secured from the start. Bit by bit, as the address 
 proceeds, the coverings are removed ‘until the whole 
 series of pictures stands revealed with its dual appeal 
 to eye and ear. As an alternative to the blackboard 
 
CONDUCT OF CHILDREN’S MEETINGS 173 
 
 the lantern may be used, but the pictures must be good 
 ones and the interest must be sustained by a sufficiently 
 large series of slides. Some children’s evangelists lec- 
 ture through “The Pilgrim’s Progress” and ‘The Last 
 Week of Christ’s Life,’ in the course of a Mission, 
 and the latter especially can be done with great power 
 and effect. The Pilgrim may create more amusement, 
 but the presentation of the suffering Saviour will appeal 
 to all that is deepest in the mind and heart of the child, 
 and in the hands of one who is careful not to harrow the 
 feelings of the little ones either by his manner or 
 message, or by the pictures he shows, such a series may 
 accomplish much. 
 
 There are speakers to children who essay the work 
 of a week or fortnight’s indoor meetings without the 
 aid of either the screen or the blackboard, but for the 
 average man the wisdom of such a course is distinctly 
 doubtful. Even with the use of object lessons and con- 
 crete illustrations of one kind or another, or with the 
 exercise of a highly developed imaginative and descrip- 
 tive faculty in the telling of stories, it is difficult to hold 
 large audiences of young people night by night, espe- 
 cially in the more populous centres where counter at- 
 tractions are so many. 
 
 Music will have a large place in the programme 
 of children’s meetings, and the evangelist will do well 
 to choose his hymns with care. Hymns of inner ex- 
 perience and yearning that belong to a much later stage 
 in life, or of pious aspiration for the rest and seclusion 
 of heaven, will be studiously avoided, and hymns with 
 a strong doctrinal background may well be omitted 
 from the selection. Most of our modern collections in- 
 
174 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 clude a sufficient number of active, virile, picturesque 
 hymns, eminently suited to the eager and restless spirit 
 of youth, to afford abundant variety of choice. If 
 hymn sheets are used—and they have their place—a 
 judiciously graded selection can be made, but on the 
 whole there is much to be said for the use of a large 
 roll prominently displayed on the blackboard, the words 
 being printed in type sufficiently large for all to see. In 
 the case of a lantern service the screen will, of course, 
 be employed. This method lends variety and interest 
 to the meetings, and helps to concentrate the attention 
 of the children on the speaker. If solos are rendered 
 they should be wisely chosen and should always have 
 a chorus in which the children can join. The Mission 
 affords a splendid opportunity for teaching new cho- 
 ruses to the children, and this should be utilised to the 
 full. Boys and girls are fond of singing, and truth will 
 often wing its way home in the words of a hymn, not 
 only to their own hearts but, later, to those of their 
 parents. Care must be taken to see the words of the 
 choruses are simple, easily understood, and adapted to 
 the child’s life and outlook. Their background of 
 thought and appeal should be ethical rather than doc- 
 trinal. There is a world of difference between the 
 types represented by the following examples, which are 
 selected from two very different collections compiled 
 for children’s meetings : 
 
 (1) “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, 
 To shine for Him each day, 
 In every way to try to please Him 
 At home, at school, at play.” 
 
CONDUCT OF CHILDREN’S MEETINGS 175 
 
 (2) “I come third, I come third, 
 Where God puts one in His Word, 
 God comes first, my neighbours second 
 IT come third.” 
 
 ‘3) “Nothing to pay, there’s nothing to pay, 
 Straight is the gate, and narrow the way. 
 Book on the up line, start off to-day, 
 Glasgow to Glory, there’s nothing to pay.” 
 
 (4) “My sins were as high as a mountain, 
 They all disappeared in the fountain, 
 He wrote my name down for a palace and crown, 
 And now, praise His dear Name, I am free.” 
 
 The two former contain eminently suitable messages 
 for boys and girls, the two latter embody metaphors 
 quite beyond their grasp, and are in the last degree un- 
 suitable. 
 
 The conduct of the meeting should, generally speak- 
 ing, be in the hands of the missioner or speaker; but 
 the minister, if present, should be invited to take part, 
 and on no account must the impression be conveyed that 
 he is being relegated to the background. The spirit of 
 reverence must be explicit throughout the meeting, con- 
 veyed rather by the whole attitude of the speaker than 
 by any formal appeal or admonition, and the sense of 
 reality must pervade the atmosphere if young minds are 
 not to be alienated. There is perhaps nothing children 
 hate so much as artificiality. 
 
 Alike in his manner and message, the evangelist must 
 realise that he is dealing with the most delicate and 
 impressionable material. He is an artist working on the 
 
176 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 sensitive canvas of young life, and no touch of his 
 brush can ever be altogether erased. He is a sculptor 
 fashioning young souls according to the ideals and 
 standards of Christ, and every stroke of the mallet 
 counts. He is an ambassador—the representative of 
 his Lord and Master—and his every action and word 
 will be watched and weighed by extremely critical eyes 
 and minds. On the way in which he presents Jesus 
 Christ to these young lives more than he can ever know 
 will depend. 
 
 The observations one has to make about the message 
 itself must necessarily be somewhat general, but they 
 need be none the less valuable on that account. The 
 background of the Missioner’s appeal must be the in- 
 alienable right of every child to a place in the Kingdom 
 of God, to his share of the Heavenly Father’s love and 
 care, and to the enjoyment of all the privileges of Chris- 
 tian inheritance and fellowship in virtue of his birth 
 into a redeemed world. If the young heart is conscious 
 of sin in word or thought or deed, if privilege is felt to 
 have been forfeited, wrong decisions to have been taken 
 and joy lost, then the tender forgiving love of Jesus 
 must be presented; and the willingness and power of 
 the Saviour, not only to pardon and restore, but to im- 
 part His strength alike for the hour of temptation and 
 of opportunity, and guidance for the whole of life, 
 must be made clear. But at all costs care must be taken 
 to avoid creating the impression that life is generated 
 and cradled in sin and shadowed by guilt and condemna- 
 tion from its very entrance into the world, and that only 
 by the way of repentance and cleansing—by heartfelt 
 conviction and catastrophic conversion—can young or 
 
 of 
 «. 
 
CONDUCT OF CHILDREN’S MEETINGS 177 
 
 old come into the Kingdom. Such teaching is alto- 
 gether alien to the spirit of the New Testament and 
 does violence not only to the character of our Lord, 
 but to the sensitive mind of the child. 
 
 The evangelist who gets to know his audience will 
 find many strange ideas and misconceptions in the 
 minds of the children, and these he must do his best 
 to remove. He will come across boys and girls who 
 have been led to regard God as a sort of glorified de- 
 tective, ever on the watch to observe a fall, and quick 
 to punish the slightest lapse from rectitude. He will 
 commonly meet with children who think of religion as 
 something unnatural and strange, far removed from 
 daily life and thought, and burdensome in the mean- 
 ingless petty restrictions it imposes—necessary, per- 
 haps, to take one to heaven, but little good for anything 
 else. Patiently, lovingly—even humorously—he must 
 set himself to break down prejudices and remove mis- 
 understandings. He must avoid a doctrinal or dog- 
 matic statement of Christianity totally unsuited to 
 minds that have not reached the stage of conceptual 
 thought, however necessary such credal statement may 
 be for the fully developed intelligence. It is worse 
 than useless for him “‘to cloud the child’s apprehension 
 of Jesus by an attempt to explain His two-fold nature,” 
 or to introduce him to the God of the catechism, or to 
 the substitutionary theories of the theologian. In pre- 
 senting the Christ of history and of experience to the 
 child-mind he must beware of leaving the impression 
 that Jesus is little more than a Hero to be admired, 
 or a great Teacher and Wonder Worker. He must 
 set forth Christ as both Saviour and Lord—as Master 
 
178 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 and Friend. Above all he must make it clear beyond 
 question that religion is a matter of everyday life 
 and conduct, affecting all one’s relations, inspiring and 
 quickening mind and body and making for a full and 
 rounded life—healthy, helpful and happy. He must 
 reveal it as “determining the quality of work one does 
 at school, the kind of game one plays, the sort of friend 
 one proves.” 
 
 It cannot be gainsaid that the message of Christ 
 has been too often connected in the minds of the 
 children with certain duties performed on Sundays, 
 with distant rewards and punishments in a faraway 
 heaven or hell, with certain denials and restraints, and 
 with much that makes life irksome and unhappy. The 
 idea has never dawned on many of their minds that to 
 be a Christian is to enter on a life at once sweeter, 
 happier and more wholesome, that it is not merely to 
 gain the favour of God and enjoy the blessings of salva- 
 tion, but to dedicate the whole life, with its expanding 
 powers of mind and body, to the service and Kingdom 
 of Jesus Christ, and to the help and redemption of one’s 
 fellows. It is this last interpretation that appeals to 
 the boy or girl entering on the adolescent stage. The 
 sense of something big enough to demand all they are 
 and have, and the knowledge of One Who is worthy 
 of all their devotion and service—their passionate at- 
 tachment and generous self-sacrifice—will make a tre- 
 mendous appeal to boys and girls just entering their 
 teens. 
 
 What response to his message and appeal is the chil- 
 dren’s evangelist to look for, and how is he to garner 
 his harvest? Here, perhaps even more than anywhere 
 
CONDUCT OF CHILDREN’S MEETINGS 179 
 
 else, tact and self-restraint, psychological knowledge 
 and spiritual insight, and above all, sound practical com- 
 mon-sense, are called for. Here golden opportunities 
 may be lost, and here too good work may be sadly . 
 marred. 
 
 Should there be an after meeting—and, if so, what 
 form should it take? Should there be an appeal for 
 immediate decision, and an opportunity for open con- 
 fession of Christ? These are momentous questions, 
 and the answers will largely depend upon place and cir- 
 cumstances, and on the type of man who is acting as 
 leader or speaker. 
 
 A strong case can be made out for the after-meeting, 
 especially if it takes the form of an Instruction Class 
 (or Classes), with the ages carefully graded, and tend- 
 ency to emotionalism or undue suggestibility guarded 
 against. There ought certainly to be some opportunity 
 given for personal conference with the Missioner, but 
 it is more than doubtful whether any pressing appeal / 
 for immediate decision should be made (even in the”* 
 after-meeting) unless one is dealing with adults, or ad- 
 olescents beyond the age of 16. Any segregation of 
 children into those who have decided and those who 
 have not, or any intimation—or even suggestion—that 
 those who do not respond to the appeal are thus guilty 
 of rejecting Christ and refusing the Christian life, must 
 be avoided. “To permit this,’ says Mr. Frank L. 
 Brown, in discussing Graded Evangelism in the Sun- 
 day School, “is the surest method of causing such a re- 
 jection on the one hand, and of producing insincerity 
 on the other. The sense of personal responsibility to 
 God is necessary to intelligent conviction and decision, 
 
180 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 and this sense does not normally develop in strength 
 till the end of the Junior period and the beginning of 
 Adolescence. 
 
 “Tf, after the address,’ suggests Rev. Lionel B. 
 Fletcher, in an admirable chapter on “Evangelistic 
 Work Among the Young,” in his recent book on Evan- 
 gelism,* ‘the speaker will make it clear that he will 
 be in an adjoining room when the meeting closes and 
 will be glad to meet those who want to begin as young 
 soldiers of Christ, children will be saved from any in- 
 jurious element which might attach itself to an unin- 
 telligent movement to the front of the church.’”’ There 
 is sound practical wisdom in that suggestion, but per- 
 haps the best method of all is that adopted by Messrs. 
 Grieve and Pratt, the Young People’s Evangelists of 
 the United Free Church of Scotland (and doubtless by 
 others who share their convictions). These workers 
 combine Instruction Classes for adolescents and adults 
 with ample opportunity for interviews with old and 
 young alike, and with the provision of a Letter Box 
 into which communications of all kinds can be put. 
 
 This Letter Box is made of stout cardboard and is 
 displayed in a prominent position near the door of the 
 church or hall. Its presence and purpose are duly inti- 
 mated, and into it boys and girls are invited to drop 
 letters expressing their appreciation of the meetings, 
 voicing any questions they may have, and telling of 
 blessing received. A special invitation is given to them 
 to send in paintings of the illustrations they have’ seen 
 on the blackboard, the easel or the screen. This is done 
 with the double purpose of impressing the message on 
 
 * The Effective Evangelist, by Lionel B. Fletcher. 
 
 re 
 
CONDUCT OF CHILDREN’S MEETINGS 181 
 
 the children’s minds and awakening the interest of their 
 parents. In this way too, the Missioner gathers in- 
 valuable information as to the kind of impression the 
 children are carrying away from the meetings. 
 
 The Letter Box proves a most popular and valuable 
 adjunct to the work, often bringing hundreds of com- 
 munications to the evangelist during a single fortnight’s 
 effort. These come from people of all ages and classes. 
 Adults write asking for interviews, and shy but hungry 
 souls reveal their longing for the Bread of Life. Boys 
 and girls write to tell how they are getting on at school 
 —of their homes and holiday experiences, their little 
 joys and sorrows, of what they have found most in- 
 teresting and helpful in the meetings, and, best of all, 
 of hearts and lives given to the Saviour. The writer 
 has had the privilege of examining much of this corre- 
 spondence and is convinced that most effective use could 
 be made of this method in all types of evangelistic 
 services and meetings. 
 
 Almost equally as important as the mode of appeal is 
 the question of “following up” the Mission. Here, 
 minister and missioner should consult with one another 
 as to the best means of conserving the fruits of the 
 meetings, and of leading the boys and girls whose hearts 
 have been touched by the Saviour into a strong and 
 vigorous Christian discipleship. If the work is to be 
 consolidated something must be done, and done at once, 
 to insure the permanence of impressions made, and 
 to relate the new interests and enthusiasms created to 
 life in the home, the school and the church. It is just 
 at this point that so much self-sacrificing and success- 
 ful work has been vitiated in the past. The Church 
 
182 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 that makes no serious attempt to provide for the con- 
 tinuance and completion of the work of the Mission will 
 deservedly lose most of its fruits. 
 
 There are many other types of evangelistic meetings 
 for children than these that have been mentioned here. 
 There is the Seaside Meeting of which Mr. Burgess 
 has written ; there is Decision Day in the Sunday School 
 with which Mr. Hayes has dealt so suggestively, and, 
 among others, there is the informal type of meeting so 
 dear to the heart of a boy, for which I would like to put 
 in a plea.in closing. 
 
 The late headmaster of the Leys School, Cambridge, 
 pleads in one of his books * for meetings for public 
 school boys held outside the chapel, on the ground that 
 greater informality is possible, and that “illustrations 
 of a homely and even humorous type can be used which 
 would be barred in school chapel by the boys’ sense of 
 the fitting no less than by the masters’.”’ In his descrip- 
 tion of this kind of meeting these significant sentences 
 occur, “Some of the most profitable of such meetings 
 have been held when the number attending has made it 
 necessary for them to sit all over the floor. . . . There 
 is a value in so treating the affairs of the soul that they 
 may be seen to be not incongruous with happy and 
 wholesome laughter.” 
 
 The signal success in peiching and winning boys 
 which has attended the summer camps and seaside 
 missions—and many of the winter meetings—of the 
 Children’s Special Service Mission, is to be traced in no 
 small measure to the recognition of this truth—that 
 your normal healthy boy is more at home in such a 
 
 *The Unfolding Life, by W. T. A. Barber. 
 
CONDUCT OF CHILDREN’S MEETINGS 183 
 
 gathering than in a formal meeting, and that a homely 
 talk to a crowd of fellows, squatting at their ease on the 
 floor of some suitable room or small hall—a talk in- 
 stinct with genuine humour, and lit up by personal. 
 experience—may do far more to solve the problem of 
 winning the boy than any number of evangelistic meet- 
 ings of the more conventional type. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE FRUITS OF EVANGELISTIC WORK 
 AMONG CHILDREN 
 
 ONE OF THE EDITORS * 
 
 In a chapter such as this it is necessary that our terms 
 should be defined with some degree of accuracy. If 
 our survey is to have any scientific or spiritual value 
 whatever its limits must be clearly indicated. How 
 wide a connotation are we prepared to give to the term 
 child? What exactly do we mean by evangelistic work 
 among children? On what basis do we intend to esti- 
 mate the fruits of such work? ‘These questions are 
 fundamental to our study and must be answered forth- 
 with. It would largely nullify the value of our investi- 
 gations to take for granted that the reader is already 
 satisfied in his own mind as to the interpretation likely 
 to be put on these terms here. 
 
 In Chapter V Dr. Mark divides the pre-adolescent 
 period of life into three stages—infancy, childhood, 
 and boyhood or girlhood—that covered by the term 
 child being from six to nine years of age. Such a 
 classification is not without its value for the purpose 
 he has in view, but no such limitation of childhood 
 years can be accepted for this chapter. Here we are 
 
 * My colleague prefers that I should take full responsibility for 
 
 this chapter. 
 184 
 
THE FRUITS OF EVANGELISTIC WORK 185 
 
 to regard and speak of as children all who have 
 reached the stage of self-consciousness, and are under 
 twelve or thirteen years of age. The scope allowed by 
 such a definition is a fairly wide one, but nothing less 
 would be consistent with the purpose or spirit of this 
 book. | 
 
 In discussing the results of evangelistic work among 
 children we have no thought of confining our attention 
 to Special Missions, or even to religious meetings with 
 a definitely evangelistic aim. Our concern is with the 
 whole work of the Home, the Sunday School and the 
 Church, in leading boys and girls to Christ, in bringing 
 them to a life decision, and to the consciousness of 
 personal relationship with God. 
 
 It is when we come to discuss the fruits of this work 
 that the need for definition becomes most pressing. 
 How are we to judge of the presence of a vital work of 
 the Spirit of God inthe hearts and lives of boys and 
 girls? By what standard are we to gauge their profes- 
 sion? For what manifestations of spiritual experience 
 are we to look? To what evidences of character and 
 conduct, of speech and behaviour, are we to direct our 
 attention? And, above all, at what point in the spiritual 
 development of the unfolding life can we say with 
 confidence that any change observable gives promise of 
 permanence ? 
 
 Very different answers to these questions will be 
 given by Christian men and women to-day than would 
 have been offered forty or fifty years ago. The applica- 
 tion of the category of evolution to the whole of the 
 developing life, and the recognition that the individual 
 largely lives through the early experiences of the race 
 
186 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 in childhood—manifesting their characteristics, and 
 revealing their attitude of mind, their interests and 
 ambitions, and even, perhaps, their religious concep- 
 tions—have altered our whole outlook on the question 
 of what is normal and natural for childhood. Above 
 all they have led us to guard against such artificial types 
 of piety as used to be held up as the standard for grow- 
 ing boys and girls. 
 
 Just how far we have advanced in this direction 
 becomes apparent when we turn to study the writings 
 of the leaders of the Evangelical Movement of the 18th, 
 and even the early 19th, century. Then the child was 
 expected to pass through exactly the same experience, 
 and to manifest the same interests, as the adult. Con- 
 ceived in sin, depraved in mind and heart, guilty and 
 condemned from earliest years in the sight of an angry 
 God, he must experience the agony of conviction and 
 remorse, be visited by darkness and doubt, and finally 
 arrive at conversion and confession. The new life on 
 which he then entered was expected to manifest itself 
 in long prayers, religious meditation, the use of pious 
 phraseology, and a grave concern for the welfare of 
 the human race. “Too often,” says one writer, “in the 
 good books written for the young was the pious child 
 a hectic unnatural creature whom we foredoomed to 
 an early death.” 
 
 Even so great a man as John Wesley was dominated 
 by this conception, and lent the weight of his authority 
 to these ideas. One has only to read his Journals to 
 see this, and to become aware of the gulf that separates 
 his age and standpoint from ours. Here are some of 
 the cases he quotes with evident approval. (We quote 
 
THE FRUITS OF EVANGELISTIC WORK 187 
 
 from Dr. Barber’s book “The Unfolding of Life,” 
 which will be found most suggestive at this point. ) 
 
 “A child three years old was given much to pray- 
 ing aloud to God. He called to his companion, ‘Polly, 
 we must pray. Leave your doll. Let us kneel down.’ 
 He died in peace a year or two later.”’ | 
 
 “Richard Hutchinson, four years old, began much 
 to talk of God. From that time he never played nor 
 laughed, but was as serious as one of three-score. He 
 constantly reproved any that cursed or swore or spoke 
 indecently in his hearing, and frequently mourned over 
 his brother, who was two or three years older, saying, 
 ‘I fear my brother will go to hell for he does not love 
 God.’ He died of small-pox, saying, ‘I will go home, 
 now I will go to my Father.’ ” 
 
 “Again, a child who died at two and a half spoke 
 exceedingly plain, but very seldom, and then only a 
 few words. She could not bear any to behave in a light 
 or unseemly manner. If any offered to kiss or touch 
 her she said, ‘I do not like you.’ If her brothers or 
 sisters spoke angrily or behaved triflingly, she sharply 
 reproved them or tenderly exhorted them. If she spoke 
 too sharply she humbled herself, not content until she 
 was forgiven. She was especially fond of hearing and 
 singing the hymn, ‘Abba, Father, hear my cry.’”’ 
 
 Having adopted the maxim of his Moravian friends 
 that “If a boy play when he is a boy, he will play 
 when he is a man,” Wesley strove to keep the boys in 
 his Kingwood School from games of all kinds. 
 
 It has to be admitted that there are still with us not 
 a few who share Wesley’s point of view, and who would 
 regard the type of youthful piety embodied in these 
 
188 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 illustrations as altogether admirable and desirable—who 
 would, in fact, be distinctly inclined to doubt the value 
 of any other type. Their ideal of a “soundly con- 
 verted” boy has not inaptly been described as “A little 
 old man, ostensibly carrying about his Bible, attending 
 prayer meetings more than playing fields, cultivating 
 a grave face, developing a faculty for quoting texts 
 and relating experiences.” In short—a precocious little 
 theologian, and in no sense a child disciple! 
 
 What wise parents and teachers—and in fact edu- 
 cated Christian men and women everywhere, who have 
 faced these problems—look for to-day is something 
 very different from this. It is the simple, childlike con- 
 sciousness of personal relationship with Christ—the 
 deepening realisation of what Divine worship means, 
 and the desire to love, serve and obey the Saviour in a 
 natural childlike way. It is further the realisation of 
 His interest and help in all the concerns of childhood, 
 and the knowledge that happy and healthful games and 
 wholesome fun are as much to His mind as to theirs. 
 The girl who loves Christ is no longer expected to be- 
 come a woman before her time, but a purer, sweeter and 
 more lovable girl, And the boys, while becoming in 
 every way better and brighter, are expected to remain 
 boys, and not to become men all at once! 
 
 There is however one very real danger against which 
 we must guard. A healthy reaction from older and 
 cruder views of the religious experience natural to 
 childhood must not be allowed to carry us too far. 
 There is at the present time an unfortunate tendency to 
 disparage anything in the nature of vital religious ex- 
 perience in the pre-adolescent period, and to regard as 
 
THE FRUITS OF EVANGELISTIC WORK 189 
 
 purely ephemeral any fruits of evangelistic work among 
 children. . 
 
 The dangers that lurk in such a conception have been 
 indicated in previous chapters, while the lack of spir- 
 itual insight, and even of truly scientific thinking, 
 which such an attitude of mind reveals requires’ little 
 demonstration. Abundant evidence has been gathered 
 in recent years in the field of Religious Psychology to 
 show that a very large number of Christian people date 
 the decisive and determining experiences of their spir- 
 itual life to the years of childhood, and to substantiate 
 the claim by Starbuck that while conversions appear to 
 attain their maximum at 16 years of age, they begin as 
 early as 7 or 8, increasing gradually in number till 10 or 
 11, and then falling away again for a period. Whether 
 “conversion” is the right word to use for pre-adolescent 
 experience may be open to question, but the facts im- 
 plied in that statement cannot easily be gainsaid. 
 
 As to the apparent transitoriness of the religious im- 
 pressions and experiences of childhood, the testimony 
 of Horace Bushnell is well worth bearing in mind. 
 The author of Christian Nurture is not likely to be 
 accused of a bias in favour of evangelism, so that his 
 words may be the more impressive. Speaking of chil- 
 dren who have manifested some sign of spiritual ex- 
 perience in early years, Bushnell says, “Perhaps they 
 will go through a rough mental struggle at some future 
 day and seem to others and themselves there to have 
 entered on a Christian life. And yet it may be true 
 that there was still some root of right principle estab- 
 lished in their childhood, which is here only quickened 
 and developed, as when Christians of a mature age are 
 
190 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 revived in their piety after a period of spiritual lethargy, 
 for it is conceivable that regenerate character may exist 
 before it is fully and firmly developed.” The fact that 
 there is, in many cases, something resembling a recon- 
 version in the transition from the simple naive religion 
 of childhood to that of the larger world of adolescence, 
 and finally to the full religious self-consciousness of the 
 adult man or woman, must not be taken as discrediting 
 in any way the earlier spiritual experiences. 
 
 What sources of information are open to us for such 
 a study as we have in mind in this chapter? What lines 
 of evidence may be regarded as admissible for our pur- 
 pose? To what quarters can we look for reliable data 
 on which to base our conclusions? 
 
 Three sources of information suggest themselves as 
 at once valid and valuable. There is first of all the 
 evidence of children themselves as to the difference 
 Christ has made in their lives, and the reality of the 
 new experience on which they have entered; there is 
 further the testimony of adults as to the spiritual de- 
 cision and determining influences of their own child- 
 hood days, and there is, finally, the evidence of on- 
 lookers—whether parents, teachers or ministers—as to 
 the impressions made on their minds by close contact 
 with children who have been the subject of deep re- 
 ligious experience. 
 
 The evidence of children themselves must be regarded 
 as having a value all its own. However we may inter- 
 pret their testimony the fact remains that they alone 
 can speak with intimate personal knowledge on the sub- 
 ject, and have therefore a title to be heard. From their 
 letters and conversation a great deal of information 
 
THE FRUITS OF EVANGELISTIC WORK 191 
 
 may be gathered as to the reality and depth of their con- 
 victions, and the way in which they ciate their re- 
 lationship to Christ. 
 
 Some of these letters reveal a tendency to just these 
 types of piety which we have been led to deprecate. 
 
 The boy who writes, “I used to be a slave of Satan, 
 but with Jesus on my side I will be able to enter the 
 Door and be under the blood of the Lamb. I will try 
 to be good after this and perhaps Jesus will let me enter 
 His Kingdom” has got somewhat mixed in his ideas, 
 and is evidently suffering from a surfeit of incompletely 
 digested theological teaching. Just how far he has got 
 in personal experience is hard to say. 
 
 The child whose assurance that—‘There is nothing 
 that can give peace of mind to the sinner but the blood 
 that was shed on Calvary”—is quoted approvingly by 
 the Missioner, is to be pitied rather than blamed for a 
 precocity that may very well develop into priggishness. 
 
 Some of the testimonies are good as far as they go, 
 but suggest either that the presentation of Christ to the 
 child mind has not beén adequate, or that it has not 
 been made sufficiently clear, as when a number of 
 children write that they “intend to follow the Great 
 Captain” and a boy assures the Missioner that “Jesus 
 is the best Scoutmaster,’ and that he will not be 
 ashamed to own himself a member of His troop. These 
 ideas are good up to a point, but they hardly go far 
 enough, and they suggest the possibility of early dis- 
 appointment on both sides, unless the decision made is 
 related to a fuller content of experience. Some are 
 altogether delightful, a few of these being appended 
 to show their simplicity and childlikeness. 
 
192 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 “Only a few lines,” writes one, “to let you know by 
 your aid I have fallen in love with Jesus.” 
 
 “T always thought I loved Christ,” a girl confesses, 
 “but when I saw Him being beaten on the tree for our 
 sake, it was then true love entered my heart.” 
 
 “T am writing this little letter,’ says another, “telling 
 you that I have Jesus in my heart, and I will not let 
 Him out!’ 
 
 “From the many pictures you have shown me,” 
 writes a boy who has evidently been thinking deeply, 
 “T have decided to be on the side of Christ.” 
 
 “T have belonged to Jesus a few years now,’ one 
 writes; and the testimony of another is still more sig- 
 nificant and striking. It is that of a girl of 12 who 
 writes,— 
 
 “TI gave my heart to Jesus. when I first learned to 
 pray. That was when I was two!’ 
 
 Most touching of all are the cases in which a father 
 or mother is implicated. 
 
 “Last Friday evening,” writes one girl, “Mummy 
 and I made up our minds to trust Jesus. She is to help 
 me, and she says I am to help her.” 
 
 Surely such a letter as this holds out great promise 
 for the future! Before we pass to speak of the testi- 
 mony of adults as to the permanence of their early re- 
 ligious experiences and decisions, it may be well to 
 append a few notes on the testimony of children from 
 one whose wide experience and brilliant scholarship 
 give him the right to speak. 
 
 “It 1s natural,” says Dr. W. T. A. Barber,* “that 
 the child’s religion should be expressed in anthropo- 
 
 *The Unfolding of Life, by W. T. A. Barber. 
 
THE FRUITS OF EVANGELISTIC WORK 193 
 
 morphic terms, his heaven in terms of earth. That 
 simply means that he recognises no divorce between 
 the two. . . . Along with the idealism which accepts 
 the unseen, sees angels in the sky and in the garden 
 alike, talks to Jesus as if He still has a knee for chil- 
 dren to climb on, there is a sturdy sense of the practical 
 which judges justly between good and bad. The child, 
 like the grown-up world, does not believe in a faith 
 which is not shown by works. Truth, unselfishness, 
 good temper, self-control, lovingness, are recognised 
 not merely as parts of obedience to a parent, but as in 
 themselves good, and are quickly related to the Higher 
 powers. The battle between good and evil is early 
 recognised, the experience of defeat and conquest fully 
 understood. The thought of Jesus as ready to help is 
 quickly grasped, and the habit of prayer to Him is quite 
 natural.” 
 
 A second line of evidence suggested as admissible for 
 our study is the testimony of adults as to the per- 
 manence of their early religious impressions. Nowhere 
 perhaps, is this more striking than in the case of Min- 
 isters and Missionaries of the Church, suggesting that 
 those who have come earliest to a personal knowledge 
 of Christ, have also been foremost in the dedication of 
 their lives to His service. Polycarp, the aged martyr 
 of the Early Church, has left it on record that he be- 
 came a follower of Christ at the age of 9. Matthew 
 Henry gives the age of 10 as the date of his conversion. 
 Isaac Watt assures us that he found the Saviour at 9, 
 while Jonathan Edwards, the great master of the New 
 England pulpit, dates the beginning of his Christian 
 life back to the age of 7. Out of 71 corporate mem- 
 
194 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 bers of the American Board of Missions, 19, according 
 to Dr. Goodell, stated that they were converted at so 
 early an age that they were unable to remember it, 
 where 34 were led to Christ before they were 14. 
 Twenty-five foreign missionaries, on furlough in this 
 country, were discussing their work together when the 
 conversation turned on the formative influence of the 
 early years of life, Mr. Carey Bonner records, and it 
 was found that 24 out of the 25 had dedicated them- 
 selves to their life work before the age of 14. What 
 holds good of ministers and missionaries would seem 
 to hold good also of distinguished servants of Christ 
 in other fields. It was the unwavering testimony of 
 the Great Lord Shaftesbury that he could unhesitatingly 
 affirm that his spiritual life began at seven years of 
 age, under the influence of his nurse, who had the joy 
 of leading him to Christ. 
 
 These impressive facts could be multiplied almost 
 indefinitely if space permitted and occasion required, 
 and many a moving story could be told of what a 
 childish decision came to mean in later life, and how 
 far an early religious impression carried. The Editors 
 of this book date the beginning of their own Christian 
 discipleship to a memorable evening in childhood, when 
 one was ten years of age and the other seven; and 
 among their friends in University life and their col- 
 leagues in evangelistic work they number not a few who 
 trace their decision for Christ back to quite as early 
 a date. 
 
 In concluding this line of evidence, it may be well to 
 give the testimony of one whose long and varied evan- 
 gelistic and ministerial experience entitle him to be 
 
THE FRUITS OF EVANGELISTIC WORK 195 
 
 heard. ‘““The most surprising evidences of the perma- 
 nent results of child conversion,” says Rev. Lionel B. 
 Fletcher, in a book to which reference has already been 
 made,* “are to be seen in any meeting where those 
 present who were converted under the age of 12 years 
 are asked to hold up their hands. Generally the pro- 
 portion is so astonishing that any sane man must won- 
 der how it is that people will continue to theorise in- 
 stead of acting on the evidence of their own eyesight.”’ 
 
 Finally, we have the evidence of parents, teachers 
 and ministers as to the worth and permanence of the 
 work done among the young—evidence based on wide 
 experience and intimate personal knowledge. Here, 
 again, one or two examples will have to suffice, and if 
 we select the ministerial testimonies in preference to 
 the others it is because they are more comprehensive 
 in their survey, and more immediately applicable to the 
 purpose of this book. We select as examples, three 
 very different types of men—C. H. Spurgeon, Dr. W. 
 L. Watkinson and Rev. J. Morgan Gibbon—two of 
 whom are still with us to substantiate what they have 
 written, and to attest its up-to-dateness. 
 
 Charles Haddon Spurgeon, on one occasion, made 
 this remarkable statement—and whatever we may think 
 of his theological views, his experience gives him the 
 right to speak—“T will say broadly,” averred the great 
 Baptist preacher, “that I have more confidence in the 
 spiritual life of the children that I have received into 
 this Church than I have in the spiritual condition of 
 the adults thus received. I will go even further than 
 that. I have usually found a clearer knowledge of the 
 
 * The Effective Evangelist, by Lionel B. Fletcher. 
 
196 WINNING THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST 
 
 Gospel, and a warmer love to Christ in the child con- 
 vert than in the adult convert. I will even astonish 
 you still more by saying that I have met with a deeper 
 spiritual experience in children of 10 or 12 than I have 
 in certain persons of 50 or 60.” 
 
 Alongside that may be put the experiences of one of 
 our foremost modern Congregationalist ministers, Rev. 
 J. Morgan Gibbon of Stamford Hill, London. Some 
 years ago Mr. Gibbon was led to hold a children’s 
 mission in his own church, and in a little book, Drawing 
 the Net, or Holding the Young for Christ, he gives 
 some account of the work together with the addresses 
 he delivered. For three nights only special addresses 
 were given to the young people, those who responded 
 being gathered into instruction classes. At the close 
 of these, all who desired to make public confession of 
 Christ were asked to hand in their names. Over 70 
 did so, and were received into Church membership at 
 the end of the year. “To-day,” says Mr. Gibbon, writ- 
 ing in 1915, “they are among the most faithful, earnest 
 and consistent members of the Church.” 
 
 Dr. W. L. Watkinson, the veteran Methodist min- 
 ister, is one of the most widely known preachers and 
 writers in the Churches. This is his plea: “We instruct 
 our children and seek to encourage them, but are sur- 
 prised if they evidence anything like a religious ex- 
 perience. A child may not understand theology, but it 
 can enjoy religion. Go to a child at once with a spir- 
 itual appeal and expect the spiritual effect. Do not 
 think of their need of experience. Give them a chance, 
 and you will be surprised to see the wonderful fruit 
 they will bear.” 
 
THE FRUITS OF EVANGELISTIC WORK 197 
 
 The discussion in which we have been engaged in 
 this chapter may be closed—and the whole book fitly 
 concluded—with this admonition :— 
 
 “Where early motions of the religious life are found 
 among children it becomes the whole object of re- 
 ligious education to keep them healthy, foster and 
 train them to completeness and fulfilment.” Only by 
 this whole-hearted co-operation of the educationalist 
 and the evangelist can we hope to succeed in our task of 
 Winning the Children for Christ. 
 
 THE END 
 

 
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