There can be little doubt that we have quite constantly in most of our
Sunday schools forced upon the child no small amount of matter that is
beyond his mental grasp, and so far outside his daily experience that it
conveys little or no meaning. We have over-intellectualized the child's
religion. Jesus was "to the Greeks foolishness" because they had no
basis of experience upon which to understand his pure and unselfish
life. May not many of the facts, figures, dates, and events from an
ancient religion which we give young children likewise be to them but
foolishness! May not the lessons upon some of the deepest, finest and
most precious concepts in our religion, such as faith, atonement,
regeneration, repentance, the Trinity, be lost or worse than lost upon
our children because we force them upon unripe minds and hearts at an
age when they are not ready for them?

Let us then, _not forget the child_ when we teach religion! Let us not
assume that truths and lessons are an end in themselves. Let us
constantly ask, as we prepare our lessons, Will this material work as a
true leaven in the life? Will it take root and blossom into character,
fine thought, and worthy conduct? While our children dumbly ask for
living bread let us not give them dead stones and dry husks, which
cannot feed their souls! Let us adapt our subject matter to the child.

The use of stress and neglect.--That the lesson material printed in
the Sunday school booklets is not always well adapted to the children
every teacher knows. But there it is, and what can we do but teach it,
though it may sometimes miss the mark?

There is one remedy the wise and skillful teacher always has at his
command. By the use of _stress_ and _neglect_ the matter of the lesson