child, awaken his spiritual appreciation and touch the springs of his
emotional response to the heavenly Father? What religious concepts, once
developed, will lead the youth into a rich fullness of personal
experience and develop in him the will and capacity to serve others?
What religious knowledge will finally make most certain a life of
loyalty to the church and the great cause for which it stands?" When we
can answer these questions we shall then be able to say what knowledge
is of most worth in the religious training of our children.


THE CHILD'S CONCEPT OF GOD

The child must come to know about God, even as a little child. Long
before he can understand about _religion_, he can learn about a heavenly
Father. This does not imply that the child (or that we ourselves!) can
know God in any full or complete way. Indeed, a God who could be known
in his entirety by even the deepest and wisest finite mind would be no
God at all. Yet everyone must give some meaning to God. Everyone does
have some more or less definite idea, image, or mental picture of the
God he thinks about, prays to, and worships.

The child's idea of God develops gradually.--We need not be concerned
that God does not mean the same to the child with his mental limitations
that he means to us. Meaning comes only out of experience, and this will
grow. The great thing is that the child's fundamental concept of God
shall start right, that in so far as it goes it shall be essentially
true, and that it shall be clear and definite enough to guide his
actions. More than this we cannot ask for; less than this does not give
the child a God real enough to be a vital factor and an active force in
his life.