new spiritual consciousness in the child's life may not involve any
special nor abrupt upheaval. If the child is wisely led, and if he
develops normally in his religion, it almost certainly will not.
Countless thousands of those who are living lives very full of spiritual
values have come into the rich consciousness of divine relationship so
gradually that the separate steps cannot be distinguished. "First the
blade, then the ear, and then the full grain in the ear" is the natural
law of spiritual growth.

The bearing of this truth upon our teaching is that we must seek for the
unfolding of the child's spiritual nature and for the turning of his
thought and affections toward God from the first. We must not point to
some distant day ahead when the child will "accept Jesus" or become "a
child of God." We must ourselves think of the child, and lead the child
to think of himself, as a member of God's family.

This does not mean that the child, as he grows from childhood into youth
and adulthood, will not need to make a personal and definite decision to
give God and the Christ first place in his life; he will need to do this
not once, but many times. It only means that from his earliest years the
child is to be made to feel that he belongs to God, and should turn to
him as Father and Friend. Day by day and week by week the child should
be growing more vitally conscious of God's place in his life, and more
responsive to this relationship. Only by this steady and continuous
process of growth will the spiritual nature take on the depth and
quality which the Christian ideal sets for its attainment.

Ideals and ambitions.--In order that religion may be a helpful reality
to the child it must extend to his developing ideals and ambitions. For
even children have ideals and ambitions, however crude they may be, or