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How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods by George Herbert Betts
page 86 of 226 (38%)
purity and clean living. We must make him feel a deep sense of
responsibility for the full development and fruitful use of his own
powers and abilities. In short, we must with all the wisdom and devotion
we possess _bring him to accept the life of Jesus as the ideal and
pattern for his own life_.

Fine appreciations.--What one admires is an index to his character.
More than this, the quality and tone of one's admirations finally build
themselves into his nature and become a part of his very being. Life is
infinitely enriched and refined by responding to the beauty, the
goodness, and the gladness to be found around us. In Hawthorne's story
of The Great Stone Face, the boy Ernest dwelt upon and admired the
character revealed in the benignant lines of the great face outlined by
the hand of the Creator on the mountainside until the fine qualities
which the young boy daily idealized had grown into his own life, and
Ernest himself had become the "wise man" whose coming had long been
awaited by his people.

It is not enough therefore to learn the _facts_ about the lives of the
great men and women of the Bible or of other times. The story of their
lives must be presented in such a way that _admiration_ is compelled
from the learner: for only the qualities the child appreciates and
admires are finally built into his own ideal. It is not enough that the
child shall be taught that God created the world and all that is
therein; he must also be brought to appreciate and admire the wonders
and beauties of nature as an evidence of God's wisdom, power, and
goodness. It is not enough that our pupils shall come to know the chief
events in the life of Jesus and the outline of his teachings; they must
also find themselves lost in admiration of the matchless qualities of
his great personality.
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