cision for Christ and consecrate his life anew to Christ's service. It
means, rather, that the whole attitude of mind, and the complete trend
of life of the child will be religious. It means that the original
purity of innocence will grow into a conscious and joyful acceptance of
the Christ-standard. It means that the child need never know a time when
he is not within the Kingdom, and growing to fuller stature therein. It
means that we should set our aim at _conservation_ instead of
reclamation as the end of our religious training.

Yet what a proportion of the energy of the church is to-day required for
the reclaiming of those who should never have been allowed to go astray!
Evangelistic campaigns, much of the preaching, "personal work,"
Salvation Army programs, and many other agencies are of necessity
organized for the reclaiming of men and women who but yesterday were
children in our homes and church schools, and plastic to our training.
What a tragic waste of energy!--and then those who never return! Should
we not be able more successfully to carry out the Master's injunction,
"_Feed my lambs_"?

The child-Christian.--All of these considerations point to the
inevitable conclusion that the child is the great objective of our
teaching. Indeed, the child ought to be the objective of the work of the
whole church. The saving of its children from wandering outside the fold
is the supreme duty and the strategic opportunity of the church,
standing out above all other claims whatever. We are in some danger of
forgetting that when Jesus wanted to show his disciples the standard of
an ideal Christian he "took a child and set him in the midst of them."
We do not always realize that to _keep_ a child a Christian is much more
important than to reclaim him after he has been allowed to get outside
the fold.

The recent report of a series of special religious meetings states that
there were a certain number of conversions "_exclusive of children_,"
the implication being that the really important results were in the
decisions of the adults. The same point of view was revealed when a
church official remarked after the reception of a large group of new
members, "It was an inspiring sight, _except that there were so few
adults!"_ When shall we learn that if we do our duty by the children
there will be fewer adults left outside for the church to receive?

NO SUBJECT MATTER AN END IN ITSELF

The teacher must first of all take his s