determine the universe of maturity
are often made in youth; then the foundations are laid of that
apperceiving mass which is to condition all the man's contacts with
reality. We ought, therefore, to show the universe to our young people
from such an angle and in such a light, that they tend quite simply and
without any objectionable intensity to select, emphasize and be
interested in its spiritual aspect. For this purpose we must never try
to force our own reading of that universe upon them; but respect on the
one hand their often extreme sensitiveness and on the other the
infinitely various angles of approach proper to our infinitely various
souls. We should place food before them and leave them to browse. Only
those who have tried this experiment know what such an enlargement of
the horizon and enrichment of knowledge means to the eager, adolescent
mind: how prompt is the response to any appeal which we make to its
nascent sense of mystery. Yet whole schools of thought on these subjects
are cheerfully ignored by the majority of our educationists; hence the
unintelligent and indeed babyish view of religion which is harboured by
many adults, even of the intellectual class.

Though the spiritual life has its roots in the heart not in the head,
and will never be brought about by merely academic knowledge; yet, its
beginnings in adolescence are often lost, because young people are
completely ignorant of the meaning of their own experiences, and the
universal character of those needs and responses which they dimly feel
stirring within them. They are too shy to ask, and no one ever tells
them about it in a business-like and unembarrassing way. This infant
mortality in the spiritual realm ought not to be possible. Experience of
God is the greatest of the rights of man, and should not be left to
become the casual discovery of the few. Therefore prayer ought to be
regarded as a universal human activity, and its nature and difficulties
should be taught, but always in the sense of intercourse rather than of
mere petition: keeping in mind the doctrine of the mystics that "prayer
in itself properly is not else but a devout intent directed unto
God."[147] We teach concentration for the purposes of study; but too
seldom think of applying it to the purposes of prayer. Yet real prayer
is a difficult art; which, like other ways of approaching Perfect
Beauty, only discloses its secrets to those who win them by humble
training and hard wo