apes of seats and the colors of
walls; but there remain deep impressions of wonder, beauty, and the
meaning of God from Sunday mornings spent with his father under the
great beeches in Epping Forest, listening to the reading and singing of
the old hymns, or joining in conversation on the woods and the flowers,
and even on the legends of Robin Hood in the forest.

Sec. 6. THE EVERYDAY OPPORTUNITIES

Seventhly, natural conversation affords the best opportunity for direct
instruction. A child is a peripatetic interrogation. His questions cover
the universe; there are no doors which you desire to see opened that he
will not approach at some time. There is great advantage when the
religious question rises normally; when the child begins it and when the
interest continues with the same naturalness as in conversation on any
other subject. Then questions usually take one of three forms: mere
childish, curious questions, questions on conduct, and questions on
religion in its organized form.

The child's curiosity is the basis of even those questions which have
usually been credited to preternatural piety. The tiny youngster who
asks strange questions about God asks equally startling ones about
fairies or about his grandmother. But his questions give us the chance
to direct him to right thoughts of God. Here we need to be sure of our
own thoughts and to keep in mind our principal purpose, to quicken in
this child loyalty to the highest and best. He must be shown a God whom
he can love and, at the same time, one who will call for his growing
loyalty, his courage, and devotion. Everything for the child's future
depends on the pictures he now forms. We all carry to a large degree our
childhood's view of God.

Some of the child's questions probe deep; how shall we answer them? When
you know the truth tell him the truth, being sure that it is told in
language that really conveys truth to his mind. The danger is that
parents will attempt to tell more than they know, to answer questions
that cannot be answered, or that they will, in sloth or cowardice or
ignorance, tell children untrue things. If a child asks, "Did God make
the world?" the answer that will be true to the child may be a simple
affirmative. If the child asks or his query implies, "Did God make the
leaves, or the birds, with his fingers?" we had better take time to
show the difference between man's making of things and the working of
the divine energy through all the