ut or plan much for this. God and heaven were imagined as close
above in the sky? the judgment day was ever held threateningly before
us; and pictures of a literal lake of fire and brimstone, into which
wicked people would be cast, were painted for the imagination of
children, till, as the experience of hundreds testifies, even the most
conscientious of them feared to close their eyes in sleep at night lest
they should awake in that terrible place of torment.

From this doubtless too severe and harsh religious regime, a reaction
has taken place which has thrown the customs of family life and the
religious education of the young people of to-day far into the opposite
extreme. The hurry and railroad rush of modern social and commercial
life have shortened or even cut off entirely the hours for family
worship. In the modern effort to emphasize the fact that God is love,
the other fact that sin deserves and receives punishment has been
thrown too far into the background, or is ignored altogether. Regular
reading of the Bible has become as rare as it formerly was universal.
Irreverence and skepticism in regard to its truths and teachings
permeate a large portion of society, and the general influence of the
social life of young people is opposed to the cultivation or expression
of the religious spirit or aspiration. All this involves the loss of a
most valuable mental and spiritual discipline, and earnest parents of
to-day are at a loss how to supply it.

I will press upon your attention only one argument for the culture of a
religious spirit, and that is the argument of experience. What is the
universal testimony of those whose lives are really governed by the fear
and love of a divine Creator? It is that in the consciousness of a
desire to obey God and live in harmony with His laws they find their
highest happiness.

To everyone who lives beyond the earliest period of childhood, comes at
some time or other sorrow, disappointment, sickness, loss, bereavement.
The great fact of death looms up at the end of every pathway, however
bright and happy. The universal testimony of the human race, from the
earliest records of human experience to the present time, is that only
faith and hope in a beneficent God ruling over all events can sustain
and comfort the human heart through all the changes and vicissitudes of
life, and reconcile to the thought of death.

Early youth is naturally happy, gay, care-free, and indifferent to
sorr