on for refusing to tell, the
information must be sought elsewhere. And it will very soon be
forthcoming from some one--the nurse, or the cook, or the waitress. God
made the world--He lives in heaven--He rewards people if they are good,
by making them angels; and if they are bad, He sends them to hell, to be
roasted by the devil. The churches, which the child has seen, are where
people go to pray to God and worship Him.

This answers the question and is perfectly satisfactory, for the time
being. But the attitude of mother is apt to give rise to suspicion that
she was only pretending, when she said she didn't know. If the nurse
knows--and all the people who go to church, know--then mother must know,
too. Perhaps mother, for reasons of her own, doesn't wish him to know
yet, and would blame the nurse for telling him? Then the nurse would
blame him. If mother chooses to conceal things from him, he can avoid
trouble by concealing things from mother. This implies a breach of
confidence between mother and son--which is not at all good for a
forming character.

It is far better for mother to show a sympathetic understanding of the
soul need and respond to it accordingly. A child has no end of
imagination, and feelings to correspond. It is the spirit and meaning of
ideas which signify, and not their material accuracy. Rhymes and jingles
and mother goose and fairy tales and Santa Claus are all founded on an
understanding of this. They supply in fanciful form a very real and
necessary food for the inner nature. In the same way, with this
religious groping, food that will satisfy must be given in some form.

But as a religious belief is something which it is hoped will last
through life, it would seem best to clothe it, as far as possible, in
ideas that will not have to be discarded by the intellect, when that
becomes enlightened.

Nearly every mother believes that the world and all it contains were
created, somehow, by an all-wise Being--and that this Being has an
everlasting existence somewhere. The usual name for that Being, in the
English language, is God, and the unknown place where He dwells, is
usually called heaven. That is something which may be told to any child;
the idea is easy to grasp, it responds to a fundamental need, and it can
never be disproved by any amount of science, or enlightenment.

As compared to God, mother and father and all people on the earth are
like little children, and each and every one is all