And then the difficulty comes
in, that they ask artlessly whether such a story as the miracle of
Cana, or the feeding of the five thousand, is true. I reply frankly
that we cannot be sure; that the people who wrote it down believed
it to be true, but that it came to them by hearsay; and the
children seem to have no difficulty about the matter. Then, too, I
do not want them to be too familiar, as children, with the words of
Christ, because I am sure that it is a fact that, for many people,
a mechanical familiarity with the Gospel language simply blurs and
weakens the marvellous significance and beauty of the thought. It
becomes so crystallised that they cannot penetrate it. I have
treated some parts of the Gospel after the fashion of
Philochristus, telling them a story, as though seen by some earnest
spectator. I find that they take the deepest interest in these
stories, and that the figure of Christ is very real and august to
them. But I teach them no doctrine except the very simplest--the
Fatherhood of God, the Divinity of Christ, the indwelling voice of
the Spirit; and I am sure that religion is a pure, sweet, vital
force in their lives, not a harsh thing, a question of sin and
punishment, but a matter of Love, Strength, Forgiveness, Holiness.
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