Much that has been said about the method and aim of stories might apply to those taken from the Bible, but they need certain additional considerations.  Here religion and morality come very closely together:  the recognition of a definite personality behind all circumstances of life, to whom our conduct matters, gives a soul to morality.  The Old Testament is a record of the growth of a nation more fully conscious of God than is the record of any other nation, and because of this children can understand God in human life when they read such stories as the childhood of Moses and of Samuel.  Children resemble the young Jewish nation in this respect:  they accept the direct intervention of God in the life of every day.  Their primitive sense of justice, which is an eye for an eye, will make them welcome joyfully the plagues of Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea.  It would be premature to force on them the more mature idea of mercy, which would probably lead to confusion of judgement:  they must be clear about the balance of things before they readjust it for themselves.

Much of the material in the Old Testament is hardly suitable for very young children, but the most should be made of what there is:  the lives of Eastern people are interesting to children and help to make the phraseology of the Psalms and even of the narratives clear to them.  Wonder stories such as the Creation, the Flood, the Burning Bush, Elijah’s experiences, appeal to them on another side, the side that is eager to wonder:  the accounts of the childhood of Ishmael, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, David and Samuel, and the little Syrian maid, come very close to them.  Such stories should be given to young children so that they form part of the enchanted memory of childhood—­which is permanent.

With the New Testament the problem is more difficult:  one hesitates to bring the life of Christ before children until they are ready to understand, even in some degree, its significance; the subject is apt to be dealt with either too familiarly, and made too commonplace and everyday a matter, or as something so far removed from human affairs as to be mysterious and remote to a child.  To mix Old and New Testament indiscriminately, as, for example, by taking them on alternate days, is unforgivable, and no teacher who has studied the Bible seriously could do so, if she cared about the religious training of her children, and understood the Bible.

If the children can realise something of the sense in which Christ helped human beings, then some of the incidents in His life might be given, such as His birth, His work of healing, feeding and helping the poor, and some of His stories, such as the lost sheep, the lost son, the sower, the good Samaritan.  It is difficult to speak strongly enough of the mistreatment of Scripture, under the name of religion:  it has been spoilt more than any other subject in the curriculum, chiefly by being taken too often and too slightly,