Instead of saying to the child, “This is the thought you should have, and this is what you should feel, and this is what you ought to do,” he is allowed to draw meanings and have feelings of his own, for then they are genuinely a part of his soul, not something foisted upon him.

But even though the application is not made, nurture will consciously present impressions intended to suggest certain feelings.  The Sunday School lesson, the missionary story, the visit to the poor family, the song carefully selected, all fall in this class.  Special mention should be made of the great effect upon the child in making attractive in another, the feeling desired for him.  A single incident will illustrate this:  A frightened little candidate for the Beginners’ Class and his stern mother stood one Sunday morning before the Primary superintendent.  “He’s got to stay in here by himself today,” she said; “I won’t have such nonsense.  Look at him, with his first trousers on!  I’m ashamed of him!” The superintendent did look and saw the new trousers, and in them the trembling little body, and a soul speechless with terror at facing for the first time, alone, the unknown experience of a great world, even though it was enclosed in four walls.  There was no trace of relenting in the mother’s face, and any plea for pity was useless.  But the new trousers gave a possible key to the situation.  “Why, so he has new trousers on!” the superintendent said.  “I want to see them,” and very thoroughly and enthusiastically they were inspected.  “I didn’t know that he was so nearly a man that he could wear trousers instead of dresses.  I am sure he will stay alone today because men do and are not at all afraid.”  She waited.  Gradually the little head lifted as the thought of bravery began to make its appeal.  He put his hand into the hand of the superintendent, and without hesitation started on the perilous journey across the room to the Beginners’ section, where no punishment could have driven him a few moments earlier, and proud and heroic sat by himself through the hour.  Such is the power of suggestion.

Two points, however, must be carefully guarded in deliberate effort to arouse a feeling.

1.  Care must be exercised not to over stimulate feeling, as an excess beyond that which can be expended in action has an after weakening and reactionary effect.  This has its illustration in certain methods of evangelistic work with children, where results are measured by their hysterical condition when the meeting concludes.  Contrast with this the gentleness which breathes through the story of the Master’s touch, as He took them in His arms and blessed them, laying His hands upon them, when He had said, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me.”

2.  It is as injurious to a child to attempt to force a feeling before its normal time, as to a bud, to pry open its petals to hasten God’s processes.  Even the Divine Child “grew.”  “That is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual,” is God’s law of unfolding life.