Perhaps the capital mistake in the religious education of the family is that we overemphasize this or the other method and mechanism instead of bending every effort to secure a real religious atmosphere and soil in which young souls can really grow while we leave the process of growth more largely to the great husbandman.  And the second great mistake is that we are looking for mechanical evidence of a religious life instead of for the development of a whole person.  We must reinterpret the family to ourselves and see it as the one great opportunity life affords us to grow other lives and to bring them to spiritual fulness by providing a social atmosphere of the spirit and a constant, normal presentation of social living in spiritual terms.

Sec. 8.  THE ORGANIZATION OF LOYALTY

When parents conceive the family in these terms and so organize the life of the home, the child becomes conscious of the fact, and at once the life of the family furnishes him with his first, his nearest, and most satisfactory appeal to loyalty.  He feels that which he cannot analyze or express, the spiritual beauty and loyalty of family life.  That life furnishes a soil and atmosphere for his soul.  It is an atmosphere made of many elements:  the primary and dominating purpose of parents and older persons, the habitual life of service and love, the consciousness of the reality of the Divine Presence, the fragrance of chastened character and experience, the customs of worship and affections.  These things are not easily created, they cannot be readily defined, nor can directions be given in a facile manner for their cultivation.  They are the elements most difficult to describe, hardest of all to secure when lacking, least easily labeled, not to be purchased ready-made, and yet without them religious education is wholly impossible in the family.  Without this immediate appeal to loyalty the loyalties of the child toward higher and divine aims do not develop early; they are retarded and often remain dormant.  For us all scarcely any more important question can be presented than this:  What appeals to spiritual idealism and loyalty does our family life present to the child?  What quickening of love for goodness and purity, truth and service, is there in the home and its conduct?

     I. References for Study

     G.A.  Coe, Education in Religion and Morals, chaps. i, ii, xii,
     xiii.  Revell, $1.35.

     George Hodges, Training of Children in Religion, chaps. i, ii. 
     Appleton, $1.50.

     J.T.  McFarland, Preservation versus Resurrection.  Eaton & Mains,
     $0.07.

     II.  Further Reading

     C.W.  Votaw, Progress of Moral and Religious Education in the
     American Home.  Religious Education Association, $0.25.

     George Hodges, Training of Children, chaps. i, ii, xv.  Appleton,
     $1.50.