CHAPTER X 



THE SCIENTIFIC EKA OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 



THERE are other elements than the dawn of the 

 moral sense that enter into the question, When 

 is the ideal time for religious instruction? The 

 period for the formation of habits is from the 

 third to the seventh year. Character, from one 

 point of view, is the by-product of actions, and 

 habitual actions thus are of most intense impor- 

 tance. Perhaps it was from some such knowledge 

 as this that caused that student of this question, 

 the most profound yet produced in America, Hor- 

 ace Bushnell, to say that more could be done to 

 make or mar the eternal destiny of a child be- 

 fore three years of age than could be done after- 

 wards. Eemembering, then, the importance of 

 these early years, and then from six years on to 

 thirteen or fourteen, we have the period of op- 

 portunity for parent or teacher to lead a soul to 

 Christ. After sixteen we may compare their res- 

 cue to that of the passengers wrecked in the ocean, 

 clinging to planks and timbers. Some of them 

 will be picked up ; but it all seems accidental, and 

 no rule can be named as to how it may be accom- 

 plished. There probably always has been in the 



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