THE BIRTH FROM ABOVE 183 



child has complex and untraceable beginnings in 

 the spirit and atmosphere of the home, in child- 

 hood prayers, in participation in religious rites 

 and customs, in imitations of those about him, in 

 wise parental instruction and discipline, and in the 

 hidden influence of the Holy Spirit. These 

 things can not be dated." (Bowne: "Studies in 

 Christianity," 269.) A very remarkable case of 

 this in the concrete is that of Phillips Brooks. 

 He had felt the call to preach and went to talk 

 to his pastor about the preliminaries. His pastor 

 remarked that it was usual to be converted be- 

 fore beginning to preach. Brooks replied that 

 he knew nothing about conversion. ("Life and 

 Letters," I, 142.) 



We are assuming that all this time the child 

 is in a relation such as is technically defined as 

 the justified relation to God. This relation may 

 be broken in his case, as it is in the case of the 

 adult by disobedience to its standard of right. 

 That broken relation may be re-established by 

 contrition, as also in the case of the adult. Here, 

 again, the parent fulfills his function by teaching 

 the child the place of repentance. These missteps 

 and restorations have in them more of the nature 

 of the sorrow and restoration as experienced by 

 the adult Christian than of the breaking off of the 

 wicked life by the adult sinner in conversion. 



The means of developing this God-conscious- 

 ness is of importance to note. In his early years 

 the child is a creature of imitation and subject to 



