Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III CHILDREN'S INTEREST IN THE BIBLE In the preceding chapters, I have aimed to suggest a certain background philosophy of human life, which, I believe, should be the starting-point in religious education; together with the elements of the religious nature with which such education primarily has to do. I shall next try to apply the facts and principles thus suggested to a study of the subject- matter of religious education, as drawn from the Bible. The Bible and religious education.—It is, of course, a theoretical, as well as a practical, demand of the Christian religion, that the Bible shall be a principal source of religious culture-material. The reasonableness of this demand is not apt to be questioned by anyone who thinks seriously upon the subject. Whatever may be thought of Christianity as a type of religion, there can be no question that the civilization we live in is intimately identified with it. Nor can there be any question that Christianity, in its origin, nature, and historical development, has depended upon the Bible. So that neither Christianity nor Christian civilization can be accounted for without a knowledge of the spirit and content of this book. The children of any given generation of Christians can come toj:heirfull heritage, not merely of religious beliefs, but also of literary, ethical, social, and political ideals and usages that have grown up along with Christianity, only by being made thoroughly familiar with the Bible. This establishes the claim of the Bible to a generous recognition as a great primary source of ideals, facts, and principles necessary to a proper understanding and appropriation of the content of Christian civilization. Such recognition is quite independent of religious considerations, in the ordinary sense of that term...