Part 3 (1/2)

Teachers have overco with the difficulties presented by the Old Testament Very fe hesitate to take the book of Genesis, and, at all events if they are dealing with a high form, they let the boys see that the conflict between science and religion is only apparent, and that the victory of science does not h to use Driver's book on Genesis they will have felt on sure ground and any learner who has half understood it will have a shi+eld against soeneration No teacher noould be afraid ofclear the problems presented by the book of Daniel or the book of Job, but when the New Testament is approached ht to be felt Diffidence ought not however to involve silence

A wise teacher has said that it is not the miracles of Christ but his standard that keeps men away from his Church, and therefore outside the influence for which the Church stands True though thisit is not the whole truth In those critical years of a hteen and twenty-five--it is the sudden or the sloing doubt about the miracles of the New Testament, as much as the lofty standard that the ”Follow me” of Christ requires, that ious faith so hard More and e for the perils that threaten the physical health and the character of the young; but it is tragic that they should be so unwilling to face frankly the perils that will sap the man's faith, and so expose his soul to the assaults of the world and the devil It is very hard to put oneself in another's place; perhaps harder for the school such a subject as religion--a subject whose roots s of sincerity, we should try to ihtful boy when he first discovers that the lessons which he has so often learnt and the Creeds that he has so often repeated were taken by his teachers in a sense which they carefully concealed from hiestion of doubt

It may be extraordinarily difficult to treat these proble reverence; but is it not true to say that the day when it becoht to stop dealing with thelib confidence of the ignorant or the cynical concealment of one who knows but dare not tell What idea of the New Testae boy who leaves, say in the fifth form, carry aith him from his public school? He may know that certain facts are told in one Gospel and not in another; that there are certain inconsistencies in the accounts given by the different Synoptic Gospels of the same miracle, or what is apparently the same miracle He may be able to explain the parables more fully than their author ever ers'

ends St Paul's journeys and even have been thrilled by St Paul's shi+pwreck, but he will probably have ood news for hith

This failure to appreciate and to accept the challenge of religion--a failure shown later on in life in a certain diffidence about foreign missions, and in the toleration of social conditions that deny Christ as flatly as ever Peter did--is not the fault of the schools alone

The schools only reflect the world outside and the homes froht as there should be The difficulty of the vicious circle dominates this as so many other problems School reacts on the world, the world on the home[1]

and the home on school, the blame cannot be apportioned, need not be apportioned; how the circle can be broken it is much more important to determine From time to time it has been broken, so decisively too that for a while the riddle seems solved, at all events the old way is abandoned for ever Arnold's work at Rugby must have involved such a breach His work has never had to be done all over again and there have been many to keep it in repair, but it needs to be extended now in the light of new problems, scientific, social and international

For this, as for all other extensions, courage is needed The courage to face the difficulties that e to point out that our Lord, though in his short career he changed the bias of uide for conduct or for happiness It was to a siht the laws of purity and love, he did not extend the range of their application beyond the needs of the Pharisee, the Sadducee, the Scribe, the peasant and the dweller in the little towns through which he shed the light of his presence These laws sanctify the whole of life because they do, but they do not answer all questions about all the subordinate provinces of life The arts in their narrow sense, philosophy, even pleasure, they pass by Man will not neglect the one or distort the other if he has really breathed the spirit of Christ, but at tiency of his Master's business will see by the old, and explaining to the young, for otherwise life will be one-sided, and when the day comes, as come it must to those who think, when a choiceliterally in Christ's footsteps and turning the back on much of the beauty and the thrill of the world, bewilderment will seize the chooser and at the best he will dedicate himself to a joyless and unattractive puritanise across the ocean of life Religion at schoolpower the impulses, aesthetic and intellectual, that become powerful in late boyhood and early nores their existence, or endeavours to starve them, they may well assert therade the whole of life

The scripture lesson will indeed es of a boy's career, set hi on these subjects, and help him to a wise appreciation of the holiness of beauty as well as of the beauty of holiness To accoives noble help All the qualities of great literature shi+ne forth froht the tawdry and the melodramatic It is an ill service not to make all familiar with the actual words of Holy Writ Commentaries and Bible histories may be at times convenient tools, but they are only tools, and accurate knowledge of what they teach is no compensation for a want of respectful familiarity with the text itself

Hardly less iood and evil are the chapel services They are ued that public worshi+p is distasteful in later life because of the compulsory chapels of boyhood If this were really so, evidence should be forthco that those who come from schools where there is no compulsory attendance at chapel, because there is no chapel to attend, are er to avail thee chapels than are their more chapel ridden contemporaries No one, however, can be quite satisfied that chapel services are as helpful as they estion that they should all be voluntary is at first sight attractive but there are two insuperable difficulties The one is the power of fashi+on, for it ht well become fashi+onable in a certain house not to attend chapel

Those who know anything of the inside of schools kno such a fashi+on would deter ht not to be part of the training of school life The other difficulty is inates in the boys' quite healthy fear of clai merit Those in authority, if wise, would not count attendance at chapel for righteousness, but soht think that they would do so, and ht stay away in consequence, and thus deprive the they really valued Two or three, notmotive, and perhaps these would stay to pray, but they would be no compensation for the loss of the others

From time to time it is possible to have voluntary services, and attendance at Holy Communion should always be voluntary, not only in nalects this duty should go on neglecting it, than that those who come should feel that their presence is noted with approval or the reverse

But it is different with the daily service Irksome it may sometimes be, not only to boys; but half its virtue lies in the fact that all are there in body and may sometimes be there in spirit too The fa hymns leads to inattention perhaps, but seldoious emotion may only occasionally be stirred but the thread of natural piety, binding thened, as fresh strands are added At the least it may be claimed for the chapel services that they rescue from our hours of business sohts are free to make their way to the throne of God Christ's pro rest to those who come to him has been fulfilled in many a school chapel Those of us who have had to pass through the valley of sorrow and temptation and loneliness--and who has not?--know that this is no rumble at what they really value To do so is our national defect,to the onlooker The truth is, we are so fearful of being accused of casting our pearls before swine, that we often pretend, even to ourselves, that e know to be the most precious pearl in our possession is valueless

Mostconfirious life is deepest andof the waters then, and many make the effort, and step in, and are oes on in the mind of anyone at such a tier of a reaction, and, guard against it as one may, it exists and soer to which the school confirmation an occasion for much talk on sexual difficulties The existence of these should be faced, but at any time rather than at confir with the commandments

It is a real disaster for a child to associate this ti to shoulder enthusiastically his responsibilities as a citizen of God's Kingdom upon earth, with any particular sin He ood It is on good that his eyes should be fixed It is towards the Lord of all that is good that his heart should be uplifted Anyone who has had to do with this tiious life, how reluctant he is to speak of it, how perilous it is to disturb his reluctance by inquisitive question or excessive exhortation He knows, too, how ained by contact at such tis of less world-stained souls, hoondrous has been the spiritual refreshment that has coer heart

For most boys it is a loss not to be confiries, their hopes, their disappointments and their temptations; but the loss to the masters who share their preparation would be irreparable They e and experience, but their will to help is strong, and perhaps not least persuasive when chastened by diffidence

But all these scripture lessons, chapel services and confirmation preparation will be powerless to produce a Christian education, if they be not held together by every lesson and by the whole life of the school Industry and obedience, truthfulness and fidelity to duty, unselfishness and thoroughness, row; and these are taught and learnt in the struggle with Latin prose, or rammar, or scientific forround, in the give and take, the pains and the pleasures of daily life

It is hard for us in England to is of ainst it; perhaps it is equally difficult for us to realise how far we fall short of e ht accomplish did the spirit of Christianity really inform our lives

To-day is our opportunity The clai listened to as they never have been in England Money inpro canvassed, theshaken It is a tier too All sorts of plans are being for down the partition walls that divide man from man, and class from class, and nation froround encuood limpses, and which the Son of Man set out for us to follow The peril now lies, not in the fact of nothing being done, but in some starved idea of a narrow patriotisht two lessons;--one that the efforts we uard our country from spiritual and moral foes were shamefully trivial compared with those we have made since to keep our visible foe at bay; the other that our responsibilities for the future, if we are to justify our claims to be the champions of justice and weakness, can never be borne unless we learn ourselves, and teach each generation as it grows up, to face the fierce light that shi+nes from heaven All sorts of devices, ecclesiastical and political have been adopted to break up that light and make it tolerable for our weak eyes Men have been so afraid of children being blinded by it that they have allowed theht of coe uides and sanctions for his conduct of life, namely the welfare of his city, and the laws and traditions of his ancestors

Has the average er sanctions now? Is a land than was made to the children of Athens? Just before Joshua led his people over the Jordan, he instructed theo before them and a space to be left between theo, _for they had not passed this way before_ Once again a river of decision has to be crossed, a road has to be trodden along which men have not passed before Whether we speak of reconstruction or a new start or use any other s, the idea is the same We must see to it that the ark of the covenant is borne before our nation and our schools, along the way that is new and still full of stones of stu

Either the old landmarks have disappeared or a new land has to be explored Sos have to be s have been destroyed or are found wanting It is to the schools, to the holand that the richest opportunity co the Christian education and the Christian life react upon one another the partition walls between religion and conduct will be broken down for every age Intentionally or unintentionally, these walls have been built up, perhaps by the teachers and parents, certainly by the conventions of life The result is that though there is ed by those outside and than those within care to boast of, and though the standard of conduct is not ignoble, there is too little fusion; both components are brittle, they cannot stand the strain of sudden teet how in those first months of war, consolation was offered even from pulpits for all the horrors and the sadness and the waste of conflict in the thought that as a nation we should be purged of selfishness, of luxury, of sensuality, of all the vices that peace engenders That is surely a shaion had been in vain We had to wait for, and partake in, a three years' orgy of cruelty and violence to learn what our Lord had taught us in three years of gentleness If we are going to teach the same lessons about hen peace isthe e that a Christian education cannot teach us anything about Christianity