[Illustration: CHILDREN GO TO CHURCH]
Readiness to teach is no longer a sufficient credential. The amiable young girl must now not only be willing to teach, she must also be willing to learn how to teach. In the earlier time practically any well- disposed young man of the congregation who would consent to take charge of a class of boys was eagerly allotted that class without further parley. This, too, is not now the case. The young man, before beginning to teach the boys, is obliged to prepare himself somewhat specifically for such work. In my own parish the boys' classes of the Sunday-school are taught by young men who are students in the Theological School of which my parish church is the chapel. In an adjacent parish the "infant class" is in charge of an accomplished kindergartner. Surely such persons are well qualified to help to inspire and to encourage the children to regard churchgoing as a privilege, and to make them wish to go!
And the minister! I am inclined to think that the minister helps more than any one else, except the father and mother, to give the children this inspiration, this encouragement. Children go to church now, when churchgoing is voluntary, quite as much as they went when it was compulsory. They learn very early to wish to go; they see with small difficulty that it is a privilege. Their Sunday-school teachers might help them, even their parents might help them, but, unless the minister helped them, would this be so?
There are so many ways in which the minister does his part in this matter of the child's relation to the church, and to those things for which the church stands. They are happily familiar to us through our child friends: the "children's service" at Christmas and at Easter; the "talks to children" on certain Sundays of the year. These are some of them. And there are other, more individual, more intimate ways.
The other day a little girl who is a friend of mine asked me to make out a list of books likely to be found in the "children's room" of the near- by public library that I thought she would enjoy reading. On the list I put "The Little Lame Prince," the charming story by Dinah Mulock. Having completed the list, I read it aloud to the little girl. When I reached Miss Mulock's book, she interrupted me.
"'The Little Lame Prince,' did you say? Is that in the library? I thought it was in the Bible."
"The Bible!" I exclaimed.
"Yes," the child said, in some surprise; "don't you remember? He was Jonathan's little boy—Jonathan, that was David's friend—David, that killed the giant, you know."
I at once investigated. The little girl was quite correct. "Who told you about him?" I inquired.
"Our minister," she replied. "He read it to me and some of the other children."