The Seventh Commandment must be explained to mean that husband and wife must always be faithful and kind to each other.
The Eighth Commandment needs some discussion, because children are often prone to petty thieving. In the moral code of many children stealing means taking money or objects of great value, but the appropriation of small objects, such as pens, pencils, chalk, etc., does not come under the same category. Moreover, stealing only means taking something from somebody's hand or pocket, and does not include the appropriation of an object which the owner has carelessly left where another might claim it under the law of "Finding's keeping", which, according to the code of childhood, is often held to apply even when the finder knows to whom the object found belongs. The teacher's duty is, therefore, to take this opportunity of enlarging the child's concept of theft and developing his property sense, a sense which is naturally defective in children, since they neither earn nor hold property in their own right. Avoid, however, abstract and purely theoretic discussion and make your point by presenting concrete hypothetical examples for the exercise of their moral judgment, as, for instance:
"I am sure that none of you would take from anybody money or anything else that you thought of great value, but suppose you saw a little stump of a pencil that a boy had left on his desk, and you just wanted it, or a piece of chalk from the blackboard, or some fruit or candy that you saw in your neighbor's desk, would it be right for you to take it? If you saw some money on the street and you did not know how it came there, would you take it? If you saw some money fall from a man's pocket on the street, would you take it? If you found a pocketbook and when you opened it, saw that it had a card with the owner's name and address on it, what would you do? If you found a pocketbook or some money, or some pencils or books in this school, what would you do, etc.?"
The meaning of the Ninth Commandment must be extended to enjoin truthfulness in general. By methods similar to those used in explaining the Eighth, the teacher must extend the child's concept of lying to include any kind of conscious deception, the silent lie equally with the spoken one.
The Tenth Commandment is a little too subtle and refined for the child's grasp and need not be dwelt on at length. The teacher need only explain that to want to steal, even if we are kept back from stealing because we are afraid of the police, or afraid of our teachers, or of any punishment, is just as wrong as to steal.
CHAPTER X
THE GOLDEN CALF
Exodus 32.1 to 34.35
Interpretation. The people of Israel could not at once rise to the height of that conception of God, which had been revealed to them at Sinai. So long as Moses was with them to tell them the word of the Lord, they found it possible to believe in God, though they did not see Him, for He spoke to them daily through the mouth of His appointed servant, Moses. But Moses had vanished into the thick darkness, and days and weeks had passed without his return. This made it increasingly difficult for them to experience the reality of the invisible God, who had led them from Egypt. They, consequently, demanded some image to which they might look and which might keep them in mind of the object of their adoration. Their intention was not so much to exchange the God who had led them from Egypt for another as to image Him forth as an aid to their devotion. They, no doubt, spoke in good faith when they declared, "This is thy god, O Israel". That they should worship Him in the form of a bull (for the calf must be understood to be the small image of a bull, small by reason of the precious metal employed) is not surprising in view of the common conception of the divinity in that form, both in Egypt and in Canaan. Aaron reluctantly yields to their importunities, and the people rejoice in having a God who can go before them.