The Moral Instruction of Children

by Felix Adler

This is a wonderful story for children. It deserves to be placed at the head of all the others, for it inculcates the cardinal virtue of childhood—obedience. It is also a typical story of the beginning, the progress, and the culmination of temptation. Will you permit me to relate the story as I should tell it to little children? I shall endeavor to keep true to the outlines, and if I depart from the received version in other respects, may I not plead that liberty of interpretation to which I have referred above.

Once upon a time there were two children, Adam and Eve. Adam was a fine and noble-looking lad. He was slender and well built, and fleet of foot as a young deer. Eve was as beautiful as the dawn, with long golden tresses, and blue eyes, and cheeks like the rose. They lived in the loveliest garden that you have ever heard of. There were tall trees in it, and open meadows where the grass was as smooth as on a lawn, and clear, murmuring brooks ran through the woods. And there were dense thickets filled with the perfume of flowers, and the flowers grew in such profusion, and there were so many different kinds, each more beautiful than the rest, that it was a perfect feast for the eyes to look at them. It was so warm that the children never needed to go in-doors, but at night they would just lie down at the foot of some great tree and look at the stars twinkling through the branches until they fell asleep. And when it rained they would find shelter in some beautiful cavern, spreading leaves and moss upon the ground for a bed. The garden where they lived was called Paradise. And there were ever so many animals in it—all kinds of animals—elephants, and tigers, and leopards, and giraffes, and camels, and sheep, and horses, and cows; but even the wild animals did them no harm. But the children were not alone in that garden: their Father lived with them. And every morning when they woke up their first thought was to go to him and to look up into his mild, kind face for a loving glance, and every evening before they went to sleep he would bend over them. And once, as they lay under the great tree, looking at a star shining through the branches, Adam said to Eve: "Our Father's eye shines just like that star."

One day their Father said to them: "My children, there is one tree in this beautiful garden the fruit of which you must not eat, because it is hurtful to you. You can not understand why, but you know that you must obey your Father even when you do not understand. He loves you and knows best what is for your good." So they promised, and for a time remembered. But one day it happened that Eve was passing near the tree of the fruit of which she knew she must not eat, when what should she hear but a snake talking to her. She did not see it, but she heard its voice quite distinctly. And this is what the snake said: "You poor Eve! you must certainly have a hard time. Your Father is always forbidding you something. How stern he is! I am sure that other children can have all the fruit they want." Eve was frightened at first. She knew that her Father was kind and good, and that the snake was telling a falsehood. He did not always forbid things. But still he had forbidden her to eat of the fruit, and she thought that was a little hard; and she could not understand at all why he had done so. Then the snake spoke again: "Listen, Eve! He forbade you to eat only of it. It can do no harm just to look at it. Go up to it. See how it glistens among the branches! How golden it looks!" And the snake kept on whispering: "How good it must be to the taste! Just take one bite of it. Nobody sees you. Only one bite; that can do no harm." And Eve glanced around, and saw that no one was looking, and presently with a hasty movement she seized the fruit and ate of it. Then she said to herself: "Adam, too, must eat of it. I can never bear to eat it alone." So she ran hastily up to Adam, and said: "See, I have some of the forbidden fruit, and you, too, must eat." And he, too, looked at it and was tempted, and ate. But that evening they were very much afraid. They knew they had done wrong, and their consciences troubled them. So they hurried away into the wood where it was deepest, and hid themselves in the bushes. But soon they heard their Father calling to them; and it was strange, their Father's voice had never sounded so sad before. And in a few moments he found them where they were hiding. And he said to them: "Why do you hide from me?" And they were very much confused, and stammered forth all sorts of excuses. But he said: "Come hither, children." And he looked into their eyes, and said: "Have you eaten of the fruit of which I told you not to eat?" And Adam, who was thoughtless and somewhat selfish, spoke up, and said: "Yes, but it was Eve who gave me of it; she led me on." And Eve hung her head, and said: "It was the snake that made me eat." Now the snake, you know, was no real snake at all; she never saw it, she only heard its voice. And, you know, when we want to do anything wicked, there is within every one of us something bad, that seems to whisper: "Just look! Mere looking will do no harm"; and then: "Just taste; no one sees you." So the snake was the bad feeling in Eve's heart. And their Father took them by the hand, and said: "Tomorrow, when it is dawn, you will have to leave this place. In this beautiful Paradise no one can stay who has once disobeyed. You, Adam, must learn to labor; and, you, Eve, to be patient and self-denying for others. And, perhaps, after a long, long time, some day, you will come back with me into Paradise again."

It is a free rendering, I admit. I have filled in the details so as to bring it down to the level of children's minds, but the outlines, I think, are there. The points I have developed are all suggested in the Bible. The temptation begins when the snake says with characteristic exaggeration: "Is it true that of all the fruit you are forbidden to eat?" Exaggerating the hardships of the moral command is the first step on the downward road. The second step is Eve's approach to look at the fruit—"and she saw that it was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes." The third step is the actual enjoyment of what is forbidden. The fourth step is the desire for companionship in guilt, so characteristic of sin—"and she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat." The next passage describes the working of conscience, the fear, the shame, the desire to hide, and then comes the moral verdict: You are guilty, both of you. You have lost your paradise. Try to win it back by labor and suffering.

Note.—I would add to what has been said in the text, that the pupils are expected to return to the study of the Bible, to read and re-read these stories, and to receive a progressively higher interpretation of their meaning as they grow older. If in the above I have spoken in a general way of a Father and his two children, it will be easy for the Sunday-school teacher to add later on that the Father in the story was God.

Cain and Abel.

In teaching the story of the two brothers Cain and Abel the following points should be noted. The ancients believed that earthly prosperity and well-being depended on the favor of God, or the gods, and that the favor of the gods could be secured by sacrifice. If any one brought a sacrifice and yet prosperity did not set in, this was supposed to be a sign that his sacrifice had not been accepted. On the other hand, to say of any person that his sacrifice had been accepted, was tantamount to saying that he was happy and prosperous. Applying this to the story of Cain and Abel, we may omit all mention of the bringing of the sacrifices, which presents a great and needless difficulty to children's minds, and simply make the equivalent statement that Abel was prosperous and Cain was not.

Again, Cain is not represented as an intentional murderer. The true interpretation of the story depends on our bearing this in mind. It is erroneous to suppose that a brand was fixed on Cain's forehead. The passage in question, correctly understood, means that God gave Cain a sign to reassure him that he should not be regarded by men as a common murderer. With these prefatory remarks the story may be told somewhat as follows:

Long ago there lived two brothers. The name of the elder was Cain, and of the younger Abel. Cain was a farmer. He toiled in the sweat of his brow, tilling the stubborn ground, taking out stones, building fences. Winter and summer he was up before the sun, and yet, despite all his labor, things did not go well with him. His crops often failed through no fault of his. He never seemed to have an easy time. Moreover, Cain was of a proud disposition. Honest he was, and truthful, but taciturn, not caring much to talk to people whom he met, but rather keeping to himself. Abel, on the other hand, was a shepherd. He led, or seemed to lead, the most delightfully easy life. He followed his flocks from one pasture to another, watching them graze; and at noon he would often lie down in the shade of some leafy tree and play on his flute by the hour. He was a skillful musician, a bright, talkative companion, and universally popular. He was a little selfish too, as happy people sometimes are. He liked to talk about his successes, and, in a perfectly innocent way, which yet stung Cain to the quick, he would rattle on to his brother about the increase of his herds, about his plans and prospects, and the pleasant things that people were saying of him. Cain grew jealous of his brother Abel. He did not like to confess it to himself, but yet it was a fact. He kept comparing his own life of grinding toil with the easy, lazy life of the shepherd—it was not quite so lazy, but so it seemed to Cain—his own poverty with the other's wealth, his own loneliness with Abel's popularity. And a frown would often gather on his brow, and he grew more and more moody and silent. He knew that he was not in the right state of mind. There was a voice within him that said: "Sin is at thy door, but thou canst become master over it." Sin is like a wild beast crouching outside the door of the heart. Open the door ever so little, and it will force its way in, and will have you in its power. Keep the door shut, therefore; do not let the first evil thought enter into your heart. Thus only can you remain master of yourself. But Cain was already too far gone to heed the warning voice. One day he and Abel were walking together in the fields. Abel, no doubt, was chatting in his usual gay and thoughtless manner. The world was full of sunshine to him; and he did not realize in the least what dark shadows were gathering about his brother's soul. Perhaps the conversation ran somewhat as follows: He had just had an addition to his herd, the finest calf one could imagine: would not Cain come to admire it? And then, to-morrow evening he was to play for the dancers on the green, at the village feast: would not Cain join in the merry-making? When the solitary, embittered Cain heard such talk as this the angry feeling in his heart rose up like a flood. Overmastered by his passion, with a few wild, incoherent words of rage he turned upon his brother and struck him one fierce blow. Ah, that was a relief! The pent-up feeling had found vent at last. The braggart had received the chastisement he deserved! And Cain walked on; and for a time continued to enjoy his satisfaction. He had just noticed that Abel, when struck, had staggered and fallen, but he did not mind that. "Let him lie there for a while; he will pick himself up presently. He may be lame for a few days, and his milk-white face may not be so fair at the feast, but that will be all the better for him. It will teach him a lesson." Nevertheless, when he had walked on for some distance he began to feel uneasy. He looked around from time to time to see whether Abel was following him, and the voice of conscience began to be heard, saying, "Cain, where is thy brother?" But he silenced it by saying to himself, "Am I my brother's keeper? Is he such a child that he can not take care of himself—that he can not stand a blow?" But he kept looking back more and more often, and when he saw no one coming, he came at last to a dead halt. His heart was beating violently by this time; the beads of perspiration were gathered on his brow. He turned back to seek his missing brother. Then, as he did not meet him, he began to run, and faster and faster he ran, until at last, panting and out of breath, with a horrible fear hounding him on, he arrived at the place where he had struck the blow. And there he saw—a pool of blood, and the waxen face of his brother, and the glazed, broken eyes! And then he realized what he had done. And it is this situation which the Bible has in view in the words, "Behold, thy brother's blood cries up from the earth against thee." And then as he surveyed his deed in stony despair, he said to himself, "I am accursed from the face of the earth"—I am unworthy to live. The earth has no resting-place for such as I. But a sign was given him to show him that his life would not be required of him. He had not committed willful murder. He had simply given the reins to his violent passion. He must go into another land, where no one knew him, there through years of penance to try to regain his peace of soul. The moral of the story is: Do not harbor evil thoughts in the mind. If you have once given them entrance, the acts to which they lead are beyond your control. Cain's sin consisted in not crushing the feeling of envy in the beginning; in comparing his own lot with that of his more favored brother and dwelling on this comparison, until, in a fit of insane passion, he was led on to the unspeakable crime which, indeed, he had never contemplated, to which he had never given an inward assent. The story also illustrates the vain subterfuges with which we still seek to smother the consciousness of guilt after we have done wrong, until the time comes when our eyes are opened and we are compelled to face the consequences of our deeds and to realize them in all their bearings. The story of Cain and Abel is thus a further development of the theme already treated in simpler fashion in the story of Adam and Eve, only that, while in the latter case the filial duty of obedience to parents is in the foreground, attention is here directed to the duty which a brother owes to a brother. It is a striking tale, striking in the vividness with which it conjures up the circumstances before our minds and the clearness with which the principal motives are delineated; and it contains an awful warning for all time.

The question here presents itself, whether we should arrange the biblical stories according to subjects—e. g., grouping together all those which treat of duty to parents, all those which deal with the relations of brothers to brothers, etc.—or whether we should adopt the chronological arrangement. On the whole, I am in favor of the latter. It is expected that the pupils, as they grow older, will undertake a more comprehensive study of the Bible, and for this they will be better prepared if they have been kept to the chronological order from the outset. Another more practical reason is, that children tire of one subject if it is kept before their minds too long. It is better, therefore, to arrange the stories in groups or cycles, each of which will afford opportunity to touch on a variety of moral topics. It will be impossible to continue to relate in extenso the stories which I have selected, and I shall therefore content myself in the main with giving the points of each story upon which the teacher may lay stress.