Religious Education in the Family

by Henry Frederick Cope

2. "The Family Book."—To start The Family Book, mother or father raises the question at dinner: "What was the best Sunday of all last year, and why was it the best?" Everyone, from the oldest down to the least, should have a chance to tell. The statements of the older ones will encourage the younger.

That question will start another: What is the very best thing we can remember about the year past? Let everyone take a pencil and paper and in just ten minutes decide on and write down the one thing best worth remembering. Perhaps the baby cannot write yet, but he or she will want paper and pencil, too. Now, instead of making our answers known to one another, we fold the papers and keep them till the evening meal. We will open them then and talk it all over. Afterward we are going to copy the answers into a new book we are going to make.

This new book is to be called The Family Book, and we expect to put into it all the pleasant things we wish to record about our home and family. Any blank book with ruled lines will do. Some time today we will elect a keeper of the book, and before we go to bed we will see the first entry in that book under the title, "Happy Memories of 1915." That will make a good beginning for The Family Book. Next Sunday we will discuss and set down in the book the happy memories of the intervening week.

3. The festival name.—Now, we have been sitting, talking, and writing as long as the children will care to be still. Suppose we all go outdoors together, every one of us. What if the weather is bad? It is seldom truly bad, and there is so much real happiness in going out in all weathers together.

But where shall we go? There is no fun in walking simply for exercise or health. Well, says father, we can decide where to go by naming the day. How? We will find the most interesting birthday or anniversary that falls today or during the next week. If one of the family has a birthday then, that one shall choose our walk for us. If not, then when we have chosen the national hero or heroine whose birthday falls near this time, or the event the anniversary of which comes nearest, we will go, if possible, where something will remind us of that person or event.

So we fall to discussing the possibilities. We search through almanacs until we find the anniversary that suits us all. Perhaps one of the parents has anticipated all this by looking up the matter, and has a good name to suggest. Or the older ones may consult a dictionary of dates. It may turn out to be the birthday of a national hero. In the city he may have a statue; in the country may be found the kinds of woods, flowers, or animals he loved.

4. The exploring party.—But even after the walk it will not be long before the little ones are asking, "What can we do next?" So we organize the exploring party. Our object is to discover the countries, scenes, strange peoples, and most interesting persons we have heard of in the Bible. We are to find them in the advertising sections of old magazines. Let each one take a magazine and go through it, looking for oriental scenes, for pictures of incidents and of men and women that will remind him of Bible scenes and characters. These are to be cut out, explained, and arranged in the order of time, as they happened, every member of the family helping. The same plan may be applied to scenes of missionary work, using blank books for stories of heroism which children will illustrate with the magazine pictures.

5. Home thoughts.—"Home, sweet home," is just a corner of the afternoon saved for the discovery and reading of selections that are worth keeping in our memories and are also likely to help us hold our homes in some measure of the love and reverence they deserve. There are songs of home that ought never to be forgotten.

6. Religious reading and songs close the day happily.—Children love religious reading and songs, provided they are offered for their worth and not as an exercise, or to be learned as an empty duty. Take down your Bible and read Psalm 100, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands"; see whether they do not all enjoy the music and majesty of those lines. You will not find it difficult to secure their co-operation in learning that by heart.

Then close the day with an hour of song. The children will remember songs learned thus all their lives; therefore those worth remembering should be chosen. For one, there is that dear old song many of us learned at mother's knee, "Jesus loves me, this I know." That and others that are appropriate can be found in almost every hymnbook. Many books of school songs also have a few hymns and Sunday songs that children like.