If this be true, the inculcation of an ade-
quate God-consciousness must be the work not
merely of the church, but of all institutions
which undertake to influence the child: the
school, the home, the playground. Such
teaching by no means ends, nor perhaps be-
gins, with the teaching of the Bible and the
tenets of the Christian religion. Much of
secular culture goes directly to the desired
end.
To anyone who has studied the world's
stories, and who understands the power of
the story over the child, emphasis upon the
value of the method of story-telling in teach-



THE CHILD'S RELIGION 129

ing religion will seem natural. He will have
perceived that the religions attitude per-
vades all this cnltnre; that the racial story
has been created by it; that the urgent de-
mand on the part of man for a saving attitude
toward the unseen world has been the great-
est factor in inspiring stories; that without
this religious attitude, which has expressed
itself in stories, it is possible that the race
would not have survived at all. The pur-
pose of the racial stories — fairy-tales, myths,
epics — ^is more than anything else to keep
faith in the friendliness of the unseen world
alive.
