Referring  to  Professor  Adams'  PHniEu,  he  says:  "New  and


232  ItKLlGlOlS  EDUCATION

difficult  words  are  recognized  as  stumbling-blocks,  and  are
usually  carefully  explained.  But  the  real  difficulty  of  coniniuni-
cation  arises,  not  so  much  from  hard  words  as  from  every-day,
commonplace  words  that  children  are  supposed  to  know  per-
fectly. The  oflices  that  our  fjord  executes  as  our  Eedeemer  are
described  as  those  of  prophet,  priest,  and  king.  In  dealing  with
these,  many  teachers  would  agree  willi  one  who  began  his  ex-
planation lliiis:  'All  know  wliat  a  king  is,  so  I  needn't  trouble
you  witli  that,  but  priest  is  harder  to  understand,  while  the
big  word  prophet  is  the  hardest  of  all.'  As  a  matter  of  experi-
ence, a  set  of  careful  examinations  of  children  of  various  ages
brought  out  the  fact  that  of  the  three  words,  king  was  the  most
troublesome  and  prophet  the  easiest.  This  comes  about  because
children  have  no  ideas  about  prophet  except  those  they  learned  in
connection  with  sacred  things.  About  king,  on  the  contrary,
they  have  all  sorts  of  popular  notions,  from  the  rubicund,  jolly
monarch  of  the  fairy  tale  up  to  the  latest  picture  of  the  reign-
ing sovereign.  Indeed,  in  tlie  case  of  young  children,  we  have
here  an  excellent  example  of  the  arrest  of  contrary  ideas.  ^lany
of  them  found  it  impossible  to  think  of  our  l^ord  as  at  once
prophet,  priest,  and  king.  As  king.  He  was  pictured  as  a  grand
man  with  a  crimson  cloak  and  a  gold  crown;  as  priest.  He  ap-
peared as  an  emaciated,  pale-faced  man  with  a  long  black  coat
and  a  soft  hat ;  as  prophet  He  rose  before  their  minds  as  an  aged
man  with  a  long  staiT,  a  loose  gown,  and  an  uncovered  head.
