The child’s religious nature, like that of primitive man, is animistic.
Professor Dawson, in “The Child and His Religion,” says:
It is hard for children to resist the feeling that a summer
shower comes with a sort of personal benevolence to water the
dry flowers and grass. A little girl of four years illustrated
this feeling on a certain occasion. There was a thunder-shower
after a long dry spell. The rain was pattering on the sidewalk
outside the house. The child stretched forth her hands toward
the rain-drops and said: “Come, good rain, and water our
plants!” Flowers and trees have individuality for most children,
if not for all. Ruth’s mama found her sitting among the wild
geraniums, some distance from the house. “What are you doing,
Ruth?” “I’m sitting by the flowers. They are lonesome and like
to have me with them, don’t you know?” At another time she said:
“Mama, these daisies seem to look up at me and talk to me.
Perhaps they want us to kiss them.” On one occasion she said
to her brother, who was in the act of gathering some flowers
she claimed for herself, “I don’t think it nice to break off
those poor flowers. They like to live just as well as you do.”
The boy thus chided by his sister for gathering her flowers
was generally very fond of plants and trees, and felt a quite
human companionship in them. He could not bear to see flowering
plants hanging in a broken condition, or lying crusht upon
the sidewalk. Even at the age of ten years, he would still
work solicitously over flowers like the violets, bluets, and
crowfoots, with evident concern for their comfort.
(102)
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