A friend tells me that one of her earliest childhood memories
is of being awakened by her mother before daybreak on a June
morning. “Come, child,” she said, “come with me over to the
pines, to hear the thrushes sing.” Across the dew-wet meadows
they went, in the early flush of morning, and the child, her
hand clasped in her mother’s, listened with her to the exquisite
music of the thrush in the holy hour and place.
What need of words? It is the spirit that giveth life. The
flame was kindled in the heart of the child because it burned
undimmed in the mother’s heart. Not by preaching, nor even by
much speaking, will our teachers teach religion. But they will
surely teach whose lives abide in the shadow of the Almighty. We
can not but speak the things we have seen and heard. Striving
to do His will in the school-room, we slowly learn of the
doctrine, and the truth we have made our own we are enabled
to share.--SARAH LOUISE ARNOLD, “Proceedings of the
Religious Education Association,” 1905.
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