And, further: "Are my pupils developing a _growing_ interest in religion? Do they increasingly find it attractive and inspiring, or is religion to them chiefly a set of restraints and prohibitions? Do they look upon religion as a means to a happier and fuller life, or as a limitation and check upon life. Is religion being revealed to them as the pearl of great price, or does it possess but little value in their standard of what is worth while?" These questions are of supreme significance, for in their right answers are the very issues of spiritual life for those we teach. Spiritual responsiveness.--The teacher must accept responsibility for the spiritual growth as well as the intellectual training of his pupils. There is no escape from this. We must be satisfied with nothing less than a constantly increasing consciousness of God's presence and reality in the lives of those we teach. As the child's knowledge grows and his concept of God, develops, this should naturally and inevitably lead to an increasing warmth of attitude toward God and a tendency to turn to him constantly for guidance, strength, comradeship, and forgiveness. Indeed, the cultivation of this trend of the life toward God is the supreme aim in our religious leadership of children. Without this result, whatever may have been the facts learned or the knowledge gleaned, there has been no worthy progress made in spiritual growth and development. The evolution of spiritual responsiveness.--The realization of this new spiritual consciousness in the child's life may not involve any special nor abrupt upheaval. If the child is wisely led, and if he develops normally in his religion, it almost certainly will not. Countless thousands of those who are living lives very full of spiritual values have come into the rich consciousness of divine relationship so gradually that the separate steps cannot be distinguished. "First the blade, then the ear, and then the full grain in the ear" is the natural law of spiritual growth. The bearing of this truth upon our teaching is that we must seek for the unfolding of the child's spiritual nature and for the turning of his thought and affections toward God from the first. We must not point to some distant day ahead when the child will "accept Jesus" or become "a child of God." We must ourselves think of the child, and lead the child to think of himself, as a member of God's family.