IV. The Religious Place of the Family 37 V. The Meaning Of Religious Education in the Family 46 VI. The Child's Religious Ideas 60 VII. Directed Activity 75 VIII. The Home as a School 87 IX. The Child's Ideal Life 101 X. Stories and Reading 110 XI. The Use of the Bible in the Home 119 XII. Family Worship 126 XIII. Sunday in the Home 145 XIV. The Ministry of the Table 164 XV. The Boy and Girl in the Family 173 XVI. The Needs of Youth 183 XVII. The Family and the Church 198 XVIII. Children and the School 212 XIX. Dealing with Moral Crises 218 XX. Dealing with Moral Crises (_Continued_) 231 XXI. Dealing with Moral Crises (_Continued_) 240 XXII. Dealing with Moral Crises (_Concluded_) 249 XXIII. The Personal Factors in Religious Education 259 XXIV. Looking to the Future 268 Suggestions for Class Work 281 A Book List 290 Index 297 CHAPTER I AN INTERPRETATION OF THE FAMILY § 1. TAKING THE HOME IN RELIGIOUS TERMS The ills of the modern home are symptomatic. Divorce, childless families, irreverent children, and the decadence of the old type of separate home life are signs of forgotten ideals, lost motives, and insufficient purposes. Where the home is only an opportunity for self-indulgence, it easily becomes a cheap boarding-house, a sleeping-shelf, an implement for social advantage. While it is true that general economic developments have effected marked changes in domestic economy, the happiness and efficiency of the family do not depend wholly on the parlor, the kitchen, or the clothes closet. Rather, everything depends on whether the home and family are considered in worthy and adequate terms. Homes are wrecked because families refuse to take home-living in religious terms, in social terms of sacrifice and service. In such homes, organized and conducted to satisfy personal desires rather than to meet social responsibilities, these desires become ends rather than agencies and opportunities.