CHAPTER IV THE CHILD—ITS RELIGION [Sidenote: Three Kinds of Parents.] [Sidenote: A French Work on Children.] Probably one of the earliest perplexities that presents itself to a parent is the question of the child’s religion. And yet it is doubtful whether in the generality of cases the matter is considered early enough. There are, evidently, three kinds of parents taking three separate views of the question. There are those who hold distinctly materialistic opinions, and who therefore deliberately decline to enter into the subject at all. They agree with the sentiments expressed in a French work on children published some quarter of a century ago in which the following passages occur: “We may boldly assert that the sense of religion exists no more in the intelligence of a little child than does the supernatural in nature.” And again: “In our opinion parents are very much mistaken in thinking it their duty to instruct their little ones in such things, which have no real interest for them—as who made them, who created the world, what is the soul, what is its present and future destiny, and so forth.” It is a happiness to believe that few English parents endorse these views. The extraordinary stir made by an Education Bill, the chief concern of which was to affect the religious teaching of children, is evidence of a widespread belief in the necessity of such teaching. [Sidenote: Careless Parents.] But, in the second place, there are some parents who are simply careless. They would be rather shocked at being told that they themselves were irreligious, but, when they forget all about their children’s religion, it cannot be supposed that their own is of much real concern to them. [Sidenote: Anxious Parents.] [Sidenote: Early Impressions of Good and Evil.] Thirdly, there are the parents who desire beyond all things that their children shall lead religious lives, and are anxious to do their utmost to start the little feet on the right path. It is this class of parent who is often perplexed to know what is best. The difficulties are certainly great. Children differ so widely that what is good for one child may be harmful for another. But in almost all cases the tendency is to put off religious teaching too long. The mind of a very young child—one who would be commonly described as a baby—has been proved again and again to be remarkably receptive of evil as well as of good influences and impressions, and the earlier a baby’s mind can be filled with the very simplest religious truths the less room there will be for evil, and the greater the likelihood of a firm belief in truths that have been absorbed almost with the mother’s milk. This leads to the question of how far a very young child has any direct personal religion; any feeling, that is, of a direct communication even of the most elementary kind between itself and its GOD without the intervention of any human being.