“When the keen scrutiny of skeptics has found a place on this planet where a decent man may live in decency, comfort, and security, supporting and educating his children unspoiled and unpolluted, a place where age is reverenced, infancy protected, womanhood honored, and human life held in due regard,--when skeptics can find such a place ten miles square on this globe, where the Gospel of Christ has not gone before and cleared the way and laid foundations that made decency and security possible, it will then be in order for these skeptical literati to move thither and there ventilate their views. But so long as these men are dependent on the very religion which they discard for every privilege they enjoy, they may well hesitate to rob the Christian of his hope and humanity of its faith in the Saviour who alone has given to men that hope of eternal life which makes life tolerable and society possible, and robs death of its terrors and the grave of its gloom.”[116] [Sidenote: Children trained to systematic giving.] Is there anything more beautiful and spontaneous than the generosity of a child who has learned to give to others because of its love for Christ? The churches that are systematically training their children to give have a great future before them. Says _The Spirit of Missions_: “There is an old Scotch proverb that ‘Mony a mickle maks a muckle.’ Nowhere is this more effectively demonstrated than in the Lenten offering given each year by the Sunday-Schools of the church. This movement was begun thirty-five years ago in the diocese of Pennsylvania, and almost at once it spread throughout the church. Year by year the volume of gifts has grown, until for the whole period they have reached the amazing sum of $2,618,290.86. The gifts which have produced this result have come from all quarters of the earth and from all manner of children. Youngsters in Alaska have shovelled snow and others in California have raised flowers to earn their money for this purpose. The negro boys and girls of Africa, the peons of Mexico, the Igorotes of the Philippines, and the brown and yellow children of Japan and China have gathered the odd coins of their several countries in common with the children of the mountains and prairies, the small towns and the great cities of the United States.”[117] One who had spent some years in India tells of an experience in Chicago that brings the quick tears to one’s eyes. [Sidenote: From Chicago to India.]