The Education of Catholic Girls. Janet Erskine Stuart

birds of the air, or as we track with reverent and unprecipitate following the line of His providential government in the history of the world.

      The need of right thoughts of God is also deeply felt on the side of our relations to Him, and that especially in our democratic times when sovereignty is losing its meaning. There are free and easy ideas of God, as if man might criticize and question and call Him to account, and have his say on the doings of the Creator. It is not explanation or apology that answer these, but a right thought of God makes them impossible, and this right thought can only be given if we have it ourselves. The Fatherhood of God and the Sovereignty of God are foundations of belief which complete one another, and bear up all the superstructure of a child's understanding of Christian life.

      2. Eight ideas of ourselves and of our destiny. It is a pity that evil instead of good is made a prominent feature of religious teaching. To be haunted by the thought of evil and the dread of losing our soul, as if it were a danger threatening us at every step, is not the most inspiring ideal of life; quiet, steady, unimaginative fear and watchfulness is harder to teach, but gives a stronger defence against sin than an ever present terror; while all that belongs to hope awakens a far more effective response to good. Some realization of our high destiny as heirs of heaven is the strongest hold that the average character can have to give steadiness in prosperity and courage in adversity. Chosen souls will rise higher than this, but if the average can reach so far as this they will do well.

      3. Eight ideas of sin and evil. It is possible on the one hand to give such imperfect ideas of right and wrong that all is measured by the mere selfish standard of personal security. The frightened question about some childish wrong-doing—"is it a mortal sin?" often indicates that fear of punishment is the only aspect under which sin appears to the mind; while a satisfied tone in saying "it is only a venial sin" looks like a desire to see what liberties may be taken with God without involving too serious consequences to self. "It is wrong" ought to be enough, and the less children talk of mortal sin the better—to talk of it, to discuss with them whether this or that is a mortal sin, accustoms them to the idea. When they know well the conditions which make a sin grave without illustrations by example which are likely to obscure the subject rather than clear it up, when their ideas of right and duty and obligation are clear, when "I ought" has a real meaning for them, we shall have a stronger type of character than that which is formed on detailed considerations of different degrees of guilt.

      On the other hand it is possible to confuse and torment children by stories of the exquisite delicacy of the consciences of the saints, as St. Aloysius, setting before them a standard that is beyond their comprehension or their degree of grace, and making them miserable because they cannot conform to it.

      It is a great safeguard against sin to realize that duty must be done, at any cost, and that Christianity means self-denial and taking up the cross.

      4. Eight thoughts of the four last things. True thoughts of death are not hard for children to grasp, to their unspoiled faith it is a simple and joyful thing to go to God. Later on the dreary pageantry and the averted face of the world from that which is indeed its doom obscure the Christian idea, and the mind slips back to pagan grief, as if there were no life to come.

      Eight thoughts of judgment are not so hard to give if the teaching is sincere and simple, free from exaggerations and phantoms of dread, and on the other hand clear from an incredulous protest against God's holding man responsible for his acts.

      But to give right thoughts of hell and heaven taxes the best resources of those who wish to lay foundations well, for they are to be foundations for life, and the two lessons belong together, corner-stones of the building, to stand in view as long as it shall stand and never to be forgotten.

      The two lessons belong together as the final destiny of man, fixed by his own act, this or that. And they have to be taught with all the force and gravity and dignity which befits the subject, and in such a way that after years will find nothing to smile at and nothing to unlearn. They have to be taught as the mind of the present time can best apprehend them, not according to the portraiture of mediaeval pictures, but in a language perhaps not more true and adequate in itself but less boisterous and more comprehensible to our self-conscious and introspective moods. Father Faber's treatment of these last things, hell and heaven, would furnish matter for instruction not beyond the understanding of those in their last years at school, and of a kind which if understood must leave a mark upon the mind for life. [1 See Appendix I.]

      5. Eight views of Jesus Christ and His mother. For Catholic children this relationship is not a thing far off, but the faith which teaches them of God Incarnate bids them also understand that He is their own "God who gives joy to their youth"—and that His mother is also theirs. There are many incomprehensible things in which children are taught to affirm their belief, and the acts of faith in which they recite these truths are far beyond their understanding. But they can and do understand if we take pains to teach them that they are loved by Our Lord each one alone, intimately and personally, and asked to love in return. "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not," is not for them a distant echo of what was heard long ago in the Holy Land, it is no story, but a living reality of to day. They are themselves the children who are invited to come to Him, better off indeed than those first called, since they are not now rebuked or kept off by the Apostles but brought to the front and given the first places, invited by order of His Vicar from their earliest years to receive the Bread of Heaven, and giving delight to His representatives on earth by accepting the invitation.

      It is the reality as contrasted with the story that is the prerogative of the Catholic child. Jesus and Mary are real, and are its own closest kin, all but visible, at moments intensely felt as present. They are there in joy and in trouble, when every one else fails in understanding or looks displeased there is this refuge, there is this love which always forgives, and sets things right, and to whom nothing is unimportant or without interest. Companionship in loneliness, comfort in trouble, relief in distress, endurance in pain are all to be found in them. With Jesus and Mary what is there in the whole world of which a Catholic child should be afraid. And this glorious strength of theirs made perfect in child-martyrs in many ages will make them again child-martyrs now if need be, or confessors of the holy faith as they are not seldom called upon, even now, to show themselves.

      There is a strange indomitable courage in children which has its deep springs in these Divine things; the strength which they find in Holy Communion and in their love for Jesus and Mary is enough to overcome in them all weakness and fear.

      6. Eight thoughts of the faith and practice of Christian life. And here it is necessary to guard against what is childish, visionary, and exuberant, against things that only feed the fancy or excite the imagination, against practices which are adapted to other races than ours, but with us are liable to become unreal and irreverent, against too vivid sense impressions and especially against attaching too much importance to them, against grotesque and puerile forms of piety, which drag down the beautiful devotions to the saints until they are treated as inhabitants of a superior kind of doll's house, rewarded and punished, scolded and praised, endowed with pet names, and treated so as to become objects of ridicule to those who do not realize that these extravagances may be in other countries natural forms of peasant piety when the grace of intimacy with the saints has run wild. In northern countries a greater sobriety of devotion is required if it is to have any permanent influence on life.

      But again, on the other hand, the more restrained devotion must not lose its spontaneity; so long as it is the true expression of faith it can hardly be too simple, it can never be too intimate a part of common life. Noble friendships with the saints in glory are one of the most effectual means of learning heavenly-mindedness, and friendships formed in childhood will last through a lifetime. To find a character like one's own which has fought the same fight and been crowned, is an encouragement which obtains great victories, and to enter into the thoughts of the saints is to qualify oneself here below for intercourse with the citizens of heaven.

      To be well grounded in the elements of faith, and to have been so taught that the practice of religion has become the atmosphere of a happy life, to have the habit of sanctifying daily duties, joys, and trials by the thought of God, and a firm resolve that nothing shall be allowed to draw the soul away from Him,