Chapter XXXV

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION FOR STREET-CHILDREN.

The Difficulties of Religious Teaching--Street-children not to be Influenced like Sunday Schools--Rhetoric and Sentiment do not Touch Them--True Oratory and the Dramatic Method always Reach them--They are Peculiarly Open to Religion, but Exposed to Overwhelming Temptations--Solemn Aspect of their Position to the Speaker--The Problem--The Object to Implant Religious Love and Faith--Moral Influences not Sufficient--"Bread-and-Butter Piety" Doubtful--Objection to Prizes or Rewards--Religious Instruction not so desirable as Religious Inspiration--The New Testament to be Preferred to the Old--The Knowledge and Faith in Christ, Most of all Needed--What this Faith Has Done, and What it Can Do--Mistakes of Sunday-school Oratory--Rhetorical Pyrotechnics not Wanted--Allegory the Best Method--Our Best Speaker a Sportsman--His Sympathies with Boys and with Nature--"BIBLE IN SCHOOLS"--Religious Instruction in Public Schools Desirable, if all were of the same Faith--Bible-reading used by the Priests Against the Schools--Free Schools the Life-blood of the Nation--Protestants should Never Allow Them to be Broken Up--Protestant Pluck--Are School Religious Exercises of Much Use--Separation of Church and State--Experience of England--Free Schools without Religion, rather than no Free Schools.....................................................pp. 418-428