A Bible costs a few cents and yet upon it may be built a life that is worth millions to the human race. It was a Bible that made William Ewart Gladstone for a generation the world's greatest Christian statesman; it was a Bible that made José Rodrigues for a quarter of a century the greatest moral force in Brazil. The Bible has given us great leaders in the United States. It is the Bible that has sent missionaries throughout the world to plant in little communities everywhere the teachings of the greatest of sentimentalists--and, at the same time, the most practical of philosophers. Christ has taught us the true value of those things which touch the heart and, through the heart, move the world.
"Suffer little children to come unto me;" Christ used the child to admonish those older grown. The Church is following in His footsteps when it makes the child the subject of constant thought and solicitude. It is when we deal with the child that we get the clearest conception of the superiority of faith over reason. The foundations of character are laid in faith and not in reason; they are laid before the reason can be accepted as a guide. No one who exalts reason above faith can lead a child to God, but a child can understand the love of the Saviour and the tender care of the Heavenly Father. For this reason the Sunday school increases in importance. Its lessons build character; its songs echo throughout our lives.
The law arbitrarily fixes the age of twenty-one as the age of legal maturity. No matter how precocious a young man be, the presumption of law is against his intelligence until he is twenty-one. He cannot vote; he cannot make a valid deed to a piece of land. Why? His reason is not mature, and yet the moral principles that control his life are implanted before he reaches that age. His ideals come into his life long before the reason can be regarded as a safe guide. Before the reason is mature he believes in God or has rejected God. If he lives in a Christian community he has accepted the Bible as the Word of God or rejected it as the work of man; if he is acquainted with Christ he has accepted or rejected Him. A child's heart cannot remain a vacuum. It is filled with reverence or irreverence. Those who think that the mind can remain unbiassed until one becomes of age and then be able to render impartial decisions, know little of human experience. Love comes first, reason afterward; the child obeys and later learns why it should obey. Morality rests upon religion and religion, taking hold upon the heart, exercises a control far greater than any logic can exercise over the mind.