tHE USE OF THE STORY 
 mf EUGIQUS EDUCATtON 
 
 IRGARET W.EGGLESTON 
 
OforncU Imueraitg Htbtarg 
 
 atljaca, Nem Jorfe 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 ALFRED C. BARNES 
 
 1889 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BV1472 .E29 
 
 The use of the story in religious educat 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 031 023 348 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031023348 
 
THE USE OF THE STORY 
 IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 MARGARET W. EG&LESTON 
 
THE USE OF THE STORY 
 IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 BY 
 
 MARGARET W. EGGLESTON 
 
 I 
 
 author of 
 "fireside stories for girls in their teems" 
 
 IN8TRUCTOB IN BTOKY TELLING, 
 
 SCHOOL OF RELIGIOUS EDTJCATIOH 
 
 AND SOCIAL SBKVICK, 
 
 BOSTON UNIVBKSITT 
 
 NEW XSI^ YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 H 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1920, 
 BT SBOKGH H. DOKAN OOMPANT 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
TO MY LITTLE DAUGHTER 
 
 WITH WHOM I HAVE HAD MANY 
 A PLEASANT STOKY-HOTJR 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Looking back through the years, I can see a man of 
 middle age and on his knee a little girl. 'Tis evening 
 time and story hour — the best time of the day. The 
 little girl is waiting for the father to settle himself 
 so that she can begin the story. " Once upon a time, 
 long, long ago," she begins, " a dear little baby came 
 to live in a home that was far away across the big 
 sea." The father smiles and pats her head as the 
 story runs along, and when it is done he whispers, 
 " That was well done, daughter. Do you know that 
 I think perhaps some day you may tell stories to 
 boys and girls as father does now." Then, because 
 she had been able to tell the story that he had 
 told her the day before, he would tell her a new 
 story — ^perhaps two, one from the Bible and 
 one from fairy land or the time when 
 " daddy was a little boy." When the twilight 
 had at last faded, the child was far away in 
 storyland. 
 
 Little did my father realize what a gift he was 
 giving to me, but as the years have gone by I have 
 realized it more and more, for in my twenty years 
 of work with young people it has been my greatest 
 asset. As I have told stories to the boys and girls, 
 I have learned to know their needs, their dreams, 
 their longings and their weaknesses which needed 
 help from me. As I have seen teachers and workers 
 struggling with their classes, especially in the matter 
 of discipline, I have wanted so much to " take them 
 
viii FOREWORD 
 
 apart" to study awhile, for the story would have 
 solved so many of their problems. 
 
 Some years ago I was invited to the home of a 
 friend for supper. As soon ias I entered the house, 
 she apologized for the noises which were coming 
 , from the upper floor of the house. " John simply 
 had to be punished," she said. " He disobeyed me 
 over and over and so I have given him a good 
 whipping and sent him to bed." The time went by 
 and the noises grew worse and worse — kicks and 
 screams and yells. Finally when she and I were 
 both unhappy over it, I asked if I might go up- 
 stairs. " Yes, you may go, but he can't come down 
 and he can't have any supper," she said, after I had 
 begged to be allowed to go up to the little six-year- 
 old. 
 
 I found John in a heap at the foot of the bed, 
 not willing even to look at me. But I sat down and 
 said, " I thought you might like a story and I think 
 I'll just tell it anyhow. You needn't listen, of 
 course. Away in the far north where it is very, 
 very cold, there lived a little boy who had a sled, but 
 he didn't draw it with a rope. Oh, no, he had four 
 little dogs that he hitched to the sled, and then how 
 he did go over the snow." By this time, the face 
 was around and the kicking had stopped. Slowly 
 and quietly, I told him the story of Jimmie Standby 
 of Labrador, who stood by the dogs all through 
 the night and the day in the bitter cold because he 
 had told Dr. Grenfell that he would " Stand by." 
 'Tis a wonderful story and the little body crept 
 nearer and nearer and then into my lap. When I 
 had finished, the anger had gone from the face, the 
 quiver from the body, and the little face was up- 
 
FOREWORD ix 
 
 turned to mine all full of eagerness to follow Jim- 
 mie to the very end. 
 
 When I turned to go downstairs he said, 
 " Couldn't I please go downstairs and speak to 
 mother? I want to tell her something." "But 
 mother said you could not come down tonight," 
 I replied. " I just want to come for a minute. 
 Please ask mother to let me come for a minute." 
 So I asked the mother, and her reply made me fear 
 for the child, " Yes, he can come for a minute, but 
 it won't do a bit of good to ask me to stay. He 
 has to be punished," and her face was litde like 
 that of the child. 
 
 Then down he came, streaks of dirt on the little 
 red face. Straight to his mother he went and look- 
 ing into her face, he said, " She told me a nice 
 story, and I am going to have a name like his. I 
 am going to be Jimmie Standby too." And he went 
 upstairs like a man. 
 
 Because I have longed to help the teachers and 
 workers with boys and girls in our religious educa- 
 tion work, I have written this book. It is not de- 
 signed for those who already know the principles 
 of story-telling. It contains much that has already 
 been written but with this difference — it is for those 
 in religious work who are eager to know " how." I 
 have given lists of stories, but I have told few, for 
 libraries are plenty where the stories listed may be 
 found. I have divided it in such a way that it can 
 be used in the classes in story-telling work in our 
 community schools and colleges where the demand 
 is growing for such classes. I have included chap- 
 ters on many kinds of stories not needed in the 
 secular work, such as Missionary Stories and Junior 
 
X FOREWORD 
 
 Church Stories, because I have realized that leaders 
 in these lines of religious work needed much help 
 in their choice and use of stories. 
 
 In it and through it runs much of my own per- 
 sonal work in story-telling, because I have felt that 
 I could better show teachers the need of study by 
 showing them just what the story could and would do 
 and by citing definite cases where it had been used. 
 
 In one of her books Margaret Slattery tells the 
 story of a little girl who wanted to see a parade, 
 but the crowd was dense and she was small. So she 
 touched a passing policeman with the plea, " Please 
 lift me up so I can see." That little story expresses 
 exactly my desire In sending this book out among 
 the religious teachers in these days of reconstruc- 
 tion. I would that It might come to Sunday-school 
 teachers, recreational leaders. Camp Fire guardians, 
 mothers and older sisters and by the materials which 
 it contains lift them up so that they could see — (a) 
 the dormant power In their own life and personality, 
 (b) the wondrous power of the right story in the 
 right place, (c) the yearning of all young life, even 
 to young manhood and womanhood, for the " bread 
 of life " contained In stories. 
 
 Once the vision comes to the teachers of our 
 religious schools, America will become a story-telling 
 nation. 
 
 Margaret W. Eggleston. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I What Is A Story ? .... . 15 
 II The Parts OF A. Story . .... 22 
 
 III Preparing a Story to Tell . . .31 
 
 IV Helps in Telling the Story ... 41 
 V Hindrance to the Success of the Story- 
 Teller .51 
 
 VI The Child and the Story .... 59 
 VII What Shall We Tell? . . . .66 
 VIII Types of Stories Needed in Group Work 74 
 IX Primitive Stories — Myths, Epics and 
 
 Legends 82 
 
 X Fairy Stories, Fables and Allegories . 90 
 
 XI Telling Realistic Stories .... 96 
 
 XII Writing and Telling Original Stories . 102 
 
 XIII Telling Bible Stories — Old Testament 112 
 
 XIV Telling Bible Stories — New Testament 119 
 XV Story Groups . . . . . .124 
 
 XVI Junior Church Stories . . . .130 
 XVII The Bed-Time Story Hour . . . 139 
 XVIII The Use of Stories in Making Great 
 
 Pictures and Hymns Live and Grow 147 
 XIX Dramatizing the Story .... 153 
 XX Telling Stories to Adults . . .161 
 XXI Personal Stories in Religious Educa- 
 tion 167 
 
 Reference Lists „■. ,.■, ,.i .1 •., ■..■, 175 
 
THE USE OF THE STORY 
 IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
THE USE OF THE STORY 
 IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 WHAT IS A STORY? 
 
 The little child says, " Tell me a story," and we 
 begin, " Long, long ago there lived a beautiful prin- 
 cess in a castle by the sea." The boy of ten asks 
 for a story and we begin, " In the land where Jesus 
 later lived, there was a boy whose only playmate was 
 a big, big shepherd dog." But when the boy of 
 fifteen wants a story, we are ready with, " In the 
 days of good King Arthur, when knights were bold 
 and brave." The Camp Fire girls gathered about 
 their ceremonial fire with their guardian in the center 
 of the circle wait eagerly for their story which is 
 likely to begin, " In the mountains of Kentucky, 
 there once lived a girl who had for a grandmother 
 a real queen whom she had never seen, but whom 
 she very much wanted to be like." But if one goes 
 to the Old Ladies' home and is ready with a story, 
 none of these things will appeal. To be most satis- 
 factory it must lead back to the days when, " There 
 was a little house in the country over which the roses 
 grew and the honeysuckle climbed and in the house 
 lived a mother, a father and a brood of little chil- 
 dren." 
 
 All these are parts of stories. But what Is a 
 
 15 
 
16 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 story? A bit of fairy land, a tale from the Bible, 
 a fact from history, an account of a love making, a 
 dream of days that are gone ? How shall we define 
 it? St. John, in his book " Stories and Story-Tell- 
 ing," says, " A story may be said to be a narrative 
 of true or imaginary events which form a vitally 
 related whole, so presented as to make its appeal 
 chiefly to the emotions rather than the intellect." 
 
 Sara Cone Bryant, in " How to Tell Stories to 
 Children," goes even farther than does this defini- 
 tion and says, " A story is essentially and primarily 
 a work of art and its chief function must be sought 
 in the line of the uses of art." She is classing the 
 story-teller with the sculptor and the painter and 
 the writer as an artist. How far removed this sec- 
 ond definition is from what one would usually get 
 from a class of students ! 
 
 A work of art — that which God has placed in the 
 soul of a person and which that person longs to 
 give to the world. Does not the artist see in his 
 soul the picture that he paints if it is to be a great 
 picture ? It is no copy ; it is a part of himself. 
 
 A story is a great life message that passes from 
 one soul to another. It steals as quietly as a canoe 
 into the hidden places where naught else can go; 
 it is as soothing as a song sometimes and at other 
 times it cuts like a two-edged sword. It is quickly 
 given, but it lasts in the life through eternity. It has 
 power to bless and it has also power to curse. 
 
 A story is a mind picture painted by the human 
 voice, and the voice is far more wonderful than the 
 hand. The centuries have come and gone, but the 
 " Iliad," the " Odyssey," the " Tales of King Ar- 
 
WHAT IS A STORY? 17 
 
 thur," the stories of our Bible are as vital as ever. 
 They were given to the world by an artist, and the 
 children through the centuries have loved them and 
 been inspired by thera. 
 
 Of course, you may teach facts by telling a story, 
 you may amuse a crowd by giving them a tale of 
 the great war or of love and valor, but you have 
 failed if that is all that you have done. A well-told 
 story should stir the emotions, create a deep desire 
 to be like the hero of the tale ; it must speak to the 
 soul life of the hearers. 
 
 The children to whom you tell the story of George 
 Washington and the colt may forget the details of 
 the story, but if, in the telling of the story, there 
 has been created the desire to ibe always brave 
 enough to tell the truth, then you have been an 
 artist. You have brought a great gift to the child 
 and because you have made the mind picture a beau- 
 tiful one, he has received it and made it a part of 
 himself and his character building. God speaks to 
 the child through stories and happy the teacher or 
 mother who learns to work with God. 
 
 The story has been used as an instrument in 
 religious education since time began. It is the old- 
 est art in the world. In those olden days when 
 there was no written language, not even picture-writ- 
 ing, the story was doing its work in educating the 
 people and teaching them great ideals. Study the 
 history of the older nations of the world. In all of 
 them you will find folk-stories and usually one great 
 epic story. You will find that their worship of the 
 gods is linked Inseparably with their stories of the 
 gods. The ideals of the race are shown In the 
 
18 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 stories, but the telling of these same stories from 
 generation to generation helped to make these same 
 ideals. 
 
 By various names we know the men who helped 
 to preserve them for us: bards, minstrels, rhapso- 
 dists, poets, saga-men and many others. Their task 
 was to inspire the race as they told the stories of 
 Ulysses, Beowulf, Siegfried, Lancelot, King Arthur, 
 etc. It was all essentially religious education. 
 
 But if the story is a great gift which we bring 
 to our hearers, what is the purpose of the gift? 
 Why is there today such a great emphasis being 
 placed on the value of story-telling? The story has 
 a rare purpose — the very same purpose that a great 
 painting or a piece of sculpture has; its purpose is 
 to give pleasure or joy. Above every other purpose 
 this stands. It may teach history, it may amuse, it 
 may be a help in teaching language — a great pic- 
 ture may do the same — ^but its one great purpose is 
 to bring joy to the life. Recently I was telling a 
 story to a little four-year-old. When I had finished, 
 her hand patted my face and she said, " Booful 
 story. Tell anudder." What a rare opportunity 
 it is to bring joy and pleasure that shall be lasting 
 and satisfying! 
 
 And this happiness which comes to the hearer of 
 the story may be expected to do several things : 
 
 a) to arouse the emotional or soul life and 
 cause it to hunger for better things. 
 
 b) to correct unfortunate habits by showing 
 through the story what the consequence of 
 the habit might be. 
 
 c) to help in the making of decisions by re- 
 
WHAT IS A STORY? 19 
 
 membering what the result of a choice was 
 in the life of the hero. 
 
 d) to develop a sense of humor. 
 
 e) to develop the imagination and lead it into 
 proper channels of thought. 
 
 /) to cultivate a taste for literature, art and ^ 
 
 music. 
 ff) to create a desire to pass on the stories 
 
 they have learned to love. 
 h) to relax mental tension. 
 i) to better the thought and expression in 
 
 language. 
 /) to give a true knowledge of life. 
 k) to promote a broad sympathy between 
 
 pupil and teacher; a child is always a 
 
 friend to a story-teller. 
 /) to create a desire to know of the world 
 
 and its people — hence a desire to travel. 
 m) To create a desire to serve. 
 
 I have used the italics in the last statement be- 
 cause I should like to emphasize it over and over 
 in religious work. Too long we have tried to teach 
 missions by giving statistics and clippings to the 
 pupils. Some months ago I told the story of Bunga 
 by Anita Ferris to a group of Junior girls. A few 
 weeks later, I had a letter from one of those girls 
 who is twelve years old and whose home has all that 
 heart could wish for. And this is a clipping from her 
 letter: " I have said over and over and over to my- 
 self, ' If this will send a teacher, then I give it with 
 my heart.' But money seems so little. I have had 
 it all my life and I can give and not feel it as Bunga 
 did. But I have begun to earn some of my own that 
 
20 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 will help to send a teacher now, and some day I am 
 going to say to you after all my school work is done 
 and I am ready, ' If my life can help any, then I 
 give it with my heart.' I have told mother, and she 
 says, ' I should hate to lose you, but I should be glad 
 to know you were where God needed you.' " The 
 story creates the desire to serve as no other one 
 factor does — to serve in the home, in the church, 
 in the community and in the world. 
 
 The Christian church has always utilized stories 
 in its work, but it has not taken the pains to train 
 its workers in the art of story-telling. Van Dyke, 
 Moody, Luther, Brooks — these were born story- 
 tellers, and they did a wonderful work through their 
 stories. So today in our churches we have some 
 born story-tellers, and fortunate the child who gets 
 into their classes. But the great need is for teachers 
 who have learned how to tell stories, even though 
 they do not naturally have the gift of telling them. 
 Not long ago a boy said to me, " When Miss M. 
 gets through telling us about the places where Jesus 
 had been, I feel as if I had been right there myself. 
 Then when father comes in drunk at night, I just 
 creep under the bedclothes and make believe I am 
 away out there in Palestine and I can see Jesus smil- 
 ing at the boys and me." Probably he will never 
 travel farther than the city where he lives, for his 
 chances in life are few, but in storyland he is going 
 where Jesus is and he can see him smile when trouble 
 is all about. Isn't it a great opportunity that we 
 have as we lead the boys and girls over this beauti- 
 ful and magic road of storyland? 
 
 Every real story is a picture of life. In " Cedric, 
 the Knight," the child sees himself. In " Epaminonl 
 
WHAT IS A STORY? 21 
 
 das," the funny, he sees himself again. In the boy 
 giving his lunch to the Christ, he sees himself. 
 Stories are the very language of the child — the one 
 great and beautiful way in which he comes to find 
 himself and his ideals. They come to him as a rec- 
 reation and a pleasure, but he feeds on them, he 
 grows through them, he longs for them. 
 
 As religious teachers we should feed our own 
 life on the best of stories that we may be able to 
 give the very best to those under jur care. We 
 should tell them in such a beautiful way that the 
 reaction may be higher thoughts, cleaner motives 
 and a greater desire to be and to do. The story 
 is one of our greatest assets, for it is God's own 
 way of building a character. 
 
 The story — a work of art, a message of beauty, 
 a creator of ideals. 
 
 The story-teller — the one who comes bearing 
 the life message in the child's own way. 
 
 The result of the story — a deep sigh, a quiet 
 moment that tells that the message has given 
 joy and gladness which the hearer is loath to 
 disturb. Then " as he walked homeward 
 through the night, the story sank deep into 
 his soul and he loved the God who could 
 do such kindly deeds and say such beautiful 
 things. The stars were bright overhead and 
 as he came to the stile, he rested his head 
 on the top round and looking into the sky, 
 he said, ' And I will love thee, too, and I 
 will be like Peter; I will follow thee, O Lordl 
 ray God.' " 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE PARTS OP THE STORY 
 
 Every story that is to be told has four very distinct 
 parts or divisions, and each is vital to the success 
 of the storyt Xa) the beginning or introduction; 
 {b) the succession of events or body of the story; 
 (c) the climax or moral issue of the story; (d) the 
 conclusion. 
 
 Each of these parts needs to be carefully studied 
 by the one who plans to learn to be a teller of stories. 
 Over and over, well written stories should be ex- 
 amined in order to gain new power in planning each 
 part. 
 
 The introduction of the story is very Important, 
 for in these one or two short, concise sentences, the 
 hero or heroes of the story are introduced in such 
 a way that the hearers are eager to know more of 
 them and their deeds. Here one must arouse a de- 
 sire to hear the story. Recently I visited a Bible 
 School in the South end of Boston. In the first class 
 I found a group of restless ten-year-old boys whose 
 teacher greeted them thus, " Good morning boys. 
 Today we are to continue the story of David, though, 
 I am sure, you thought we had learned all we could 
 about him last Sunday." And no one heard or cared 
 about her or about David. In another class, the 
 teacher stood at the door as the boys of thirteen 
 came into the room. As the last boy came in, she 
 patted him on the shoulder and said, " Had you 
 
 22 
 
THE PARTS OF A STORY 23 
 
 boys heard that David has decided to go to Boy's 
 Latin School in the fall? Do you know, David, I 
 thought of you as I read the story of a boy this 
 week who went from Tarsus, — here (pointing to 
 a map on the wall) to Jerusalem — here — just be- 
 cause he wanted to study more than he could in his 
 own home town and because he could study with one 
 of the greatest teachers of the time, Gamaliel. You 
 want to study under Professor W- — ; he wanted to 
 study under Gamaliel." And on she went and the 
 boys were with her. 
 
 An easy way to study an introduction is to see 
 if it answers three simple questions — ^Who? When? 
 Where? Most introductions do. For instance — 
 " Long, long ago (when) in an island across the 
 sea (where), there lived a man who had only four 
 black cats for company (who)." It is not necessary 
 at all that all these facts should be in the introduc- 
 tion however. It is only necessary that the hero or 
 heroine be introduced in such a way that the little 
 children will be interested and curious to know what 
 is coming while the older people will probably be 
 running ahead, in mind, and trying to figure out 
 the plot for themselves. 
 
 It is at this point that so many teachers fail. 
 They think that any introduction will do when it 
 is time for the story to begin. And then they begin 
 in a careless way and no one is interested. A good 
 story does not begin with an excuse (as many teach- 
 ers do), or a long discussion of the things that led 
 up to the story, or even an interesting fact concern- 
 ing the hero at some other time in his life — a good 
 story-teller introduces the hero at once in the very 
 
24 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 most interesting way possible, and then goes on with 
 the story. 
 
 But there are some characteristics of a good in- 
 troduction which it will be well to note. Usually 
 the introduction gives a hint as to the story that is 
 to follow: "Once upon a time there was a great 
 king named Midas who cared for nothing but gold, 
 gold, gold." Evidently the story will tell how 
 he got the gold and what he did with it. " Once 
 upon a time in a country far across the sea, there 
 lived a mother hen with her brood of chickens, all 
 yellow but one and he was half yellow and half 
 black; he had one eye and one leg and one wing, so 
 he was called Half-chick." The children will know 
 at once that they are to hear about the adventures of 
 this little chick who was curiously made and they 
 will wonder how such a chick could possibly live. 
 Here interest and curiosity are aroused, a setting 
 for the story given and a hint as to what is to fol- 
 low. It tells who he was, where he lived and when 
 he lived. 
 
 Perhaps there is no more vital way of gripping 
 an audience in the introduction of a story than with 
 a sense appeal : cold, hunger, beauty, sorrow, sympa- 
 thy, disgust, etc., as we characterize the hero. Think 
 back to the childhood stories. " It was a bitter cold 
 night and the little match girl blew on her hands and 
 stamped her feet as she wandered up and down call- 
 ing, ' Matches, matches; Please buy my matches.' " 
 Every child who has been cold is at once full of 
 sympathy for the little girl. " Once upon a time 
 there was a woman who had five hungry boys and 
 she was frying a pancake for them." " Hungry 
 boys." "One pancake." How is it to be done? 
 
THE PARTS OF A STORY 25 
 
 Here is a sense appeal of hunger and also of curi- 
 osity. " Every afternoon when the children were 
 coming from school, they used to play in the giant's 
 garden," Weren't they afraid? How dared they 
 play there? Children are full of imagery and they 
 picture to themselves very quickly the background 
 that you give in the introductions of the stories. If 
 they do not " see," they do not listen. 
 
 We have been thinking in terms of little children. 
 Is the same thing true with the " grown-up " stories? 
 Listen. " The road was long and hard and steep 
 but at the side grew the beautiful, sweet arbutus 
 peeping from beneath the covering leaves; the little 
 brook tinkled as it ran down to join the lake below, 
 and the breezes played about the boy's hair as he 
 gathered the fragrant flowers for the sick mother 
 in the cabin on the hill." Can you not see the 
 flowers and the cabin? Can you not hear the brook 
 and feel the breezes? Can you not see the road? 
 Would you not like to climb it? You have been 
 introduced to it by a sense appeal. 
 
 The introduction must find a common Interest and 
 arouse a curiosity as to the story that is to be told.' 
 Then involuntary attention will be given and that 
 is the only attention that is worth having in story- 
 telling. From the introduction all unnecessary de- 
 scription must be taken-^ — and directness must be the 
 thought of the maker. Interest must be gained the 
 moment the story begins even as interest must begin 
 in a play the moment the curtain is lifted. 
 
 Not long ago, I heard a story-teller use this in- 
 troduction for a story on a gjminasium floor, " He 
 had red hair, a freckled face, a pug nose and his 
 name was John, Frederick, Nicholas Bistricky — ^but 
 
26 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 the boys called him ' Nick of the Alley ' for short." 
 The name alone was enough to arrest the attention 
 of the boys and the adventures of Nick were most 
 interesting to me as well as to the boys, especially 
 when they found that Nick was in the hospital near 
 by and needed a friend. 
 
 The introduction is a real test of a story-teller's 
 ability. After it has been written and rewritten and 
 is satisfactory, it is a good plan to memorize it and 
 make it your very own. 
 
 After the introduction, there follows a series of 
 actions which form a simple plot, that is they lead 
 quickly and simply to a crisis in the life of the hero, 
 a place where he must decide between two courses 
 of' action, an obstacle which he must overcome to 
 be successful, a giant which he must conquer. Then 
 comes the trial and often the outcome is what he 
 and we least expect it to be, but a moral lesson is 
 taught by the result. The whole succession of events 
 leads to this one act or choice which is called the 
 climax of the story. Any description or act which 
 does not point to it, weakens the story. In a writ- 
 ten story there may be several short stories included 
 but not in the story that is to be told. All but the 
 one thought and purpose must be sacrificed for the 
 sake of the strength of the story. " That which 
 does not help, hinders," is a sentence which the story- 
 teller needs to place where she can see it often for 
 it is most important. Many stories have to be 
 abridged and remade because of this very fact. In 
 fact, very few written stories are ready to be told. 
 
 The climax is the heart of the story — the meat 
 of the nut. All else, even the introduction, helps 
 to make it. It comes when the struggles and trials 
 
THE PARTS OF A STORY 27 
 
 of the hero have reached their highest point, when 
 the listening child feels that he simply must win be- 
 cause he has been so faithful, has tried so hard, has 
 become so tired. It is the turning point of the 
 story. Failure here to bring this out effectively 
 means that the story has failed. Have you ever 
 heard people repeat a funny story that was not 
 at all funny as they told it? They failed in their 
 climax. It is absolutely essential in the humorous 
 story. To be most effective, it should be of a sur- 
 prising nature. Read again the climax of the " Ugly 
 Duckling " which is a most ingenious one. " ' They 
 will be angry if I come near them,' said the lonely 
 duckling. ' But I must speak to them.' So he bent 
 his head to receive the blows they should give and 
 glided toward them. But they swam to meet him, 
 they caressed him with their beaks, they bowed be- 
 fore him. ' Oh,' cried the little child who wasi 
 throwing crumbs to the birds ! ' See ! there is a new 
 swan and he is the most beautiful of them all.' The 
 other birds wheeled about him saying, ' You are the 
 most beautiful of us all. You must never leave us.' 
 Then he bent his head and looked at his reflection in 
 the water. And lo I The ugly gray feathers had 
 become white like the birds he had loved and 
 dreamed of, and he, too, was a swan." 
 
 The moral lesson is taught in the climax In pic- 
 ture language and whatever tends to weaken this 
 point must be eliminated. The scenes leading to it 
 must be so clear and concise that in hearing the 
 story, the children will forget time and place and 
 story-teller and follow only the hero in his struggle 
 or pleasure. It is well to study model stories and 
 see how these steps leading to the climax are planned 
 
28 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 and how the suspense is held to the very end. Chil- 
 dren demand mind pictures. They care nothing 
 whether the story be long or short, — they chafe at 
 detail. The story must move and move rapidly if it 
 would hold their interest. The more direct the move- 
 ment, the better. 
 
 Sometimes the conclusion is found in the same 
 sentence as the climax and sometimes it is contained 
 in one or two sentences that follow it. Its purpose 
 is very definite. The story has carried the minds 
 of the group to a high point and pointed out a life 
 message. Now the mind must be set at rest in 
 order that it may reflect on the thought of the 
 story. Any indefiniteness as to the ending of the 
 Story is weakening to the story. As we listen to a 
 great orchestra, they carry us up and up and up to 
 the finale — but they do not leave us there. A few 
 beautiful strains at the close bring us back to the 
 things about us and we heave a sigh of satisfaction 
 at the evening's pleasure. So with the story. There 
 is! a tension at the climax that must be relieved by 
 the conclusion. The hero has made his choice and 
 won his victory and we must know the result. In 
 fairy land it reads, " And they lived happily ever 
 after." If we would be honest with ourselves, we 
 should have to own that it is thus we still want our 
 stories to end — happily. Turn again to the " Ugly 
 Duckling " for a conclusion. " Then a great happi- 
 ness filled his heart. He was no longer unloved and 
 alone. He had found his own at last." 
 
 The unity of the story is upheld by the conclu- 
 sion. The story must seem to end. The conclusion 
 must not detract from the climax neither must it 
 suggest another story. It must end the story that 
 
THE PARTS OF A STORY 29 
 
 has been told. Children's stories end very quickly. 
 They want no long drawn-out ending after their tale 
 is told. This is a lesson that teachers and preachers 
 need to have told and retold to them. When the 
 story ends, STOP. A moral tacked to the end of a 
 story is an outrage. If the story has been well told, 
 it has taught its own moral much more effectively 
 than a teacher can possibly tell it. And no teacher 
 knows what lesson that story has taught to the child. 
 Even the child does not know, but it has been taught 
 the lesson and now needs time to make it a part of 
 himself. Once I heard the story of the " Star 
 Child " told. It has a wonderful ending. " And 
 they fell on his neck and kissed him, and brought him 
 into the palace, and clothed him in fine raiment, and 
 iset the crown upon his head and the scepter in his 
 hand. Over the city that stood by the river he 
 ruled. Much mercy and justice did he show to all. 
 He banished the evil magician; to the Woodcutter 
 and his wife he sent rich gifts and to their children 
 he gave high honor. Nor would he suffer any to 
 be cruel to bird or beast but taught love and kind- 
 ness and charity. To the poor he gave bread; to 
 the naked he gave clothing and there was peace and 
 plenty in the land." A long conclusion but a very 
 fine one. When the teacher had finished, she began 
 asking questions, twice startling a Httle girl who 
 finally began to cry. Later when I asked her why 
 she had cried, she said, " Oh, I was having such a 
 lovely story about that city and it was so mean of 
 her to spoil it all. But she always does it and I want 
 to keep still." 
 
 A good story stops at the conclusion. A good 
 story-teller usually stops with a short conclusion. 
 
30 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 A carefully planned introduction that arouses in- 
 terest and curiosity, a concise arrangement of the 
 events that are necessary to a strong climax and a 
 restful conclusion. These are the qualifications of 
 a good story to tell. By these points one judges 
 written stories, one condenses or enlarges stories and 
 one learns to take the little everyday occurrences 
 of life and weave them into stories that often are 
 more effective in teaching the lessons of the Bible 
 School than all the quarterlies ever prepared. A 
 life story is worth a number of stories that begin, " I 
 read." One can learn to quickly judge the value of 
 a story and make it their own by becoming thor- 
 oughly familiar with these four parts of the story. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 PREPARING A STORY TO TELL 
 
 A LATER chapter will discuss the choosing of the 
 right stor^j for the right group and the studying of 
 local conditions which may affect the story. So in 
 this chapter we will presuppose that this has been 
 done and that you have either chosen a story or 
 had one assigned to you to be told. How shall it 
 be prepared in the most satisfactory way? 
 
 The very first thing to do isi to put yourself into 
 sympathetical relations with the story, for the mes- 
 sage comes, not so much from the story itself, as 
 from the life and sympathy that is behind the story. 
 The message comes from within you and the story is 
 only the medium through which you work. The 
 story is only a help to you in interpreting life to your 
 group. You must believe in a story, the story must 
 have a message for you before you can give it to 
 others. But, you say, how can I put myself into 
 sjrmpathy with a story that I do not believe ? This 
 has been the question that many a Sunday School 
 teacher has asked me. Perhaps you can not agree 
 with the viewpoint of the writer of the story, or, of 
 the writer of the quarterly, if you are trying to 
 teach a Bible lesson, but still you can get a life mes- 
 sage out of the story if you will search for it. Every 
 story is capable of teaching many lessons. 
 
 lYou may not choose to teach that the earth was 
 created in seven days of twenty-four hours each; 
 
 31 
 
32 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 but the first chapters of Genesis teach a lesson that 
 you do believe and are eager to have the pupils 
 believe : that God made all things. If you will read 
 over the chapters with the thought in mind, " How 
 can I best show the pupils that God was the 
 creator?" you will find there plenty of material on 
 which to work. 
 
 When ready to prepare a story read It over and 
 over to get yourself into the mood of the story and 
 find there a life message. If you cannot find it, do 
 not tell the story for the hearers will know that you 
 are only giving them words. Your life and person- 
 ality must be the background for what you say. It 
 is well just here to remember, too, that often a story 
 that has little of inspiration at one time may be full 
 of power at another. Two years ago I heard John 
 R. Mott, at the close of an address, tell the story of 
 Pershing's visit to the tomb of Lafayette. I had 
 read it before and heard it before, but it had only 
 seemed to be like an interesting bit of history. But 
 Dr. Mott had been making a plea for every Chris- 
 tian to be standing where he ought to be in the time 
 of crisis in the church. When he finished the story, 
 he changed the climax in only one word but it changed 
 the whole story. I had heard it given, " Lafayette, 
 here we are." Dr. Mott said, " Lafayette, we are 
 here." And the audience was spell-bound by the 
 way he said the words. I have never wanted to 
 hear another tell the story since, lest they spoil it 
 for me. It meant volumes because of the man who 
 was telling it and the cause for which he was using 
 the story. 
 
 Let me repeat — read the story over and over till 
 it speaks a message to you and then prepare to give 
 
PREPARING A STORY TO TELL 33 
 
 that message. After this is done, close the book; 
 if you are alone, close your eyes and live the story 
 with your own experience as a background. Ever 
 since I spent a month in Grand Pre, I have loved to 
 tell the story of " Evangehne " because I can see 
 the little old church with the stiff-backed, high pews, 
 the quaint little town, the old French willows and 
 many other things spoken of in the story. Put the 
 story into your own life, for remember you must 
 give of yourself when you tell the story. If the story 
 is part of a longer story, you should read the whole 
 story before trying to give the part. Every line 
 added to your own appreciation of the story makes 
 the telling more effective. 
 
 When you can feel it and see it, you are ready 
 to begin the analysis of the story. First make sure 
 of the theme you want to use. Shall it teach honesty, 
 or self-mastery, or courtesy or loyalty? What is 
 the purpose of telling the story ? This must be very 
 clear in your mind because every part of your prepa- 
 ration is based on it. In some stories it is hard to 
 decide just what theme you shall use. Take the 
 story of David for instance. In the story of the 
 fight with Goliath, shall it be the athletic or the social 
 or the spiritual message that you will leave with the 
 boys ? His outdoor life had prepared him — he knew 
 his task so he was unafraid. This Is a great mes- 
 sage for adolescent boys. He saw the danger of 
 his country, he saw the perplexity of his king, he 
 saw the need of some one who would volunteer to do 
 the hard thing and perhaps lose his own life. He 
 would be that one. But he had learned to have faith 
 in God so he said to the soldiers, " Who is this that 
 dares to defy the living God? " and he said to the 
 
34. THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 giant, " Thou comest to me with a sword but I come 
 to thee in the name of the Lord God of Hosts, and 
 he will giv3 thee into my hands this day that all the 
 earth may know that there is a God in Israel." 
 Which theme will you use ? You can't use them all 
 in the one lesson, though many seem to try — and so 
 make a hash of the story. And some, who know 
 nothing of story-telling, would make the killing of 
 the giant the theme of the story. That is one of 
 the very least of the things to be emphasized. It 
 can come in quietly and leave little impress on the 
 mind for we are not anxious to emphasize that men 
 should kill one another. " Of course, he killed the 
 giant of whom the rest were afraid, for he used the 
 little sling which he knew so well how to use and he 
 trusted in God. And David became a great power 
 in the land of Israel and afterward became their 
 king." 
 
 Choose your theme and then you are ready to 
 choose your climax. Which is the great moral 
 crisis? Where is the high point of the story when 
 that theme is used? Be very sure that you find it, 
 for all your events preceding it must lead to it. 
 Then begin to pick out the events that naturally 
 make the foundation for this event. Perhaps many 
 events told in the written story must be eliminated. 
 Here you must be the chooser. What do you need 
 for your purpose? Use no other. There must be 
 no side lines of thought, for, if there are, the minds 
 of the hearers will go off into those lines and your 
 story be less effective. Every natural crisis that 
 can be introduced, in leading to the climax, will add 
 to the suspense and, of course, suspense creates in- 
 terest. 
 
PREPARING A STORY TO TELL 35 
 
 The story-teller who is a novice at the work will 
 do well for a time to make a written outline of the 
 events to be used. After a time, this will be un- 
 necessary but at first, it gives one confidence and 
 much help in making the rest of the work complete. 
 
 Now comes the conclusion and the introduction. 
 How can you end it without detracting from the 
 climax and in a restful way? How can you begin 
 it in such a way as to create the most interest ? You 
 will need to think just here of the group to which you 
 are to tell it. /What have they in their lives in com- 
 mon with thef hero about which you are to tell them, 
 or in common with the setting of the story?/ Are they 
 foreign or American? /Are they from homes of re- 
 finement? Do they think in terms of alley and 
 street-car or do they think of green field and moun- 
 tain and roadside flower? This must help to de- 
 termine what your introduction shall be. / The story 
 will become more permanent in their minds if it is 
 linked with things of their own daily life. Again the 
 novice will find it well to learn both the introduction 
 and the conclusion of the stories she is to tell. There 
 are many distractions in a Sunday School class. But 
 if your introduction is all ready, by the time you 
 have said that much to your class, the rest of the 
 story will follow much more naturally and easily. 
 First and last impressions count for much in life. 
 By doing artistic work on these two parts of your 
 story, you can cover a multitude of sins in the rest. 
 
 After theme, events, introduction and climax and 
 conclusion are all prepared, the story is ready to 
 tell. To the class? Not a bit of it. It is ready to 
 tell to your family, to a group of children, and if no 
 one else is ready to listen to it, to yourself. How 
 
36 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 are you going to know if you can tell it well if you 
 do not hear your own self tell it? You will be less 
 afraid of the sound of your own voice in the story 
 if you have heard yourself tell it several times. The 
 words given in the book were out of the life of the 
 authors. Fill your story in with your own words. 
 Then after you have told it, criticize it yourself — 
 Did you put in anything that was distracting to the 
 attention? Did you use any unknown words over 
 which the children must climb in thought and, when 
 they have climbed over, find that you are far away in 
 the story and they have lost some of it? No words 
 must be used that are unfamiliar unless the context 
 shows immediately what the meaning is that you 
 desire to leave. Did you use the best of English? 
 The children are learning to use it by hearing you 
 tell the story. Could you not have used words that 
 made the descriptions more beautiful? For instance, 
 we might say, " John went up the hill with the 
 sheep," but the children would appreciate the story 
 much more if we said, " Then out of the gate he led 
 the sheep, down the long lane, across the little sing- 
 ing brook and then up and up the green hillside 
 where the ferns grew, and the daisies nodded, and 
 the little birds sang in the treetops." j Make your 
 . word pictures as beautiful as you can/ 
 
 This telling and retelling of the' story is all for 
 the purpose of bettering the finish of it. Often re- 
 read the author's story, even though you have told 
 it many times. You will find little suggestions for 
 change for the better. If you see the pictures and 
 love the story, you will find that it grows and grows 
 on your mind. Choice bits of direct discourse may 
 be taken verbatim from the written story and, rarely, 
 
PREPARING A STORY TO TELL 37 
 
 a bit of description, but it is the work of the reader 
 to repeat; it is yours to interpret. 
 
 The connecting words in your finished story may 
 need a little attention. One is liable to use " and " 
 too frequently, forgetting that there are other words 
 that can be used very effectively — ^but, also, indeed, 
 so, thus and many others. They all help to make 
 the story run smoothly and should be carefully stud- 
 ied. The story-teller's art comes with the care of 
 the details of the making of the story. At first they 
 seem cumbersome. It seems a long time to spend 
 in the telling of one simple story — but if that story 
 has the power of making or marring a life it is worth 
 much time. 
 
 Many years ago, I had a class of older adolescent 
 boys. The lesson for the day was the sin of Achan 
 and somehow, as I studied, I found the Bible lesson 
 hard to prepare. There were points where I knew 
 the boys would take issue with me. So I prepared, 
 as well, a story told me by a New York banker. 
 " He was a little bank errand boy and in his home 
 he had an invalid mother and a little sister who 
 could not walk. The father drank up all he could 
 earn and so John had to be the support of the two 
 at home and it took every cent he could possibly 
 earn. Now the doctor had been to the home re- 
 cently and had told John that unless the mother could * 
 get into the country where there was plenty of fresh 
 air, that she was going to grow worse and perhaps 
 would be gone in the fall. So John had tried and 
 tried to find some way by which he could send the 
 two away, but there seemed none at all and his little 
 heart seemed almost ready to break as day after 
 day his mother grew less and less strong. 
 
38 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 " One day when John was sweeping under the 
 table of the bank, he found a roll of bills — a big 
 roll and he could see some yellow-backs in the pile. 
 He picked them up and started to go to the office of 
 the president but he stopped. ' Just think what 
 those bills will do,' he thought. ' They will send 
 mother and Millie away for the whole summer and 
 then they will be well. No one knows I have them 
 and they don't belong to the bank. They were in 
 the waste paper. I'm going to keep them. Find- 
 ing is keeping and they are mine.' So into his pocket 
 they went and he finished his sweeping and started 
 for home. But somehow the roll didn't feel good. 
 He put them into his inner pocket, and then in his 
 hip pocket, and then shifted them to his coat pocket. 
 He felt sure that every one must see them. About 
 an hour after John had gone home, he came back 
 to the bank, knocked for admittance and went to 
 the office of the president. He threw the bills on 
 the desk saying, ' I found them when I swept,' and 
 then with a cry of pain, he fled from the bank. 
 
 " Next morning he was there at his work and 
 after the bank had opened, he was called to the 
 president's room. ' John,' said he, ' I wish you 
 would tell me why you brought those bills back last 
 night. I know why you wanted them and what they 
 would have done at home. We didn't know you had 
 them. Why did you bring them back? ' Away over 
 the desk leaned John and looking straight into the 
 eyes of the man, he said, ' Sir, as long as I live, I 
 have to live with myself and I don't want to live 
 with a thief.' A few days later the mother and 
 Millie went to the country but not alone, for John 
 went with them for the whole summer as the 
 
PREPARING A STORY TO TELL 39 
 
 appreciation of the bank for the nobility of the 
 boy." 
 
 That was the story. In the class was one boy 
 who was much of a trial. Later he left the class to 
 leave town. At intervals of months, I would have 
 a card from him. Then came the war and when 
 our boys were in France there came a letter from 
 him which said, " Years ago on a wet rainy day 
 when the ice was dangerous on the side walk, you 
 came to class and told us a story about a boy. I 
 can't remember it all but I can't forget the end, ' As 
 long as I live, I have to live with myself and I don't 
 want to live with a thief.' It has kept me from ly- 
 ing and stealing and from being a coward and here 
 in France, it has kept me from being untrue to my 
 manhood. I have a class in the barracks — ^you 
 would never believe it, would you, but I have — and 
 some of my men need that story. I want it all for 
 them, for all that I am I owe to that story and from 
 the bottom of my heart, I thank you for it." The 
 theme of the story of Achan on that day was dis- 
 honesty. The boy forgot the story of Achan but 
 he remembered the story from boy life. Was it 
 worth the time I spent in preparing it? 
 
 You never know when you prepare a story but 
 that in your class there may be some boy or girl 
 who will take your story and build their future career 
 on it. Can you play with such a responsibility? 
 
 Read your story, make friends with your story, 
 find the hidden message or theme of your story, mark 
 the place where you are going to make your big 
 appeal for the higher things of life, then build the 
 frame work, add the beautiful things that shall make 
 it something to be used, introduce it with a great 
 
40 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 desire to give and finish it with a silent prayer that 
 it may be used. Permeate the whole with a love of 
 the story, a love of the child to whom it is to be 
 given and gratitude that to you has come the oppor- 
 tunity to carry the great gift— and the result will 
 be, " Please tell us another." You have been an, 
 artist and a teacher. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 HELPS IN TELLING THE STORY 
 
 If in the telling of a story to a group, one must 
 forget self and content in order to be successful, and 
 think only of the message, then one must master the 
 details of telling a story in such a way that they be- 
 come natural and spontaneous. In this chapter are 
 given some very commonplace suggestions, sugges- 
 tions which perhaps every one knows, yet which it is 
 wise often to recall to mind for they are very neces- 
 sary details. To a born story-teller, many of them 
 come naturally but the born story-tellers are few 
 and far between. 
 
 Short sentences are much preferable to long ones 
 in any told story, but short sentences are necessary 
 in little children's stories. When one is reading, the 
 eye helps the mind to keep the thought complete. In 
 the telling of a story, the thought must be made as 
 simple as possible. This does not mean simple sen- 
 tences are always to be used — then the story would 
 sound unfinished. Use complex sentences freely to 
 relieve the monotony of the compound but do not 
 make them too long or difficult to trace. The word 
 " and " is a great temptation to the story-teller. 
 It is well to remember that there are others that 
 can be used which will make the story much 
 smoother. Try using — while, also, but, hence, thus 
 and many other similar words. 
 
 Use the best English at your command. You owe 
 
 41 
 
42 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 it to yourself as well as to the hearers. Seldom, if 
 ever, should any slang be used unless it is necessary 
 in a quotation from the direct discourse. You are 
 a builder of ideals and slang is far from ideal. Try 
 to imagine some slang inserted into some of Henry 
 Van Dyke's masterpieces and you will at once see 
 that it has no place in story-telling. There are idi- 
 oms in the English language which now may be 
 used carefully where they could not have been used 
 ten years ago. But plan to use correct musical 
 English. Little children like especially words con- 
 taining the letter L and the letter T. The filling 
 in of your outline in your own words is your oppor- 
 tunity to show your command of your own language. 
 
 Eliminate all description that is not necessary. Sup- 
 pose in the story of " Red Riding Hood " one should 
 stop to describe the red cape : when and where and 
 how it was made. Immediately the children would 
 be restless. All they need to know of the cape is 
 that it was a pretty little cape which she wore when 
 she started for her grandmother's home. Make all 
 the description vivid as to details but use none that is 
 unnecessary. 
 
 Use direct language. Note the difference in 
 strength. " Then the lion asked the mouse why he 
 had wakened him." " Then the lion said to the little 
 mouse In his big, big voice, ' How dare you wake 
 me when I am asleep ! ' " Children really see in their 
 mind the characters as they talk back and forth to 
 each other. Don't rob them of the pleasure. Some- 
 times the Bible stories have no direct discourse but 
 make it up for yourself. It is not irreverent to say 
 what you think Jesus might have said when he took 
 the little ones on his knee or when he took the lunch 
 
HELPS IN TELLING THE STORY 43 
 
 from the hands of the boy. It makes the story 
 live. 
 
 Be careful of your voice. Some are pitched too 
 high, some too low. Some are nasal and some are 
 very loud. You must find the happy medium. Not 
 long ago, I went to a lecture but I had to leave the 
 room for the voice of the speaker fell on my ear 
 drums in such a way that it was painful indeed. Chil- 
 dren like a soothing tone that is full of cheer. Some- 
 times the nervousness in a group is directly traceable 
 to the tones of the teacher. Pitch your voice for 
 the ones farthest away from you, but this does not 
 necessarily mean a loud tone; it means a distinct, 
 carefully modulated one. There are times in some 
 stories when one needs to use a slight amount of 
 drawling or of slurring in the voice but it is only in 
 mimicry. Watch yourself to see how you say some 
 of the expressive words in the story. There needs 
 to be harmony between your voice and the words 
 used. 
 
 Rhythmic phrases are helpful in children's stories. 
 Do you not remember the " Hippity-hop, hippity- 
 hop " of the Half-chick as he went to see the king, 
 and the " trit-trot, trit-trot " of the troll as he went 
 over the bridge? They are like old friends to the 
 little ones as they meet them over and over. In 
 " Life at its Best " by Edwards there is told the story 
 of the Forty Wrestlers. Boys of the adolescent 
 age seem to like much of the repetition in this : 
 
 "Forty wrestlers wrestling for thee, oh Christ, 
 Forty wrestlers wrestling for thee. 
 For thee we claim the victory, 
 For thee we claim the crown." 
 
44 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 Vary the time of the story. Study the effect of 
 a pause, for it is one of the most effective ways of 
 giving emphasis. A pause after the introduction is 
 quite necessary in working with little children in 
 order that they see clearly the setting. Do not use 
 a monotone or a sameness of time. As you near a 
 crisis, you should move at a slower pace for the 
 suspense adds to the interest. 
 
 Study the effect of different times of the day in 
 telling stories. On Mother's day in 191 8, I went to 
 Camp Sherman to tell Mother Stories to the men 
 at the request of the Y.M.C.A. At 7.30 in the 
 morning, I told them to the men at the Detention 
 camp as they were lined up against the green of the 
 hillside, making a wonderful picture in their khaki 
 suits. One would hardly have known how to ask 
 for a greater inspiration than the theme, the setting 
 and the men, who on the next day were to go to 
 France. In front of me were great piles of roses 
 to be given to them with the Mother-message. But 
 at night I was at the hut. The day was over, thou- 
 sands of letters had been written to mothers, the 
 roses on their coats were faded. And again I rea- 
 lized the truth of the statement that the ideal time 
 for stories is the night-time and the dim firelight or 
 lamplight. If you have told stories to a group of 
 boys and girls at a summer camp around the camp 
 fire, you too have felt it. The glow of the fire seems 
 to put them in the most receptive mood and the 
 story-teller seems to fade more easily into the back- 
 ground. 
 
 If you have the choice of the time when your story 
 is to be told, choose the evening and the firelight. 
 The reader must have spot lights and prefers to be 
 
HELPS IN TELLING THE STORY 45 
 
 seen. She must have setting; but you must have at- 
 mosphere and mood. The real story-teller conceals 
 her art. Simplicity is her watchword. 
 
 Be sparing in the use of gestures unless they are 
 very natural to you, and then be careful. Their use 
 in story-telling is two: to help the imagination to 
 travel on its way and to appeal to the emotions. We 
 say, " The steeple went up and up and up " and a 
 gesture of the hand, quietly done and immediately 
 ended, helps them to see the steeple. Then if we 
 are using a sentence of direct discourse and wish to 
 help to show fear, joy, surprise, a gesture, held until 
 the emotion is stirred, will help. But there is a sug- 
 gestive posture of the body that is very helpful 
 in story-telling. The curving of the shoulders to 
 show witchery and craftiness; the drawing away 
 to show fear and distrust — these all help if well 
 done. But these must be done, not as the elocu- 
 tionist does them — to show a skill in portrayal — but 
 because you feel them yourself and your whole na- 
 ture is responding to the appeal of the story. Learn 
 that suggestion is often more powerful than action. 
 A smile across the face when a humorous situation 
 is appearing will bring an answering smile and a 
 quiver of excitement to know what is to happen. 
 If you are living the story as you tell it, you cannot 
 keep the soulfulness from the voice nor the sympathy 
 from the poise of the body. 
 
 Do not long for a big audience. A small group 
 where you can look every one in the eye, where per- 
 haps you know each life and some of its needs is 
 much more worth while. The story grows less and 
 less impressive usually as your audience grows in 
 size. Perhaps they may get as much from you but 
 
46 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 it is hard for you to feel the comradeship which is 
 necessary in good story-telling. 
 
 Learn well a few good stories and then tell and 
 retell these. What has brought a great message 
 to you, you can probably give better than one that 
 has been chosen for you. If you hear a good story, 
 jot down the outline. Then when you have reached 
 your office or home, fill it in in your own words. In 
 this way you will get many of your most effective 
 stories. Not long ago a lady wrote asking me for 
 the publisher of three stories that she had heard 
 me tell. Two of those stories were built out of 
 incidents that I had seen when riding in her car 
 with her by my side. The other I had heard told 
 in a sermon in the church which we both attended. 
 Not the number of stories you can tell, but how 
 well you tell those that you have, marks you as a 
 Buccess in the work. 
 
 Use sense appeals. This has been brought out in 
 another chapter so it need only be referred to here. 
 If a child has felt pain, the story of William Rugh 
 is alive to him. If he has felt hunger, he can sympa- 
 thize with the Ugly Duckling. 
 
 Be leisurely. Do not consent to tell a story if it 
 must be hurried and poorly done. You yourself 
 can not get into tune with the story and be hurried— 
 neither can the children. For the time being you 
 are " stage manager." Take your time — but do not 
 drag. 
 
 Be careful of your dress and manners. A button 
 from a dress, a color that does not harmonize, a 
 flashy bit of ornament, and the child's mind Is with 
 that and not with your story. That is why I urge 
 
HELPS IN TELLING THE STORY 47 
 
 that churches build cloak rooms where both pupils 
 and teachers shall remove their wraps. What school 
 teacher would think for a moment of teaching for 
 two hours with her hat and coat on ? But we spend 
 nearly two hours in the Bible Schools with the chil- 
 dren. I well remember the disorder that I saw 
 in a class one day and the teacher could not under- 
 stand why. She had a new, bright red hat and the 
 boys were interested in it as the feather waved back 
 and forth to attract their attention. Not long since 
 I heard a teacher who had a mannerism that was 
 most annoying. She held her hands very tightly 
 together as she told her story and one little finger 
 kept moving back and forth over her dress. Just 
 nervousness, you may say. Certainly it was, but 
 It was worse for her work than many mistakes in 
 the story would have been. It put her person Into 
 the foreground and the story was less effective. Sim- 
 plicity of dress and manner are requisites. 
 
 Use comparisons from life. Then many times a 
 day the lesson you have taught will be brought to 
 the mind of the child. A friend told me of riding 
 through the country with a little child who was all 
 enthusiasm over the things they were seeing. Sud- 
 denly he slid from the seat to the floor of the car 
 and hid his head. When he finally was persuaded to 
 come up he said, " There was a big pig and I didn't 
 mind mother and wash my face before I came." 
 Evidently some one had been telling him the story of 
 "The Pig Brother," told by Laura Richards in 
 " Golden Windows." 
 
 Keep old, well known stories very much as you 
 were told them. Children resent changes in their 
 
48 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 favorite story. Sometimes we question the wisdom 
 of some of the fairy and folk stories. Do not tell 
 them if you have to remaketthem too much for later 
 the child will find them in the epic stories. 
 
 Perhaps one of the greatest helps in story-telling 
 is a rich personality. And how can this be obtained? 
 By loving the beautiful, by reading the worth-while, 
 by filling the mind with those things that are worth 
 passing on, by cultivation of a cheery disposition, 
 by striving toward high ideals. To aim to be an 
 interpreter of life is to aim high. You must have 
 high ideals if you wish the message of the story to 
 be filled with the best. You must have a background 
 in your own life through which the story may pass 
 and be electrified. 
 
 But the greatest way of winning a rich personality 
 is to live near to the great story-teller and let him 
 purify and clarify your ideals. You may know every 
 principle of story-telling, you may study with all your 
 mind but if the Master is not working in your life 
 and through your life, you can not tell the Bible 
 stories in such a way that their message will grip the 
 lives and hearts of the boys and girls. The men of 
 old said of the Christ, " He speaks with authority 
 and not as the Scribes." Now the scribes " knew " 
 but they did not " feel." Jesus felt the power of 
 God in his own life and he went out to carry the 
 message of the love of the Father. If you feel the 
 power of God in your own life, you will carry the 
 message and you will do his will. Your own life 
 must be in harmony with the Christ if you would 
 teach the great lessons that he taught. His stories 
 are some of the most treasured that we have and 
 you are to tell them. You will need an historical 
 
HELPS IN TELLING THE STORY 49 
 
 background and a social background to be sure. But 
 you must have the personal background also for the 
 story and right here is where many of our Bible 
 School teachers fail. They ask me, " Why can't I 
 tell the stories and make them live? Why can't I 
 make the children love the Bible stories ? " Do you 
 love the Bible stories or do you teach them just be- 
 cause they are the assigned lesson of the day ? When 
 you teach them, do the children feel that you know 
 so much about the stories that you can give and give 
 and still have more, or are you looking for the bell 
 to ring for the close of the lesson? Is your life a 
 background for the story? 
 
 Some years ago I heard an old man tell the story 
 of the man who went down to Jericho and fell among 
 thieves. He knew nothing of story-telling but he 
 knew his Bible and he loved the story. He told the 
 story beautifully and I remember so well when he 
 said, " And he poured in oil and wine," I thought 
 to myself, " That is what you are doing every day 
 — pouring in oil and wine to help some one who is 
 hurt." He made the story live because he lived the 
 jstory. 
 
 Take any good story of the Bible and learn to tell 
 it well, test it by the helps mentioned in this chapter, 
 let it live with you for a month before you give it to 
 another, then tell it to a group as if they had never 
 heard of it before. Criticize your story and then 
 tell it again to a different group. Watch your own 
 story grow in power and usefulness. A girl once 
 told me that her whole Bible study had been trans- 
 formed by thus studying the story of the " Prodigal 
 Son." Today she is a social worker and I am sure 
 that is where she gained her desire to do the work. 
 
50 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 She found that it was in her own personality that 
 she was lacking, and that is a most serious lack in 
 story-telling. 
 
 " Study to show thyself approved unto God — a 
 workman that needeth not to be ashamed." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 HINDERANCE TO THE SUCCESS OF THE STORY-TELLER 
 
 Perhaps one of the greatest hinderances in story- 
 telling is the failure to appreciate the spirit of the 
 story. Is it an heroic story or is it a pathetic one? 
 Should it, if told well, call forth a hearty laugh or 
 a desire to go out and fight? Is the story an absurd 
 one? If so, why should we tell an absurd story? 
 Take for instance the story of Epaminondas. Is it 
 funny? If so, why? Its very absurdity rtiakes it 
 funny. I have told Epaminondas to a grown-up 
 audience many times and seen them enjoy it fully 
 as much as do the children and they never tire of it. 
 It is well occasionally to tell an absurd story, for 
 boys and girls as well as grown folks cannot always 
 be at high tension. They need to relax. To learn 
 to see the humor in a story is to learn to see the 
 brighter side of all life. He whose sense of humor 
 is lacking is not fit for human companionship. 
 Wyche says, " To the extent that we can relax and 
 let down, to that extent can we rebound to higher 
 things." Sometimes the whole object of a humorous 
 story is to create a good feeling among a group of 
 children who, because they are tired or the day is 
 hot, are not being companionable. Catch the spirit 
 of the story. 
 
 Just here lest it should not chance to come later 
 in the book, a list of some of the best humorous 
 stories may not be amiss. The two authors who are 
 
 SI 
 
52 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 most noted for their simple stories of fun and frolic 
 are Joel Chandler Harris and Albert Bigelow Paine. 
 Both have given us animal stories — The " Brer Rab- 
 bit Stories " told by Uncle Remus and the " Hollow 
 Tree Nights and Days." • In the " Brer Rabbit 
 Stories," the little rabbit is harmless and helpless, 
 yet he wins in the tests by his quick wit and his 
 craftiness. 
 
 " The Gingerbread Man," " Black Sambo," " Ep- 
 aminondas," "The Wolf and the Kids," "Tar 
 Baby," "Chicken Little," "Johnny Cake "—These 
 are a few of the favorite humorous stories loved by 
 all children who hear them. In telling these stories 
 the story-teller should take the story seriously. No 
 matter how funny it may be, if it is worth telling 
 it is worth telling well. 
 
 Lack of definite thinking Is another cause of fail- 
 ure. " Oh I have known that story for a long time. 
 I can tell that," is often the cause of an unhappy 
 class and teacher. No matter how long you have 
 known a story, it needs study every time you tell 
 it. Your theme may be changed, you may need the 
 story for one particular child in the class, and if so, 
 you will need to study much more carefully than 
 usual. Always study your story and do it many days 
 before you are to use It. 
 
 Self consciousness has been called the root of all 
 evil in story-telling and surely it is evil. To think 
 of your own self when you should be thinking of 
 your message Is very selfish, to say the least. Being 
 thoroughly prepared eliminates much af this. 
 Thinking of your audience as children helps to drive 
 it away. Realizing what the story can do if you 
 tell it well will make you long to give the message 
 
HINDRANCE TO SUCCESS OF STORY 53 
 
 and forget some of self. Think what you are saying 
 and not how you are going to say it. But I know 
 of nothing that so helps one to conquer it as just 
 facing squarely the trouble and saying, " I know 
 my story better than any one else in the room knows 
 theirs. Now I will not allow myself to be less useful 
 than I might be. I will tell that same story over 
 and over till I can do it well." And telling the same 
 story is much easier the second time provided the 
 audience or group is different. Get a group that is 
 not at all critical at first if you can, for self con- 
 sciousness is sure to be there if you feel the criticism 
 of what you are doing. Stop pitying yourself for 
 the thing for which you have no need of pity and 
 be glad of the opportunity. 
 
 Memorizing of the text is a hindrance; for then 
 you have to be thinking words instead of message. 
 Once in a long time you will find a story that might 
 be memorized because of the beauty of the English, 
 or because the simplicity of the story seems to be 
 just fitted to your need. I have memorized several 
 of the parables because they are gems. I like to 
 tell Laura Richards' "The Angel of the Wheat 
 Fields," just as it is, but usually to memorize hin- 
 ders your thought. Your imagination has no chance 
 to play and so your rendering is liable to become 
 more or less stilted and mechanical. You see words 
 instead of pictures as you go along and if your 
 memory chance to fail you in a moment of self 
 consciousness, you are at a complete loss. Memo- 
 rize what you wish to quote from the story and let 
 the rest be your own. 
 
 Limited vocabulary hinders many. Study chil- 
 dren's expressions and phrases if you will tell chil- 
 
54 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 dren's stories. But a limited vocabulary is much 
 less of a hinderance than a vocabulary that can not 
 be made to fit the needs of the children. A study 
 of Junior Church stories will show this. Your 
 vocabulary simply must be made to fit your audience 
 and the spirit of the story. Can the same person 
 tell well " The Other Wise Man," or " A Lump of 
 Clay," and also tell a Brer Rabbit story? Yes, if 
 she can fit her vocabulary and mood to the stories, 
 but the dignified words of the one will not do 
 at all for the other. There must be no unknown 
 words in children's stories. Many a minister has no 
 child's vocabulary and so can not tell children's 
 stories. Pure English should always be used but it 
 should be very simple and direct. 
 
 A study of synonyms will help greatly here. For 
 instance, can you tell how to use the following words : 
 pretty, beautiful, grand, splendid, gorgeous, magnifi- 
 cent, lovely and sweet ? How do they differ ? How 
 many could be used with the word man ? Could you 
 use more of them with the word " girl? " Do you 
 use them correctly as you commonly talk? When 
 your story is ready to tell and you are describing the 
 hero could you not find a more expressive adjective 
 than the one you had planned to use ? 
 
 Now study for a moment your use of comparisons 
 in the story. You say " as green as grass," " as 
 white as milk," " as strong as a lion." Suppose you 
 were to use the words in an adolescent story. Could 
 you better them? It is well here again to use com- 
 parisons from everyday life. But a word of caution 
 is needed. In a near-by town, a teacher was telling 
 a story and she said, " He was as swift as Carl 
 Steen," who was a baseball player of growing fame 
 
HINDRANCE TO SUCCESS OF STORY 55 
 
 and whom the boys were idolizing. Later she asked 
 one of the boys to tell her something about the story 
 and he said, " I guess I didn't hear that. I think 
 I was out on the diamond with Carl Steen about the 
 time you were telling that." Her comparison had 
 brought a more interesting picture than the one she 
 was giving. Use everyday suggestive comparisons 
 but do not let them suggest a side line of thought. 
 Our comparisons are likely to receive local and na- 
 tional color also. In a recent examination I asked 
 for a filling in of the following blank (with others) 
 
 for adolescent stories — " as mean as " and 
 
 over half the class filled it with " the Kaiser." Evi- 
 dently they felt that that was what the boys were 
 thinking at the time. 
 
 Failure to enunciate and articulate clearly are 
 hinderances. We enunciate one letter or sound. 
 Articulation means the putting together of two or 
 more sounds. Do you leave the g's from the end 
 of your words ending in " ing? " Do the boys and 
 girls fartherest away from you hear all your words 
 or only parts of them ? A noted writer was brought 
 half way across the continent to speak to a gathering 
 of young girls. The meeting was well planned and 
 the church was full, but back of the sixth row of seats 
 no one could understand the address. To be sure 
 the church was somewhat at fault but the speaker 
 was much more at fault. Speak each word clearly 
 and finish one word before you begin another. 
 Listen to yourself. 
 
 " Speak clearly if you speak at all, 
 Carve every word before you let it fall." 
 
56 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 Open the mouth and send the words to the very 
 end of the room. Practise deep breathing and learn 
 to use deep tones rather than those of the nose and 
 throat. 
 
 Sometimes a story-teller will suddenly find that 
 she has forgotten something that she meant to tell 
 and she will say, " Oh, I forgot." Then she brings 
 in an event that should have come into the story 
 much before this time. It is a very useless thing to 
 do. If the forgotten part cannot be brought into 
 the story naturally leave it out. The children will 
 not miss it and then you will not have interrupted 
 the train of thought in the story. Usually it can 
 be worked into the story, however. Suppose you had 
 meant to say that the child in the story had no 
 mother or father but you had forgotten it. You 
 are almost to the climax and you need that fact. 
 What shall you do? " Then Donald, whose mother 
 
 and father had died many years ago, ." It is all 
 
 there and you have not hurt your story. Weave the 
 forgotten thing in or leave it out. 
 
 Listen to the self conscious person telling a story 
 and you will hear at the beginning of sentences, 
 " And — a-a-a," or perhaps a little exclamation pro- 
 longed into " Uh ." Why is this? It shows a 
 
 poorly prepared story. She is trying to find out 
 v/hat to say next. It is very annoying and grows 
 to be a habit of speech. Listen to the people with 
 whom you talk and you will find it very prominent 
 in some conversations. In Esenwein's " Children's 
 Stories and How to Tell Them " you will find this 
 suggestive advice of the Irish drill sergeant, " Now 
 sthep out and look at yerselves." I like that advice 
 for story-tellers. 
 
HINDRANCE TO SUCCESS OF STORY 67 
 
 A sentimental tone is a drawback, and it is very- 
 common in talking to children in religious work. I 
 heard a mission worker begin in this way : " Now 
 my dear little children, I know you will love to hear 
 of my beautiful children across the sea." After a 
 time, she showed some pictures of those beautiful 
 African children. If you have seen pictures of the 
 schools there when first they are established, you 
 will remember that they are far from beautiful in 
 form or face. Near me sat two boys who had wrig- 
 gled and twisted for eighteen of the twenty minutes 
 she had talked. When the picture of "my beautiful 
 children," went on the screen the little fellow next 
 to me leaned over and said, "If that's what she 
 calls beautiful, I must be an angel." "Oh, no," 
 «aid the first boy, " she didn't say you were an 
 angel, she said you were a " dear," and into the 
 word went all the scorn of a Junior boy who has 
 been called " dear." Children dislike a patronizing 
 air and a sentimental tone. Treat them in your 
 story-telling as little men and women and use a tone 
 that is full of life and vigor and cheerfulness. 
 
 If you really want to know what your chief dif- 
 ficulties are, get the children to tell you. Once In 
 a Sunday School where I was asking each teacher to 
 give me a year's estimate of each child In her class, 
 I asked each child these three questions to be written 
 out and handed in. " Would you like to have me 
 promote your teacher with you to the next grade? 
 If you would, you must give me a good reason why. 
 If you would not, you must give me a reason why. 
 Do you like the Bible stories you have had this 
 year ? Which one would you like to tell for me ? " 
 The answers that came from those questions told 
 
58 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 me more about the teachers than anything else I had 
 done during the year. I quote a very few answers 
 to show you some of the hinderances to good story- 
 telling. " I like the beginning of her stories but she 
 takes so long that I want to go into a shorter class." 
 " She thinks we are all girls and she tells girls 
 stories to us." " She takes so much time fixing her 
 dress that we do not have time for the lesson." " I 
 could listen all night to her tell stories, but her prayer 
 at the end is nicer than the story for she knows just 
 what we boys need to pray about." " I like his 
 Bible stories pretty well but he tells fine baseball 
 stories first." " I could tell you Daniel and Moses 
 and I'd like to know more about Nehemiah for that 
 day Miss S. had a headache and only told us a 
 little but I liked him." " Sure I want her to go 
 on for we are in the middle of Paul and the other 
 teacher might not know about him." 
 
 These are only a few taken from a whole Junior 
 and Intermediate department. They are hinder- 
 ances that would be hard to put into words but the 
 children know about them. " And u Little Child 
 Shall Lead Them." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE CHILD AND THE STORY 
 
 We have been talking about the teacher's part in 
 the telling of a story but the children too have a very 
 vital part. An irresponsive group will harm the 
 most carefully prepared story. 
 
 In a Bible School class — ^yes, in any class — it is 
 always best to prepare the children for the story. 
 Sometimes a cheery word and a pause for complete 
 silence will do the work but there are other times 
 when questions concerning the things that are on 
 their minds will have to precede the story in order 
 to clear the atmosphere. A field day in a neighbor- 
 ing city was held on a certain Saturday, so of course 
 the boys were full of it when they came to Bible 
 School on Sunday. The story for the day was 
 Elijah, one in a course of summer lessons. So I 
 listened to hear how one of my teachers would intro- 
 duce her lesson. " I haven't heard in how quick 
 time the run was made yesterday. Can any of you 
 tell me?" "Well, that was surely a fine run and 
 he deserved the medal. Do any of you know of a 
 longer run than that that was made in very quick 
 time that is told about in history? Elijah was up on 
 
 Mount Carmel ■" and then followed the story of 
 
 Elijah running ahead of the chariot of Ahab and 
 the lesson brought out the fact that because Elijah 
 was a man of the out-of-doors and clean habits, he 
 had the wonderful powers of endurance. By link- 
 
 59 
 
60 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 ing with their interests, she had caught their atten- 
 tion and they were ready to do their part in the 
 story. 
 
 But what is the part of the child in the story? 
 First of all it is listening with a receptive mind. But 
 not always can you tell the receptive mind by the 
 eye that is fixed on your face nor the body that is 
 still. Some children deliberately conceal the fact 
 that they are listening. You must learn to know by 
 the subtle lights and shades in the face and pos- 
 tures. I was telling stories in the South End of 
 Boston one night. Most of the children were very 
 attentive. But in the front seat was a little, homely, 
 red-headed boy who had mischief written in every 
 line of his face. Not by one sign, except the fact 
 that he was not talking, did he show that the story 
 was reaching him. He was a challenge to me and 
 I was trying in my own mind to find a sentence I 
 could give next that he would like. I was telling 
 the story of Jim, the drummer boy, and when I came 
 to the part where Jim asked the great burly soldier 
 if he would follow wherever his drum should lead, 
 the little fellow in the front seat stood right up and 
 said, " Please hurry, I am afraid he didn't go into 
 the icy water and get 'em across." Not only was 
 he listening but he was far ahead of the story. 
 
 Shall we let them comment? Sometimes but not 
 often for it will spoil the story for others. Com- 
 ments should come afterward if there are any. 
 Oftentimes a child is not quite clear on a given point 
 and wishes to ask questions afterward. This should 
 always be allowed. But there are times when the 
 comment in the story is quite involuntary and shows 
 how deeply the child is living in the story. In this 
 
THE CHILD AND THE STORY 61 
 
 case simply ignore it and go on with the story. Per- 
 haps the other members of the group have hardly 
 noticed it. Deliberate commenting in the story must 
 be dealt with outside the class hour. 
 
 Little children often like to join in when a 
 rhythmic phrase occurs in the story. This is good, 
 for all know the part and all feel that they can help 
 in the story. 
 
 Shall we have the story retold in the class ? Not 
 immediately. A story is the giving of a message, 
 not the repeating of words. No one would care to 
 give the same story to the same audience in the 
 same hour. Teach the children to see that when 
 they tell a story, they too are giving a real gift. 
 Make them see pictures as they give and not words. 
 A Bible story can well be repeated on the following 
 Sunday as a review if you prefer it so, though I am 
 of the opinion that a few well-directed questions 
 concerning the story will do quite as well, and let the 
 pupils tell other stories of the same hero that they 
 have found by assignment. Reproduction as a task 
 is not good for the future of the story. 
 
 And if they reproduce it, what shall we expect of 
 them? Should they tell It just as we told it? In- 
 deed not. That is mimicry and not the telling of 
 the story. Let them tell what appealed to them. If 
 you ask them to repeat the story, they will struggle 
 for words; they will mind the laugh of the rest 
 when they fail; they will end by disliking the story 
 unless it has been so well told to them that they 
 have seen every picture distinctly. Be very sure that 
 if the child can not give the lesson of the story, it 
 is because you failed in telling it. As you gave the 
 story, you told what you thought was necessary to 
 
62 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 bring out your moral. Give him the same oppor- 
 tunity. If there are points left out which you deem 
 necessary to review, let them be given by another 
 after the teller of the story has finished. Do not 
 stop him to remind him of these things. Do as you 
 would be done by. 
 
 Watch for the pupils in your class who never want 
 to tell the story. Perhaps it is because they feel 
 their lack of vocabulary. Perhaps it is because they 
 are a bit nervous at the sound of their own voice. 
 Perhaps it is because you have never happened to 
 ask them to tell a story that has just appealed to 
 them. Co-operative story-telling helps here. I 
 should try it with secular stories rather than Bible 
 stories until the class can do it well. Make an out- 
 line on the board of the events that they remember 
 in the story. Let one pupil fill in the first part, 
 another pupil begin, with no announcement, to tell 
 the second, etc. till the story is told. In this way 
 the part they have to take is very definite and short. 
 Sometimes it is well to have a pupil who can tell a 
 given lesson story well go into another class and 
 give the story. This is often the beginning of the 
 desire to some day teach a class. One winter I had 
 a class of adolescent boys who were studying 
 " Heroes of the Faith." They were intensely inter- 
 ested in the heroes and we were making a co-opera- 
 tive notebook. Each Sunday one boy took the book 
 home and wrote the story of the life and illustrated 
 it. I found some splendid stories so I asked them if 
 they thought that each week the boy who wrote the 
 story could also tell it in a Junior Boy's club that we 
 had in the church. It worked splendidly and the 
 boys never failed me once. Every boy in the class 
 
THE CHILD AND THE STORY 63 
 
 was telling stories and that is something to be de- 
 sired in Bible School work, for one of the reasons 
 why we have so few men teachers in the Bible 
 School is because they do not learn how to teach as 
 they go through the school. We use the girls when 
 we lack a teacher, but we fail to realize that the boys 
 can help as well if we will give them opportunities. 
 
 There should be a chance for the children to in- 
 vent other stories suggested by your story. Their 
 imagination should be put to work. We were having 
 a lesson on courtesy and I told a story of a boy who 
 helped a woman across the street when she was 
 tryihg to cross with a big basket of clothes. It ends 
 in this way, " Say, fellers, I ain't got any mother and 
 I ain't never had one, but every old lady that needs 
 help is somebody's mother, and I kin help that some- 
 body and call her mother, when I am helping, all to 
 myself. Cause you see I wish I had one myself." 
 The following Sunday the boys were to report 
 whether they had seen any one help " Somebody's 
 mother," during the week. One after another the 
 original stories were told, wonderful stories that 
 showed how they had not only been looking for, but 
 living the message of the story. But the one that 
 has stayed with me longest was this, " My sister is 
 only five years old and we have three babies. So 
 her back aches sometimes. But when mother tells 
 her she can go and play after they are in bed, she 
 runs right down the street to help another mother 
 who hasn't any big girls. I just watched her this 
 week and — and — and — well, she's worth having." 
 
 Sometimes the reproduction may be done in other 
 ways than by words. Paper-tearing and cutting, 
 scfoU work, burnt work, and plasticene or clay all 
 
64. THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 serve a purpose. Once I had a little foreign boy 
 who could make a whole story in plasticene. I re- 
 member telling them some of the stories of the life 
 of Dr. Grenfell. He made the canoe, the dog team, 
 the little huts, the orphanage and even the little 
 figures in the molded work. It was the one thing 
 he could do well. He had no vocabulary to retell 
 the story but he told it in his own way. Some day 
 I am sure the world will know of Paul as one of its 
 sculptors if only the chance to study is his. 
 
 Dramatization of stories is another part of the 
 child's work in story-telling but that must have a 
 chapter by itself later on. It is one of the very im- 
 portant parts with little children. 
 
 We have no right to rouse the emotions of the 
 child, to create the desire to do and to be and then 
 not put in the way of the child the opportunity to 
 satisfy those desires. If you tell a mission story and 
 the child feels, " I should like to help," he should 
 be allowed to help and urged to help. Stories to 
 succeed must be put into practise. See to it that 
 in your church work there is a place for the child 
 to serve no matter how small he may be. This is 
 the way he grows through the influence of the story 
 in his life. Tell your stories of the needs of the 
 community and even though the work done be only 
 picking up bits of paper and glass from the street, 
 or killing flies in the home, let it be because he, too, 
 wants to be a little citizen. Do not misunderstand 
 me. I do not mean to have you point a moral to 
 the stories you tell but in the discussions that follow, 
 in the friendly talks that you have together, you can 
 suggest ways of living the story. 
 
 Often the still small voice speaks to the child 
 
THE CHILD AND THE STORY 65 
 
 but he does not know how to answer. You must 
 show him HOW he can answer in practical ways, 
 " Here am I. Use me." The story to be useful to 
 him must be carefully heard by him; it must be re- 
 lived within him and it must become a part of his 
 everyday life. Christ said, " I am come that ye 
 might have life and that ye might have it more 
 abundantly." That is precisely what the interpreter 
 of life — the story-teller — should aim to do — To 
 give to the children a more abundant life. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 WHAT SHALL WE TELL? 
 
 A TEACHER of Story-telling is often at a loss to know 
 what to answer to this question which is asked over 
 and over again. No one can lay down a list of 
 stories for another to tell because stories must be a 
 part of one's own self and what appeals to me may 
 not be at all satisfactory for another. One may 
 prefer to tell the little children's stories while 
 another is looking for those rare stories known as 
 adolescent stories. But there are some general sug- 
 gestions that can be found in almost any book on 
 story-telling which may guide the one who is seek- 
 ing to become more proficient. 
 
 Stories should make an appeal to the conditions 
 under which the child lives. The Alaskan does not 
 appreciate the twenty-third psalm as we do because 
 there is so much that is foreign to him in it. The 
 child in the country must have some element of his 
 own home life in the story of city life before it 
 appeals to him. " The Tin Soldier," by Anderson, 
 is a fine example of this fact. Read it through and 
 see how much of material there is in it that is known 
 to the child. 
 
 Stories which bring out the beauty of God's world 
 and the child's part in that world — good-will stories, 
 nature stories, stories of home life are a very neces- 
 sary part of your list. Many Bible stories will come 
 
 66 
 
WHAT SHALL WE TELL? 67 
 
 in here for the stories of the Old Testament are full 
 of these three qualities. 
 
 Stories that illustrate commonsense and resource- 
 fulness. The Brer Rabbit stories are noted exam- 
 ples. The little rabbit always has a way out of every 
 difficulty. Fairy stories teach this also and the 
 youngest child or the step-sister is usually the 
 heroine of the story. 
 
 Stories that give the beliefs and customs of the 
 primitive people. The chapter on Folk Stories and 
 Myths will discuss the need of these stories in the 
 life of the child. 
 
 Stories that bring in the unusual, the mysterious. 
 The " Tell Me Why Stories " have been a great 
 help to many mothers in telling of the natural 
 phenomena that is so puzzling. These stories not 
 only cultivate the imagination but they also cause 
 an interest in things that otherwise might produce 
 fear. 
 
 Stories that develop humor. The story awakens 
 mirth, usually because of the stupidity of the hero, 
 but it also teaches practical lessons of choice and 
 discretion. Primitive stories are full of humor. 
 
 Stories that are positive in their teaching. This 
 must eliminate many of the fairy stories. In the 
 end of the story, wrong-doing must be punished. To 
 be sure there may be wrong-doing as a part of the 
 story leading up to the climax but in the end, right 
 must win. I can well remember how I used to 
 shudder at the story of Bluebeard. But Bluebeard 
 n€ver appears on a list of good stories for children 
 today. There should never be suggested a premium 
 on bad deeds. Cruelty must be punished and wicked 
 thoughts and deeds be put down. In the " Frog 
 
68 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 Prince " the child must be taught to keep her word, 
 so the father insists that the frog be taken into the 
 home. The teaching of each story must be some- 
 thing that will correct faults and implant ideals. 
 
 Stories of heroic action. Under this heading will 
 come many of the biographical and historical stories. 
 Perhaps that is one reason why the great epic stories 
 have lived through the ages. They are full to the 
 brim with heroic action. 
 
 Legends. Some of the finest stories you can find 
 are these old stories containing an idealization of 
 person or place. Sometimes they are based on an 
 historical fact and sometimes not, but a simple fact 
 is enlarged or abridged until it carries a great 
 spiritual truth. " Why the Chimes Rang," " The 
 Legend of Cathay," " The Bell of Atri," all good 
 legends, are great helps to the story-teller. Often- 
 times in our historical stories, it is difficult to decide 
 what is fact and what is legend, but the message 
 remains the same whichever it may be, and it does 
 no harm at all to call the disputed fact a legend. 
 
 Grotesque stories have a place as an antidote to 
 some of the sentimental stories told to children. 
 They have a place with humorous stories in creating 
 imagination and giving relaxation. 
 
 There has been much discussion as to the value of 
 teUing stories concerning death. Stories with death- 
 bed scenes should surely never be told. But death 
 is one of the things of which children are afraid 
 and some stories may help to eliminate this. Proser- 
 pine is the death of the flowers told in a beautiful 
 way. Molly Cottontail in Ernest Seton Thompson's 
 story of Raggy-Lug and his story of the death of 
 Lobo have value for the child. But any story told 
 
WHAT SHALL WE TELL? 69 
 
 should leave with the children the thought of the 
 naturalness of death and the restfulness of it aU. 
 Not a punishment but a finish of life and work. The 
 death of Baldur is a classic story. 
 
 Stories that have life. Children insist on flesh 
 and blood stories. Some stories that otherwise 
 would be very good are too slow in movement. 
 These may do for reading but not for telling. 
 
 Stories which show the beginnings of life. But 
 we should beware of stories that mix fairy tale and 
 science. Many books of stories have been written 
 to tea^h scientific facts in this way with no thought 
 of the deeper message of the story. These are not 
 good. 
 
 Fairy stories which show the play of the good and 
 bad in the world and teach the child to live happily 
 in surroundings that may be unhappy. Stories which 
 cultivate the child's imagination concerning the life 
 about him. Our city children need these especially. 
 Such stories keep the child hopeful of the future. 
 
 Stories to cultivate the love of beauty. Some- 
 times these are fairy stories; sometimes they are 
 heroic stories; sometimes they are Indian stories, but 
 we should see to it that there are many such stories 
 told to the children, for the love of the beautiful 
 gives them a vast amount of happiness as they go 
 through life, and so many of our men and women 
 seem to have none of it at all. Watch the passers-by 
 in the Public Gardens to see the truth of this state- 
 ment. I sat for nearly an hour near the wonderful 
 bed of pansies in the Boston gardens this spring just 
 to watch the passers-by. Fully one-half of them just 
 went rapidly on their way, never realizing that a 
 look at the beautiful flowers would rest their body, 
 
70 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 divert their mind and give inspiration to the better 
 life. Just before I left, a little child came by. She 
 was poorly dressed and dirty but she bent down by 
 one purple pansy, patted its face, and then quickly 
 kissed it, saying to her mother, " I love this little 
 pansy and I wish it could live with me." Covet this 
 love of the beautiful for the children with whom you 
 work. 
 
 Animal stories. Many of the stories for little 
 children are animal stories for they seem to be full of 
 appeal. There are no finer stories to teach brother- 
 hood than these. To be a little brother to all living 
 things is to cultivate the gentle spirit and the help- 
 ful deed. Think of the influence that " Black 
 Beauty " has had. Often the magazine published by 
 the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 
 contains rich material here. One cannot read 
 " Raggy-lug " or " Brer Rabbit " without wanting 
 to pass on the stories to the children of the street 
 and the farm. 
 
 Bible stories of course would be Included here, but 
 they will be discussed later in the book. 
 
 It might be useful also to guard against some of 
 the stories that ought not to be told. 
 
 Stories of " Goody-Goody Children." This was 
 the type of Bible School story book of some years 
 ago. Stories should teach children as they are and 
 be true to life. Often serial writers start out with 
 a fine ideal of story but somehow as the books keep 
 coming out, they grow less and less effective. 
 
 Sentimental stories. This does not mean that 
 love stories should not be told. There comes a time 
 in adolescence when they are a very vital part of the 
 work. But they should be of high type and call out 
 
WHAT SHALL WE TELL? 71 
 
 the very best of the life of the individual. Perhaps, 
 there is no place where short stories are more needed 
 in the work today than here. In missionary litera- 
 ture, there are some fine stories — notably in " Love 
 Stories of Great Missionaries." " Ann of Ava " 
 should be in the library of every story-teller for it 
 shows so beautifully what love of a woman will do. 
 But most of the books for adolescent boys and girls; 
 have much of sentimentality and little of virility. j 
 
 Many stories that at first sight seem to be good,, 
 will, on study, be found to be coarse in thought and 
 full of misrepresentation and exaggeration. Leave 
 them alone. Do not try to re-make them. There 
 are too many good things to waste your time on 
 them. Our war stories are very liable to fall in this 
 class. 
 
 Stories that teach by sarcasm. It is a dangerous 
 tool. Such stories leave a sting in the mind of the 
 child and should never be told. They are like some 
 of the funny papers and posters which the children 
 use so freely — they live when the parents least ex- 
 pect them to. 
 
 Stories thatmay cause fear. A ghost story may 
 be fun for half the children in the room but the 
 other half may be harmed by it. It may teach the 
 fear of ghosts rather than making light of it. A 
 friend was discussing this very point with me and 
 she held to the belief that the way to dispel such 
 beliefs was to tell the stories to all children. A few 
 nights later she was at a hallowe'en party where 
 some great ghost stories were told. The guests 
 started for home, joking and laughing as they went. 
 She had turned the corner near her home when the 
 wind caused the maple tree to creak with an un- 
 
72 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 earthly noise. And she ran as if her life depended 
 upon it. Later she said to me, " If that is the 
 feeling that fear of ghosts gives to children, I'll 
 never tell another lest I help it along." Take care 
 that your trolls and your witches and your giants are 
 not so ugly as to cause fear. 
 
 One more story that should never be told is the 
 one that in any way causes mirth concerning any race 
 of people. Rather seek for stories that shall show 
 the nobility and possibilities of every race. A little 
 Jewish boy was made very uncomfortable in a 
 Vacation School till we had a lesson on " Jesus, the 
 little Jewish Boy " and wove a story about Hoff- 
 man's boy Christ. There are so many stories that 
 cause a smile to cross the face of the hearers when 
 a race is mentioned. One of the boys came in with 
 one of them to my office. It was a joke, but a joke 
 is a story in miniature sometimes. The next Sunday 
 morning in worship hour, we had the story of the 
 little Italian whose life was made so unhappy in an 
 East Side street in New York. Oh, yes, he was 
 funny looking. His hair was too long, his pants 
 were too long and his hat was so big. Taunts and 
 sneers made his life miserable even in school. Then 
 came the day when he saved the life of one of those 
 same mean boys but was himself bitten as he carried 
 the cripple from the reach of the mad dog. To the 
 hospital they carried him, and then came days and 
 months of pain. The boys of course went to see 
 him now and, to their surprise, they found that he 
 knew much more than they; that he had travelled 
 through country after country. Story after story he 
 told them and in one of them he chanced to speak 
 of " My great-grandfather Garibaldi." Garibaldi 
 
WHAT SHALL WE TELL? 73 
 
 •whom the teacher had told them was the great hero 
 of Italy — his grandfather! Then those same boys 
 •went back to school ready to boast that they knew 
 — oh, no! not the boy with the long hair and the 
 funny hat. Not a bit of it. Now they knew him as 
 a grandson of Garibaldi. 
 
 Some weeks afterward the boy who had told me 
 the joke came again to the office and this time he 
 said, " I thought you might like to look at this pic- 
 ture which the boy who lives in our house drew for 
 me. His father was an artist and he can do things, 
 but he is like that little Garibaldi boy. He looks as 
 if he didn't know a thing." The leaven was work- 
 ing. Mayhap it may make a social worker some 
 day of the boy who is learning to be interested in 
 other races. 
 
 What shall you tell? Tell any story that will 
 bring to the child a great life message and which has 
 first spoken its message to you. Where shall you 
 find them? Everywhere — in books, in magazines, 
 in addresses, on the street, anywhere so long as they 
 be your own stories which you love to give and which 
 will leave no weakness in the minds of the little ones 
 to whom you tell them. 
 
 " My strength is as the strength of ten, 
 Because my heart is pure." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 TYPES OF STORIES NEEDED IN GROUP WORK 
 
 When the stories are to be told in the home, it is 
 comparatively simple to choose the kind of stories 
 needed for a child of a given age for we know their 
 possibilities and their limitations. But in telling 
 stories in the different departments of the Bible 
 School we must be guided more or less by the char- 
 acteristics of that general group. One cannot say, 
 " A child of six needs fairy stories," for many chil- 
 dren of six are not ready for them. The progress 
 of the child is the final determining factor as what 
 ought to be told and not the age. However, there 
 are universal characteristics which may help mate- 
 rially when one goes to the library to find a story 
 that would appeal. 
 
 The little child under four years old lives in a 
 very small world. He knows only the home. He 
 loves the sound of words and is learning to put them 
 together. He has no power of reasoning as yet. 
 Hence, the stories used here are mostly rhythmic 
 stories. We call them Mother Goose rhymes. 
 Usually an animal is the center of interest and do- 
 mestic animals are largely used. The stories feed 
 his love of rhythm, they help his self-expression and 
 they fill him with happiness. The words are simple 
 and such that he will be able to use them continually. 
 After a time he helps with the little jingles, thus ex- 
 ercising his tiny memory: " Run, run, as fast as you 
 
 74 
 
STORIES NEEDED IN GROUP WORK 75 
 
 can; You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread man." 
 
 As the child begins to grow in reasoning and in 
 vocabulary, the jingles grow into stories and " The 
 Three Bears," " The Three Pigs," etc., come to the 
 forefront. Still there are animals and animals in 
 his tales. They are related to his home life in some 
 way usually. He might be afraid of the three bears 
 were it not for the fact that they live in a house 
 and sleep in a bed and, best of all, there is a baby 
 in the home. These are apperceptive stories. They 
 go from the known in his life to the unknown. He 
 begins to feel his relationship with animal life. 
 
 From six to nine years of age the fairy story 
 comes into its own. His imagination grows rapidly 
 during this time and the fairy stories are food for 
 it. They foster — indeed they teach — a belief In the 
 unknown world which later is useful in teaching the 
 great religious truths of the Bible. They teach a 
 love of nature, a love of the beautiful and a dim 
 consciousness of the struggle between good and evil 
 in the world. Primitive tales are woven and inter- 
 woven into these early fairy tales. Child life in 
 this and other lands presents many charms for this 
 Primary child. 
 
 There are five requirements of stories for children 
 up to the Junior age as follows: The story must 
 be child-like and use child language. It should 
 be simple and full to the brim with fancy. It must 
 form morals. The child does more than just get 
 the pleasure from the story — he approves or disap- 
 proves of the details and thoughts of the story. On 
 this choice, he builds his own choices. Hence it 
 must clearly teach some moral lesson. 
 
 It must be instructive, leading him from the little 
 
76 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 that he knows to the much that he does not know. 
 The content of this instruction will be largely the 
 lives and habits of the people among whom he lives 
 and the world in which he lives. The hero stories 
 of Bible and Epic are both essential. Build on the 
 growing sense appeals. 
 
 It must have permanent value. If he does not ask 
 to have it repeated, the story either has not gripped 
 his life or else he has received it carelessly as you 
 gave it. Stories should be worth telling over and 
 over. And lastly, it must form a connected whole. 
 To be sure there may be more of the epic, but the 
 story told must seem to be finished and thus become 
 a part of his education. 
 
 In the Junior period the realistic story is empha- 
 sized. "Is it true?" is a common question. Now 
 the hero must really do something worth while ; for 
 each Junior boy is a hero worshiper and each 
 girl is becoming critical. It is the great memory age 
 and stories told now are very vivid in later years. 
 Bible stories should be selected with great care look- 
 ing especially for the heroic. Great legends are ap- 
 preciated. " King Midas," " King of the Golden 
 River," " Tales of Sleepy Hollow," " King Arthur," 
 " The Great Stone face " — these are common prop- 
 erty of the Junior child. But the true and the leg- 
 endary must be distinguished. The appeal of the 
 heroic will be the same, but he wants to know whiich 
 he is hearing about by the time he is ten years old 
 usually. One needs to be careful here not to give 
 stories that seem little children's stories. They are 
 beginning to feel their importance and they want 
 stories of their very own. Stories of adult life- — • 
 especially missionary stories — appeal. 
 
STORIES NEEDED IN GROUP WORK 77 
 
 With early adolescence come the stories of chiv- 
 alry, self sacrifice, romance and heroism. The 
 parts of the epic stories have been given through the 
 other groups. Now the whole epic can be given 
 and the ideals which caused it to live and grow 
 will influence the making of the adolescent ideal. 
 History and biography are sought for but with this 
 difference : the adolescent searches the theme and life 
 of the story ; not the heroic deed, but the personality 
 of the hero and the ideals for which he worked. 
 " King Arthur Tales " just fit the twelve-year-old 
 boy but a little later they have been outgrown. 
 Stories to develop the powers of attention are needed 
 — longer stories than before; stories with a well 
 hidden climax that causes the suspense to be greater. 
 Enrichment of the mental life and the desire for 
 better books should be one of the results of the 
 story-telling in this period of Work. Stories of poor 
 boys and girls who have made good appeal, especi- 
 ally to the boys and girls of the foreign sections. 
 
 Any one who can do things — even though those 
 things may be bad — has a charm for the boy here. 
 Hence the appeal of some of the cheap literature 
 that is read so eagerly. The train robber, the thug, 
 the detective, all can really do things. He will find 
 a hero, and the pity is that his mind just here is not 
 stored full of great heroes so that there might be 
 no place for the evil ones. Emphasize the character 
 that makes a man do things and the results of these 
 choices in future life, in the stories. Lives of mis- 
 sionary explorers make attractive reading for them 
 after a thrilling story of the life has been told. 
 
 Perhaps it could all be summarized thus — The 
 adolescent hero must be a hero — he must do a great 
 
78 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 heroic act and he must be willing to sacrifice even 
 life itself. 
 
 When the teen age pupil is entering High School 
 or beginning to think about going to work, his story 
 interests again change. He begins to become inter- 
 ested In the people and the world about him. The 
 gocial appeal begins to be felt. Love begins to be 
 an influence and new ideals have to be formed. This 
 strange new force seems to sweep away many of the 
 ideals which have been a factor. Stories of ro- 
 mantic love and of altruistic service must be given 
 and right here comes a serious difficulty. The boys 
 and girls of this age want the person who tells them 
 these stories to be their leader, their Ideal of a 
 friend. They will not take some of these lessons, 
 even in stories, from the worker who is unpopular. 
 Note the dlfi^erence often between the power of the 
 Scout Leader or Counseller In a boy's camp and the 
 Pastor. See what the Camp Fire guardian can do 
 around the ceremonial fire. They must feel the 
 comradeship of the one who is to tell them these 
 stories — for now they are conscious of self and they 
 realize that stories are told them for their help as 
 well as for their pleasure. 
 
 Not a great many stories are ready for tellers of 
 adolescent stories. Books are beginning to be num- 
 erous for Camp Fire Tales, but these are not always 
 suited for Club work, for extra material In the Bible 
 School work, etc. One must learn to glean them 
 from various sources. Usually they are imbedded 
 in the heart of a book. Three come to my mind 
 from Annie Fellows Johnston's books In the " Little 
 Colonel " series : " The Three Weavers," " In the 
 Desert of Waiting," and " The Road of the Loving 
 
STORIES NEEDED IN GROUP WORK 79 
 
 Heart." All make good adolescent stories. I have 
 found many Indian Tales to be good in teaching the 
 higher ideals of love. One good story of a pure 
 love and what it accomplished will do much toward 
 molding the budding love life. " The Heart of the 
 Rose," by Mabel McKee, has a thought of purity 
 that I have found very helpful in Camp Fire work. 
 Making stories out of literature and biography will 
 be the most fertile field for this period. 
 
 But love stories are not all of love between the 
 sexes. Love stories for the adolescent may include 
 love of country, of home and of the Christ. There 
 is no better place to show what love will do than 
 in the mission literature. Eleanor Chestnut, Geo. 
 Cornwall, Dr. Grenfell, Marcus Whitman — there is 
 an unlimited field here for good stories. Put them 
 into artistic form without the word " Mission " 
 added to them and they will serve a double purpose. 
 They will teach the boy the power of a great ideal 
 and also interest him in the work of the kingdom. 
 Chivalry, love and life ! What a trio to be empha- 
 sized! What an opportunity for service ! Capture 
 the imagination of this budding man or woman with 
 this thought: " Others have — I can — I will." 
 
 And Later Adolescence! About what are they 
 thinking? Friendship, love, life, home, organiza- 
 tion, work. The more serious things of life begin 
 to appear. This is the time when Student Volun- 
 teers are numerous. "What shall I do with my 
 life ? " is a big question. He is courageous to the 
 extreme; he is strong of body; he is eager to get 
 ahead. 
 
 Emphasis must here be given on deep apprecia- 
 tion of the values of life; there must be an intensity 
 
so THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 of thought and spirit not perhaps needed before. 
 The stories must be full of human interests. They 
 must be life stories. They must be broad and deep 
 and long in their meanings. They must be very 
 social — stories that try to solve some of the great 
 problems of life. I well remember telling, " The 
 Lost Word," by Van Dyke, to a crowd of boys about 
 twenty. It is a wonderful story of the value of the 
 word "God." The boys listened so well and sat 
 for nearly an hour after the class discussing the 
 truth of the thought. Later one of the boys said 
 to me, " I think that story must have been written 
 for me, for I have been so unhappy over the fact 
 that I was losing my grip on the deeper side of my 
 life. I see now and I am so glad." Van Dyke is a 
 treasure trove for stories that will appeal to the 
 Young People. Ten or more of his stories can be 
 well adapted to the telling. 
 
 Heroic service, biography, history, the life of 
 Christ, love as shown by service and sacrifice — 
 these are some of the things for which to search. 
 George Macdonald, Mary Austin, Tolstoy, Ralph 
 Connor, Eugene Field, Jane Addams, Hawthorne, 
 Victor Hugo, George Eliot — these are a few of the 
 great writers who have given me stories for my 
 Young People's work. 
 
 Telling stories to the Young People's Division 
 of the Church school in class, in club, in Camp Fire 
 arid Scouts is a great challenge. To me it is one of 
 the greatest needs in our church life today for our 
 churches are losing their young people in a startling 
 way. Why? Because they have not been able to 
 Implant Ideals which will tide them over the middle 
 adolescent years. Because they have not made them 
 
STORIES NEEDED IN GROUP WORK 81 
 
 see the vision of service; because they have not put 
 them to work. And what is the greatest power 
 known in religious work for the implanting of ideals? 
 A STORY. It is not that the young people do not 
 love stories as well as ever they did. They will 
 tease for a story much more than the little ones will 
 if they know you have stories to tell them. The 
 fault is with the teachers. We need teachers who 
 will specialize in the adolescent work so that they 
 can get for themselves a fund of these great stories 
 and use them year after year. We need teachers 
 who will learn to tell stories so that they can fill 
 the need. Be honest with yourself and search to 
 see how many great stories you know for this age. 
 Suppose some one asked you to go to Camp Devens 
 and tell a group of stories to the High School boys 
 who are there in the Reserve Officers' Training 
 School. What stories would you choose when every 
 boy was a stranger to you? I studied long before 
 I knew what to use there, for think of the possi- 
 bility of the story you might tell. I built my group 
 around the story of Robert Louis Stevenson's, " The 
 Road of the Loving Heart," and I shall never for- 
 get the faces of the group before me. As we were 
 leaving the hut, a little fellow came to thank me and 
 lingered behind the rest. " Thanks for coming," 
 he said. " I wish I could hear stories like that 
 oftener. We boys need them." The greatest 
 praise you will ever get is to have a teen age boy or 
 girl say, " You have helped me." 
 
 " The harvest truly is plenteous but the laborers 
 are few," and often forgetful of their opportunity. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE PRIMITIVE STORIES 
 
 Folk and fairy tales, myths, legends, allegories and 
 fables! What a host of gods and heroes, witches 
 and elves those words bring to our mind. Ulysses, 
 Siegfried and Arthur, the fairy princess. Red Riding 
 Hood and the old sarcastic fox, — all people with 
 whom we lived and played in childhood, all of them 
 imaginary or, as classified in story books, idealistic. 
 Tales that have lived and grown through the centu- 
 ries and which tell of the longings and the ideals, the 
 warfare and the work, the customs and the religion 
 of races that have lived and molded the ideals of 
 the world. 
 
 They are all largely imagination. Why do we 
 tell them? What use have they in religious educa- 
 tion? Should the Bible School teacher know and use 
 these old stories or leave all that kind of work to 
 the public school and libraries ? 
 
 Primitive stories arose out of an attempt to ex- 
 plain some phenomena of nature and as these little 
 tales grew and became fit for the use of the adult 
 minds, they became what we call today myths. For 
 better study, we may divide them into two classes; 
 explanatory myths and aesthetic myths. The ex- 
 planatory myths are the nature myths and are typi- 
 fied by Pandora (to explain the fact of trouble in 
 the world), Proserpine (change of seasons), 
 Arachne, Apollo and many many others with which 
 
 82 
 
MYTHS, EPICS AND LEGENDS 83 
 
 we are familiar and references to which are found 
 in all our literature and art. Aesthetic myths, whose 
 purpose is more directly to give pleasure and to 
 teach a deeper moral lesson may be found in Jason 
 and the Golden Fleece, Uhalanta, Perseus, and the 
 like. Some of the stories grew through the centu- 
 ries and were the product of many minds. There 
 are many of them that should not be told to the 
 children because of the low moral standards, but 
 there are many that can be slightly re-edited or 
 shortened and made into splendid stories for the 
 growing American child. The difference between 
 these myths of different countries make a most in- 
 teresting study. The Greek myths are filled with 
 nature lore while the Norse myths are full of the 
 hardihood, the ruggedness of the northern climate. 
 In no other myths do we find such tales of the con- 
 quering of the long winters, the cold and the dark- 
 ness. Intermediates like these particularly while 
 the little children prefer the simple Greek myths. 
 Greek and Norse, German, Persian, Hebrew, 
 Egyptian, Japanese, Finnish, Hindoo, Celtic, all 
 these myths have added to the stories of the world 
 and our own American literature is full of them. 
 They are all full of nature but they are also full of 
 religion — primitive religion to be sure with all kinds 
 of gods and goddesses — ^but religion nevertheless, 
 for they teach that behind creation is a God, and that 
 right prevails over wrong in the end. As they have 
 been told by bard and seer, by minstrel and saga- 
 man, those parts which have not been of interest to 
 the race and which have not carried a vital lesson 
 have little by little been eliminated until today they 
 stand as type stories through which we teach the 
 
84 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 struggles and the ideals of the primitive races to the 
 coming generations and through them the child learns 
 of the great lessons of life. Their Gods were men 
 of higher type than the rest of the people and 
 consequently a hero and not a God to our children 
 as they are told. As they learn of their life, they 
 isee more clearly the nobility and the greatness of 
 the God in whom they have been taught to believe. 
 
 As time goes on and national ideals come to be 
 higher and more to be desired, the stories begin to 
 cluster about a national hero, and his life is embedded 
 in the stories that are told. Usually he is an im- 
 aginary person but he is the representation of 
 national ideals. Thus the epic is formed from the 
 myth and we have the Iliad, Odyssey, Niebelungen- 
 lied, Kalevala and other epic stories. It is really the 
 humanizing of a story which up to this time had 
 been largely of a religious nature. None of the 
 religion is taken out but the hero is put in. And 
 this hero ! Just recall Ulysses and Siegfried and 
 Perseus and Roland. They were strong in body, 
 perfect in form, pure in heart, protectors of the 
 weak and wrought vengeance on the wrong, they 
 were protected by the Gods. They were heroic in 
 every particular as the boy of today knows a hero. 
 They could run and fight and die for a cause. They 
 had superhuman powers, yet they were human; for 
 they could be overcome with sorrow and taken away 
 by death. You will find in the epics very clearly 
 brought out the belief in a future life and the tri- 
 umph of the right. 
 
 The collection and editing of these stories has 
 been a gift to the child world that is hard to esti- 
 mate. Some of the epics have been available for 
 
MYTHS, EPICS AND LEGENDS 85 
 
 many years but others are more recent. The 
 Kalevala, the Finnish Epic, is perhaps the most 
 recent. When one realizes that some of these 
 stories date back between two and three thousand 
 years, one realizes that they give a great background 
 to Finnish life and history. I like particularly the 
 Niebelungenlied, the Norse epic. It corresponds 
 more nearly to the ideals of the American child. 
 Several shorter epic stories are included in it and 
 its ideals of valor and strength, chivalry, worship 
 and home life are full of inspiration. Some one has 
 called it the great nature religion, because it is the 
 only race that has ever won a victory over northern 
 nature. This is taken as the enemy of the people 
 and a thing which must be conquered. All the epic 
 stories mentioned early in the chapter may be pro- 
 cured in the English and should be read by teachers 
 of stories to children, not only because of the value 
 to the teacher, but also because of the many ways 
 in which they can be used in religious work. Robin 
 Hood, King Arthur, Glooscap, Hiawatha: — these 
 are all true epic stories. 
 
 The epic stories contain some sagas, some legends 
 and some true stories besides the myths around 
 which they were formed. The poetic form came as 
 the finish of the epic story. At first they were col- 
 lections of simple stories. 
 
 A legend is an idealization of a person or place. 
 A myth sweeps over a vast area. A legend centers 
 about a small one. Myths have to do with im- 
 mortals and legends with mortals. 
 
 A legend is usually based upon fact, but that fact 
 has been magnified until It has to be classed with 
 the idealistic rather than the realistic. Legends 
 
86 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 teach vital truths and are strong stories. " Why 
 the Chimes Rang," is built about the giving of a 
 simple gift by two little children but it teaches the 
 value of giving with the heart. The beautiful White 
 Gift service that is coming to be so common in our 
 churches, and which is revolutionizing the kind of 
 Christmas the churches shall have, is built on a 
 simple legend — " The Legend of Cathay." The 
 imaginary in the story is made a minor part and the 
 real lesson is very clear. Scott has used beautifully 
 some of these old legends in his poetry. Religious 
 history is full of legends of the saints and heroes 
 of the church which will some day be much more 
 utilized than they are today. 
 
 I had been telling the legend of " The Bell of 
 Atri " to a class of Junior boys while they were wait- 
 ing to go on a picnic. Later in the day a boy began 
 tormenting a toad in the brook. Twice his teacher 
 told him to stop, which he did for the time being. 
 After a while I noticed that a group of boys were 
 having an Interesting time by the brook, so I went 
 to see and found the boy who had been bothering 
 the frog covered with mud and wet from head to 
 foot. On inquiry, I found that the boys who had 
 heard the story earlier in the day had made the 
 sound of a bell till they had called a number of the 
 boys around them. Then they had been a court of 
 Justice and had decided that he who tormented an 
 innocent frog should go Into the brook himself, and 
 Into the brook he had gone. Bad for the boy, of 
 course, but good for the rest of the boys who had 
 seen the lesson of Justice. 
 
 But what shall the religious worker do with these 
 
MYTHS, EPICS AND LEGENDS 87 
 
 stories? First of all she should make them a part 
 of her own equipment. Hebrew history was not the 
 first history of the world. When you study these 
 old epic stories you will be amazed to find how many 
 times they illumine some of the hard places in your 
 Bible teaching. You read in the quarterly that the 
 stories in Genesis were folk tales, and you resent 
 it. But that is because you do not know what a folk 
 tale really is. Their belief in a God had to begin 
 somewhere; it did not_grow out of space. It was 
 based on what they knew and heard, but when you 
 have studied some of the old myths and legends and 
 have seen the quarreling and fighting, the hate and 
 the jealousy of the story of the Gods of the other 
 nations, you come back to the story of Genesis with 
 a deeper reverence, a finer conception and a firmer 
 faith that God revealed himself to the Hebrew 
 nation. You need to know the growth of the re- 
 ligious life among other primitive peoples before 
 you can teach the growth of your own religion. 
 
 Shall they be taught to the children? Certainly. 
 In" Sunday School? Yes, when they will Illumine 
 some lesson which you are trying to bring out. 
 Over and over and over my boys have asked me to 
 tell the story of Sir Galahad and to repeat to them 
 the old quotation, " My strength is as the strength 
 of ten. Because my heart is pure." Some time ago, 
 one of the boys with whom I had loved to work in 
 the hills of Maine was burned to death when just 
 completing the High School, which he had worked 
 so hard to attend. His mother told me of finding 
 in his room the little card on which it was written. 
 It took me back at once to the day when I had 
 
88 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 given it to him. A group of the boys had eome to 
 the camp for stories around the Camp Fire or out 
 in the boats on the lake, as they had done each Satur- 
 day for several years when I was in camp. It was 
 the last night of stories for the year and I could 
 see the earnestness on the faces of the boys as we 
 sat around the fire and I told them of Sir Galahad. 
 Then I gave to them the little cards with the quota- 
 tion printed on it to take with them into the town 
 to which they were to go to begin that new road, 
 the High School. As Carroll turned to leave the 
 camp he said, " I may not finish High School but 
 I will do this, I will come out pure." Four years 
 later he wrote to tell me of a little class of boys 
 whom he was teaching in the Sunday School in the 
 town. " I know I must be more of a Galahad now 
 than ever if I am to be an example to them. How 
 glad I have been of that story! " Had you read 
 the papers after the fire, you would have known that 
 he was living his story — an old legend which said to 
 him " Be a Christian at heart." 
 
 It is the fault of the teacher if she cannot weave 
 these old myths and legends into her work and make 
 them live and teach Christianity. They are taught 
 in the school but not in connection with our own 
 religious struggle. They teach their lessons there 
 but there are deeper lessons hidden in them than can 
 be brought out in the secular classroom. Read the 
 great epics all through. Let them speak the mes- 
 sage to you. Then take the best, the ones that carry 
 the great lessons needed by boys and girls, and 
 weave them into the life and thought of the chil- 
 dren. If you have a child of any of these nationali- 
 ties in your class, this may be the point of contact 
 
MYTHS, EPICS AND LEGENDS 89 
 
 for which you have been looking. Let them see the 
 great lessons that have come out of their mother 
 country. 
 
 Two High School girls were out on a lake as the 
 sun went down watching a most gorgeous sunset. 
 " And now the gates of the west will open to let the 
 Sun God through and all the land shall be dark," 
 said one. " The heavens declare the glory of God 
 and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Let all 
 the earth fear the Lord and all the inhabitants of 
 the earth stand in awe of him. For he only doeth 
 wonderful things," said the other. " I can see the 
 Old Apollo and smile. I can see the great God 
 there and wonder that he cares for a girl when he 
 can make that." The old myth and the present-day 
 religion. There is no clash between them when they 
 are seen together in their right relation. The one 
 Is a foundation and an imagination — the other is a 
 structure and a reality. 
 
 "They robbed him not of a golden shred 
 Of the childish dreams in his wise old head. 
 ' And they're welcome to all things else,' he said, 
 When the robbers came to rob him." 
 
 RlLBY in " The Lockerbie Book." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 FAIRY STORIES, FABLES AND ALLEGORIES 
 
 In the last chapter we saw how the primitive story 
 of the battle with nature and animal life grew into 
 a myth, then a legend perhaps, and then into a great 
 epic story. Later there came from these stories 
 a form of ethical story in which the gods and god- 
 desses give away to fairies, goblins, elves, dwarfs 
 and all sorts of imaginative creatures. They grew 
 out of the religious stories and although many of 
 them seem to be far from religious now, still there 
 is hidden in the story a deep religious truth as well 
 as a moral or ethical truth. It is because virtue is 
 rewarded and wrongdoing punished and somehow, 
 somewhere things come out right for the one who 
 does his best that they make such an appeal to the 
 child who is learning to obey. They are told of 
 the most common things of life — ^walking, playing, 
 working, sleeping — and so they are vitally related 
 with the child's everyday life. They people the 
 world with numberless little fancies or fairies, if you 
 will, all of which love the little child and care for 
 him. They teach him a security in Nature and a 
 search for the hidden things there. 
 
 One day I was going through the city street with 
 a bunch of wild violets in my hand when a little one 
 came to me. I expected to hear her say, " Please 
 give me one," as is so often the case. Instead she 
 said, " Oh, please let me find him. I am sure he 
 
 90 
 
FAIRY STORIES, FABLES, ALLEGORIES 91 
 is there." Then to herself I heard her saying, 
 
 " Deep, deep within — look all by yourself, 
 In the heart of the flower, lives a dear little elf." 
 
 When she could not find him she said, " Well I 
 guess he must have fallen out when you carried the 
 violets home. I am sorry for I want to see one." 
 Living in fairy land. Gaining an interest in things 
 about her through stories. Fairies are a comfort to 
 the child who is lonely, friends to the child whose 
 life is hard, and the stories lead one to have a hope- 
 ful outlook on all life. 
 
 But fairy stories should be carefully chosen. 
 There are those that are best left untold, those that 
 lead the imagination in wrong directions. Teach 
 only those that build the child's ideals. Be careful 
 of the characters to whom you introduce the child. 
 If I name some adjectives, I am sure you could name 
 the fairy story in which I found them, if you read 
 your fairy story book as thoroughly in the days gone 
 by as I did. " Hielpful, jealous, kind, loving, ill- 
 mannered, brave, merry, sad, pretty, impudent, 
 saucy" : — ^they are synonyms for some of the char- 
 acters. See to it that the stories you tell show that 
 kindness pays, that animals have rights and are 
 friends, that often the small creature may overcome 
 the large through thought and wit, that they foster 
 a feeling of safety in nature. 
 
 Some of the less desirable fairy stories today are 
 those that have been written for the children in 
 later years. They have not the strong, virile quality 
 that those do which are the heritage of the child 
 from the past. There is much less of the super- 
 natural in them and more of pure fancy. Many of 
 
92 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 them are built about nature but with an intent to 
 teach facts and at the same time fancy. This is 
 not the purpose of the real fairy story. It teaches 
 something as real fancy and from the imaginative 
 story one gains a deep, moral lesson. St. John says, 
 " The one essential for idealistic stories is not that 
 they should be true but that they should clearly and 
 impressively set forth a truth." 
 
 For those who are interested in fairy stories, there 
 is an interesting study in the way they are built. 
 There are three quite distinct structures, (a) The 
 use of the number three in the story. " There were 
 three sisters. The first went — ^then the second one 
 went — then the third one went." " Cinderella," 
 " The King of the Golden River " : these are types 
 of this story, (b) Two opposite kinds of people: 
 lazy and industrious; pretty and ugly; large and 
 'Small. "Why the Sea is Salt" and "Mother 
 HoUe " are types, (c) Then there is the structure 
 known as cumulative where the story adds to itself 
 as it goes along: such a story as the " Cat, the Rat 
 and the Malt House " ; " The Wolf and the Seven 
 Little Kids." 
 
 One who has had the fairy stories as a part of 
 her education never questions the value of passing 
 them on. To rob the child of good fairy stories 
 is to take away something which makes all literature 
 more pleasurable, all art more full of meaning and 
 all life more full of fancy. And fancy is one of the 
 recreations of life most worth while. 
 
 Fables are stories whose real aim is to teach 
 something that differs from the content of the story. 
 We do not think of the fox when we think of the 
 
FAIRY STORIES, FABLES, ALLEGORIES 93 
 
 fable, " The Fox and the Grapes." We think of the 
 moral, " sour grapes." They are usually very short; 
 and animals, plants and sometimes inanimate things 
 are given mortal characteristics. The animals and 
 flowers talk and point out weaknesses in men and 
 women. When the purpose of the story is merely 
 instruction, a fable will often be used, but they are 
 not favorite stories as a rule. Their lesson might 
 better be taught by a deeper story when teaching 
 little children. Fables only cover the top. 
 
 Allegories, parables and fables all belong to a 
 class of stories known as purposive stories, because 
 they purposely aim to teach a moral lesson. There 
 is no hidden meaning. It is clearly brought to the 
 surface. They teach consciously rather than uncon- 
 sciously. Some of them can hardly be called stories. 
 Partridge calls them " shorthand expression of 
 longer stories." But they have been used in the 
 education of the race for centuries. They are East- 
 ern in origin and are popular in some countries of 
 the world today. It is quite evident that some of 
 them originated in the myths, and probably were 
 written because the author doubted the value of the 
 Impresslonal method of teaching truth, ^sop is 
 known as the greatest writer of fables. Felix Adler 
 says, " The peculiar value of the fables is that they 
 are instantaneous photographs, which produce as it 
 were, in a single flash of light, some aspect of human 
 nature, and which excluding all else, permit the en- 
 tire attention to be fixed on that one." 
 
 When one mentions the word allegory, the mind 
 flies to " Pilgrim's Progress " and it is well that it 
 does, for it is a vivid example of what an allegory 
 
94. THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 aims to do. It is a higher form of the story than 
 the fable, and usually much longer, and all through 
 the story there is a substitution or personification of 
 objects. In " Pilgrim's Progress," Pilgrim repre- 
 sents not a man but a journey of men. Vanity Fair, 
 the Slough of Despond, the Lions, all these are sub- 
 stitutions for states of being or qualities. 
 
 The difference between some fairy stories, some 
 parables and some allegories is not easily distinguish- 
 able. Parables, however, never give to animals, 
 powers or habits which they do not ordinarily have. 
 In the parable of the lost sheep the shepherd talks 
 but not the sheep. But in the parable there is also 
 a substitution as in the allegory. " I am the vine 
 and my father is the husbandman." 
 
 Jesus used the parable so much in his teachings 
 that we connect the word almost entirely with the 
 Bible. But there are older parables than those of 
 the Christ. He simply used the method that he 
 thought the most impressive. Christ's parables are, 
 however, some of the finest in the realm of literature. 
 Often one can tell them just as they are more effec- 
 tively than one can try to change them, for there 
 seems to be nothing one can change without hurting 
 the story. The parable of the prodigal son is one 
 of the finest that he gave and one of the best to 
 study for telling. Parables are dignified allegories. 
 
 Laura Richards' little book called, " Golden Win- 
 dows," is full of purposive stories that are good to 
 study. In it are some lessons that are well worth 
 giving to the men and women as well as the boys 
 and girls of today. 
 
 The religious teacher needs to have a foundation 
 of these purposive stories, for often they will be able 
 
FAIRY STORIES, FABLES, ALLEGORIES 96 
 
 to just supply the illustration she needs in a short, 
 concise way. Then, too, the children have a back- 
 ground of some of them and she can use for refer- 
 ence the thought of the story and thus find new 
 points of contact with the everyday and school life 
 of the child. Some of the great allegories must first 
 be taught in the church school or club work. Every 
 child, some time, should hear or read " Pilgrim's 
 Progress " yet the reading is hard for the average 
 child unless an interest is created in the story before 
 it is read. Pictures on the screen are sometimes an 
 introduction to it, but I prefer to tell It simply and 
 then have the pictures afterward in order to visua- 
 lize the story more clearly. 
 
 The parables need all the study of a realistic 
 story for they can be made very real to the child 
 if they are well told. The parable of the lost sheep 
 is a most effective story especially If used with some 
 of the more recent slides. In the story hour which 
 I have with my early adolescent pupils on Sunday 
 afternoons, we use a reflectoscope and often have the 
 picture illustrating the parable thrown on the screen 
 first. After looking at It silently for a moment, I 
 tell the story as a story and not as a parable. Then 
 after the story time is over I tell them just where 
 they can find the story In the Bible If they want to 
 read It just as Jesus himself told It. Make your 
 parable live. It is much more effective. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 TELLING REALISTIC STORIES 
 
 There is a vast amount of story material known to 
 the story-teller as realistic material. Bible stories 
 will be discussed in chapters separate from this. 
 How shall we use the historical, biographical, mis- 
 sionary and personal stories that we find ? Are they 
 more or less valuable than the idealistic stories which 
 we have studied in another chapter? 
 
 The call for a true story is a very Insistent call 
 from the time the child is ten years old. They are 
 not insistent that it be absolutely true — they are quite 
 willing that you " think it might be true," — but they 
 want stories that have the semblance of truth, stories 
 that might happen to them, stories of everyday 
 happenings in life. Perhaps this is the reason why 
 the teachings of Jesus are so full of meaning to the 
 adolescent. He was teaching of things and people 
 right about him. Jesus, the teacher, is quite different 
 from Abraham, who might have been a man and 
 might have been a tribe. But the teacher is in trouble 
 when she tries to tell stories for true that do not 
 come up to the standards of a true story as children 
 see it. We shall have more boys in our Bible Schools 
 when we stop trying to make them believe what they 
 do not feel that they can believe and give them a 
 chance to find the meaning of some of the Bible 
 stories rather than the facts of the story. 
 
 Sometimes a person narrates facts of history and 
 96 
 
TELLING REALISTIC STORIES 97 
 
 biography and feels that they have told a story. 
 There is a wide difference between the two. Facts 
 must be kept in the background while the moral 
 lesson comes to the front. There is a current story 
 of Lincoln and his yellow dog and the way they 
 succeeded in both getting to the new home in Mis- 
 souri. It makes a fine story with the theme " Loy- 
 alty to one's friends," but it is usually a bit of biog- 
 raphy. If the moral lesson is brought out, the nar- 
 ration of facts may be a story. The result must 
 be emotional rather than educational. 
 
 The story you tell as true must remain true as 
 long as the child lives else he will lose faith in you 
 or in the things which you have taught him that were 
 true. The pleasure is just as great, the inspiration 
 is just as great if the hero be imaginary — only the 
 application is more direct and hence more potent if 
 the story be true. The boy may say, " Sir Galahad 
 might be pure and true and do great things, but he 
 lived in the long ago. I can be like him and try. 
 But Lincoln lived right in this country on a farm. 
 He was poor and had little education. If he suc- 
 ceeded, I can." The application of a true story is 
 much easier for the young people of today. 
 
 Literature is the great life-story book, but history 
 is the record of deeds that inspire. We are moving 
 away from dates and into stories in studying history. 
 I remember the three pages of dates that I had to 
 prepare for an examination in High School: both 
 sides of three sheets of tablet paper. I suppose it 
 was good for me as a memory drill but I should 
 hate to show my ignorance of those dates today. 
 But in the study hour, our professor had a class in 
 the front of the room reeiting Greek history. He 
 
98 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 was a master story-teller and I can see those old 
 Greek stories that he told as clearly as if it were 
 yesterday. I was supposed to be studying but I was 
 learning by the story method. History, as such, 
 is dry and uninteresting to the average student. It 
 must live through the stories. And teachers in the 
 Church schools can not only help the pupils but help 
 the public school work by making the characters and 
 events of history become alive and interesting. 
 
 Make the children see that when a boy is brave 
 about his work and makes a bushel of corn to grow 
 where a peck grew before, he is making history. 
 Help him to see that history is making every day and 
 that he is to make his part of it. Tell stories of 
 common everyday life as history. Did you read 
 of the bravery of a boy in the water? Use it to 
 show that the bravest deeds are not all on the battle 
 field. For a few years there will be a tendency to 
 use many stories of the war — too many. We must 
 help to lead the minds of the children away from 
 the strife of the past few years and to see the great- 
 ness of little deeds in common life, teaching them to 
 do the things that come into their life as if they 
 were great things. This is real religious education, 
 for whatever broadens a child's spirit life, what- 
 ever creates a feeling of good will for his associates, 
 whatever tends to make him a part and parcel of 
 the world's work and helps him to do that work 
 nobly and gladly and thoroughly — that is as truly 
 religious education as to teach him Bible stories and 
 studies in the Christian life. 
 
 In myth, in legend, in history and in Bible, the 
 child needs to see the struggle of man toward better 
 things. The difference is just here. History, in 
 
TELLING REALISTIC STORIES 9» 
 
 itself, aims to show how the country has moved as 
 a nation — that is from without. Legend, myth and 
 Bible, aim to show how a person or a nation grows 
 from within, grows also from without, and that 
 the life of the nation depends on the ideals of each 
 boy and girl. This is the relation which historical 
 stories bear to the religious work. It is a splendid 
 task to so interpret history. 
 
 These historical, biographical and missionary 
 stories are seldom gathered from books of stories. 
 You find them as you read the magazines, you find 
 them in the newspapers, you find them as you talk 
 with your friends. And how shall you keep them? 
 The only way I know is to have a file where you will 
 keep them. A few days will suffice to forget the 
 thing which you thought you would surely remem- 
 ber. Have a big manilla envelope where you place 
 anecdotes, etc., that are short and pithy. File your 
 stories in other envelopes according to the way you 
 plan to use them. If you work with all sorts of 
 children, perhaps they will be fairy stories, historical 
 stories, animal stories, hero stories, etc. If you 
 work with young people, they will probably be classi- 
 fied according to virtues they will incite and the 
 faults they will correct — loyalty, generosity, truth, 
 patriotism, great deeds, etc. I use a card index and 
 when I find a story that I like in a book I make a 
 note of it on the card, telling the name of the book, 
 the page and the theme of the story. If I hear a 
 story told that I think I can use, I make an outline 
 of it and then fill it in at my first leisure time. Some- 
 times the story as told illustrates another theme 
 than you think it is best fitted for. Change it to 
 suit yourself. Use direct discourse, only never give 
 
100 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 to an historical character or a biographical character, 
 a quality that you are not sure they were likely to 
 possess. This is one of the places where the story- 
 teller needs to have a big background of history 
 and biography and geography. Stories live so much 
 more vividly if one has a fund of surrounding facts. 
 If a teller likes to tell stories of the colonists, she 
 should read many books on the early history of our 
 country so that she can see their life in all its danger, 
 its picturesqueness and its worth. 
 
 Personally, I like to tell missionary stories as well 
 as any of the realistic stories. Anita Ferris and 
 Mary Stewart have done much in helping in this 
 field. There is so much of the life of the real 
 heroes that is underpinned with the most sincere 
 love of God. The child life of the mission fields 
 is so attractive to the children, and there is much 
 of the appeal to service and life consecration for 
 the Young People. In all of the mission board 
 rooms, there will be found little pamphlets each 
 containing a story and costing less than five cents. 
 A little study of these pamphlets will reveal the 
 fact that there is much of worth. Some of the 
 stories have been dramatized for little children. 
 A few fine stories came out in the literature of 
 the Armenian and Syrian Relief, and the Red 
 Cross magazine has also contained some good ma- 
 terial for the story-teller. " Pavlos," one of the 
 Armenian stories, has been very much a favorite 
 with the boys. " The Gift," written by Anita Ferris, 
 and published in 1917, by the Everyland, is a splen- 
 did story for girls. AH of the children's magazines 
 of the mission boards aim to have good stories for 
 the telling. 
 
TELLING REALISTIC STORIES 101 
 
 It is not because there is so little, that one hesi- 
 tates to make lists of books or stories that are help- 
 ful for realistic stories. It is because there is so 
 much that one doesn't know where to end. Learn 
 to be a collector and you will soon have many, many 
 stories that are your own possession— not only of 
 mind, but of heart. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 WRITING AND TELLING ORIGINAL STORIES 
 
 When one first mentions original stories to a person 
 who has never done such a thing, it seems to be the 
 impossible, but it is one of the very best ways of 
 getting practise in visualizing stories. What one 
 does not see, one can not tell in an impressive way. 
 If you can come in from the street and tell a story 
 of what you have seen on the street, why can you 
 not see other things to tell by imagining the setting? 
 Three ways seem to me very helpful in doing this 
 first original work; first by picture work. Not tell- 
 ing what you see in the picture but seeing a picture 
 behind some one thing in the picture. Because I 
 can illustrate better by using an original story than 
 by words, I shall give one written by a member of 
 my Maiden Class in Story-telling, Miss Grace Rich- 
 ardson. It was her first original story and shows 
 how her imagination played about a picture. The 
 picture she used was a very small one and it only 
 showed a branch of pussy-willows on a dark back- 
 aground. 
 
 f''^"Once upon a time, there were some pussy- 
 willows who lived in the country by the roadside. 
 Mother Nature had given them a very beautiful 
 song to sing just as the Winter went away and the 
 Spring came. When they saw some one coming 
 down the road, they would sing their merriest, ' Who 
 will sing the song of Spring?' and then answer 
 
 102 
 
TELLING ORIGINAL STORIES 103 
 
 their own question, ' Pussy-will — Oh 1 ' This made 
 the passers-by very happy for, at once, they thought 
 of green fields, and sweet flowers, and singing birds. 
 
 " ' If I could only make some one smile every 
 day,' sighed one little pussy-willow to his brother, ' I 
 should be so happy. I love to see people smile.' 
 * Oh we shall be here for weeks doing what Mother 
 Nature has sent us to do and making smiles. Then 
 we .shall get our reward and our work will be done,' 
 said the other. ' Oh dear,' said the other, ' I want 
 to live on and on and on through all the bright 
 summer. I wish some one could tell me how to 
 do it' 
 
 " Now it chanced that a little butterfly who had 
 lived all winter in his funny little house, in a room 
 of a lady near by, came flying out of the window 
 just at this time and lighted on the branch where 
 the pussy-willow lived. ' Oh, beautiful butterfly,' 
 said the pussy-willow, ' How happy you look and 
 what a wonderful dress you have on. Where did 
 you get it ? ' 
 
 " ' Listen to me, little pussy-willow. Once I was 
 discontented too, for I was only an ugly worm and 
 had to crawl on the ground. I crawled about on 
 the ground for food and sometimes when I would 
 get on a leaf I would hear the dear little children 
 cry for fright when they looked at me. Sometimes 
 I would hear a big brother say, " Do not cry; the 
 worm will not hurt you. See ! he is running away." 
 Then I was so unhappy for I wanted the children to 
 love me as they did the birds and flowers. I would 
 just crawl into my house as fast as ever I could and 
 wonder how I could make them like me. 
 
 " ' One day when I was thinking, I fell asleep 
 
104 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 and when I awoke, it was all dark. I tried to move 
 but my house seemed so tight. I worked and worked 
 and at last broke a hole in the walls and crawled 
 out. How funny I felt 1 I had great things on my 
 back, and when I had moved them a little, I found 
 I could fly. Come, little pussy-willow, and I will 
 whisper what had happened to me. A dear, kind 
 fairy had turned me into a butterfly. I flew about 
 the room in the house yonder, and when some little 
 children came into the room to play, they cried for 
 joy and said, " Isn't it beautiful. How happy we 
 shall be to have it here in our room." Now perhaps, 
 little pussy-willow, that same kind fairy could do as 
 much for you. Goodbye ! Tis so cold here that I 
 am going back to the warm room and the little 
 children. Remember, the fairy came while I was 
 asleep. Goodbye ! goodbye ! good luck to you.' 
 
 " Night came and the pussy-willows were asleep 
 i — all but one — he was wide awake and watching. 
 'Twas very lonely, but he wanted to see the fairy 
 if she should happen to come that night. Just at 
 midnight, he heard a soft little sound and there stood 
 before him a tiny creature, all in white and shining 
 like the stars. ' Hello, dear little pussy-willow,' 
 said the fairy. ' I heard you talking to the butter- 
 fly this morning though you could not see me. Now 
 tell me what it is you really want and we will talk 
 it over. Perhaps I can help you.' 
 
 " ' O fairy,' said the little pussy-willow, ' I would 
 like to live and love and be loved, all this bright, 
 long summer. But I don't want to live here on this 
 branch. I want to be a live thing and make some 
 little children happy as the butterfly does. I would 
 not scratch them or bite them. I would love to play 
 
TELLING ORIGINAL STORIES 106 
 
 with them all the day and keep them from being 
 in mischief. Please fairy, will you change me while 
 I am asleep ? ' 
 
 " ' Because you want to do good and bring glad- 
 ness into other lives, you may have your heart's de- 
 sire,' said the fairy. Then she laid the golden wand 
 across the branch of pussy-willows and out jumped 
 >. — why a real live pussy cat, all soft and gray and 
 singing. ' Your name is Fluffy,' said the fairy, ' and 
 now we will go to the place where you will find the 
 children to love and to play with and they will all 
 love you, too.' 
 
 " Oh 1 Oh ! how happy the pussy was I He purred 
 and purred and ran around the fairy thanking her 
 over and over as she led him up the steps of a little 
 home. Opening the door a tiny bit, she bade him lie 
 down by the fire till his little playmates should 
 come. 
 
 " If you want to know how happy he was and 
 what a.dehghtful surprise he was to Betty and 
 Bobby, just look at the picture below " (and here 
 Miss Richardson had made a composite picture of 
 two dear little children and a frisking kitten). 
 
 Perhaps your imagination would not see all that 
 she saw, but it would see something; and every time 
 you wrote down or told what you saw, you would 
 find it easier to see more. I am urging this not 
 because there is a dire need for new stories — ^that 
 is true in some fields of story-telling but not all — 
 but because the teacher needs it in telling the old 
 stories. Every story that is told from your own 
 imagination should be built on the principles stated 
 in the first chapters of this book. Sometimes you 
 may have to invent a story and tell it just as you 
 
106 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 see it, but usually it should be carefully prepared 
 after you have seen the picture. 
 
 Suggestive words will often helf) in giving ideas 
 for an original story. Again I shall give a story 
 written in the Maiden class by Miss Joy Craighead. 
 I had given the three words, blueberry, mountain 
 and bear, as the basis of a story and this is what 
 she saw. 
 
 " Once there was a little Indian boy who had a 
 real Indian name, ' Fraid-of-the-Dark,' and he lived 
 in a tepee far to the West. It was a pity that any 
 little boy should have such a name, and especially an 
 Indian boy, for Indians, you know, are very, very 
 brave and the boys are taught when small not to be 
 afraid. But this little boy was always afraid of the 
 dark and so he got his name. Sometimes at night 
 he would lie awake for hours as he listened to the 
 screech owl out in the woods, and be afraid of little 
 noises that he never heard in the day time. If his 
 mother tried to send him out of the tepee at night 
 time to get some firewood, he would cling to her 
 skirts and cry, ' I don't want to go. Something will 
 catch me. I am afraid.' 
 
 " Of course, he was only a little boy, but the other 
 Indian boys made fun of him on account of this one 
 thing and often they would not let him play with 
 them. ' We don't want any fraid cats around here,' 
 they would say. ' Go home and play with the girls.' 
 So little ' Fraid-of-the-Dark ' would have to play 
 with the girls or wander about by himself. Then, 
 when the day was gone and it was dark, he would 
 run home and stay near his mother in the tepee. 
 
 " One day his mother sent him with a great basket 
 to pick blueberries — for the Indians would get a 
 
TELLING ORIGINAL STORIES 107 
 
 lot of blueberries together and then take them to the 
 nearby town to sell. Many of the Indian boys and 
 girls were with him as they started. Now the best 
 blueberries grew on the mountainside, so they all 
 climbed up a little way and began to pick busily. 
 ' Fraid-of-the-Dark ' was a good worker and picked 
 rapidly. Soon the bushes around him were stripped 
 bare and he started to climb farther up the moun- 
 tain. ' Don't go up much further,' one of the big 
 boys called after him, ' I heard father say that a 
 big, black bear had been seen on the mountain top.' 
 ' I'll look out,' he replied. ' I won't go far.' 
 
 " As he went on, one of the boys laughed and 
 said, ' Fraid-of-the-Dark ' would be scared to death 
 if he saw the black bear. Wouldn't it be fun to 
 creep up behind him and growl and make believe 
 we were the bear?' 
 
 " ' Fraid-of-the-Dark ' picked steadily on. It was 
 fun to find so many berries, all hanging in bunches, 
 all fat and juicy just ready to fall into his hand and 
 swell the pile of berries in the big basket. Little by 
 little, without realizing it, he wandered farther away 
 from his companions up the mountainside where 
 the berries grew even bigger and thicker. He forgot 
 all about the bear, and bears like blueberries too. 
 
 " Finally to rest his back, he stood up and looked 
 around. It was a glorious summer day. The sun 
 was warm and bright but up there on the mountain 
 the air was fine. He could look away off in the 
 distance and see his own Indian village of tents and 
 the Indian ponies grazing near by, looking only like 
 dogs in the distance. Beyond the trees, he could 
 see the village where white men lived in log houses. 
 There was a pretty curl of white smoke which he 
 
108 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 watched sailing up and up in the sky until it faded 
 from sight. Away off down the mountainside, he 
 Gould see the other berry pickers. They were having 
 a good time and he could hear their voices as the 
 breeze came his way. 
 
 " He was just going to start down to join them 
 again when he suddenly stopped, and shielding his 
 eyes with his hand, stared intently at something big 
 and black which he thought he had seen moving in 
 the pathway in front of him toward the group of 
 children. He looked and looked until he made sure 
 that the moving object was a big, black bear, the 
 bear from the mountain top, who had heard the 
 noise of the merry children and was going to see 
 what he could find. 
 
 " What could ' Fraid-of-the-Dark ' do? The bear 
 hadn't seen him so he was safe, but he wanted to 
 warn his playmates. Even if they saw the bear 
 though, they had no weapons. They could only run 
 and then the bear might get angry and run after 
 them. The Indian boy knew that the bear could 
 easily catch them even if he was big and clumsy. 
 ' I wish I could frighten him away,' thought ' Fraid- 
 of-the-Dark.' ' I'd like to make him run.' 
 
 " Then an idea popped into his head as his eye 
 fell on the big basket of berries. Quick as a flash 
 he dumped the berries on the ground and put the 
 big basket upside down on his head. It reached al- 
 most to his shoulders and looked very funny indeed. 
 Then ' Fraid-of-the-Dark ' took some branches of 
 the blueberry bushes in his hand and started running, 
 full speed, down the trail, waving the branches all 
 around, and whooping the Indian cry at the top of 
 his lungs. He could scarcely see where he was go- 
 
TELLING ORIGINAL STORIES 109 
 
 ing for the basket covered his eyes but he ran on 
 and on and kept yelling. 
 
 " The berry pickers looked up in astonishment 
 when they heard the racket, and they saw this queer 
 creature tearing down the mountain path. It looked 
 like a basket with legs, or else a blueberry bush 
 that had come to life. Just then they saw the big 
 black bear and how they did scream ! 
 
 " The bear stopped in his tracks to see what the 
 dreadful noise behind him was, but he couldn't make 
 out. Just then ' Fraid-of-the-Dark ' stumbled and 
 fell head over heels. But he didn't stop going nor 
 yelling. He just rolled over and over down the 
 path at great speed. You see he couldn't have 
 stopped if he had wanted to do so. Mr. Bear took 
 one more look at the thing which was making straight 
 toward him with such a noise, and decided that he 
 had never seen anything like it before. ' I guess I 
 had better be going pretty quickly,' thought he, and 
 he turned one side and scampered off through the 
 bushes as fast as ever he could go. 
 
 " ' Fraid-of-the-Dark ' continued his mad roll till 
 one of the boys grabbed him and helped him to gain 
 his feet, and pulled the basket from his head. To 
 be sure he was fearfully scratched and his berries 
 were gone. But the bear was gone too and the chil- 
 dren wete safe, so he was happy. 
 
 " Such a story as the children had to tell when 
 they reached home. ' Fraid-of-the-Dark ' was 
 praised for his quick wit and his bravery in frighten- 
 ing the bear away. ' You have been such a brave 
 boy,' said his mother, ' that your name shall be no 
 longer ' Fraid-of-the-Dark.' You shall be called 
 ' Bear-Chaser.' And when the boys played at 
 
110 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 games, ' Bear-Chaser,' now not even afraid of the 
 dark, was Chief." 
 
 Old family traditions make a very fertile field for 
 stories. Recently I found a lady who had scores of 
 splendid Indian stories which her mother, who had 
 lived in Dakota for many years, had told her. Take 
 these old anecdotes and stories and make them live 
 for others. 
 
 Sometimes imaginary stories are the very best way 
 of teaching the little child the difference between 
 truth and untruth. We are all familiar with the 
 stories which little children tell which seem to be de- 
 liberate lies but which are only the imagination at 
 work. Let the mother or teacher of such children 
 have a time of the day when the two shall tell 
 " Make-up " stories. First mother will tell one and 
 then the little one — as big bears and as ugly dogs 
 and as wonderful accidents as can be, can be used 
 here. Just a make-up story but it gives the little 
 imaginative mind a chance to give vent to the pic- 
 tures there. A friend told me of his little girl going 
 to school and telling the teachers that sister, who 
 really had a hard cold, had fallen down the stairs, 
 broken her leg and three doctors had come to set 
 it. When the teachers came to investigate the acci- 
 dent, the story came out and the mother was very 
 much worried. When she asked the little one why 
 she had done it, she replied, " I love to see teacher's 
 eyes grow big and hear her say, ' Is that so? How 
 dreadful ! ' " Now she had not meant to tell a lie. 
 Mother's eyes would have done just as well if they 
 had been telling a story together. And she would 
 have loved to hear mother's story of something that 
 
TELLING ORIGINAL STORIES IH 
 
 would make her eyes grow big. Let the child under- 
 stand that these kind of stories are not wrong if 
 told at a time when she and mother or teacher are 
 alone and seeing funny things, but that at other times 
 things must be just as they really are. To curb the 
 imagination of a child is a serious thing; to train it 
 is an opportunity. You may have the making of a 
 Hawthorne, or an Irving, or an Edison, or a Mar- 
 coni, all of whom used their imagination. 
 
 Just a suggestion or two of little things that may 
 be suggestive in original stories. Look at nature 
 and see things. Do the birds talk together? What 
 do they say? Does the little brook whisper? Do 
 the mountains hide things ? Learn to see. Read the 
 faces of the people who travel with you. Can you 
 ^ee the stories in their faces? It is one of the best 
 ways of passing time when on the street car. Let 
 the holidays suggest stories, let mission literature 
 show you a plot that might help the children. Learn 
 to see stories all about you. It will make your life 
 much more happy and will change many hard things 
 to easy ones. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 TELLING BIBLE STORIES OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 The Bible is essentially a book of stories and the 
 part of the Bible that you and I know best is the 
 story part. Perhaps if our teachers had been wise 
 enough to visualize the books of Nehemiah, Ezra, 
 Job, Amos and others of the prophetic books, we 
 should have known more of them; for there are 
 wonderful stories hidden away in them. I know no 
 Bible story that so captivates the adolescent boy as 
 the story of the return of Nehemiah to Jerusalem 
 and the rebuilding of the walls. But it must be told 
 in a dramatic and very vivid way so as to catch his 
 imagination. Joseph and Daniel and Abraham are 
 well known by every Bible School child, but I have 
 found that Trustworthy Joshua, and Bold Amos, the 
 story-teller, and Deborah, the leader, are almost 
 never visualized. 
 
 You can find in the Bible every known kind of 
 stories — primitive story, fairy tale, myth, epic, bio- 
 graphical story, historical story, legend, allegory, 
 parable, romantic story, love story, all are there, all 
 are in good order for the telling and all are built 
 into the warp and woof of our religion. If you 
 add to the stories in the Bible, the stories connected 
 with the Church history, saints, martyrs, mission- 
 aries, reformers, crusaders, etc., you will have a 
 wonderful array from which to choose. 
 
 Perhaps the great fault that has been found with 
 
 112 
 
OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE STORIES 113 
 
 the teaching of the Bible stories is the fact that 
 principles taught in the preparation of other stories 
 were not thought necessary here. Teachers have 
 felt that because they knew the facts of the story, 
 they knew how to tell the story and this is not true. 
 Not one person in five in our Bible School knows 
 how to tell a story well, yet the most of the work 
 that they do in a given hour on Sunday is to teach 
 a Bible story or more. 
 
 Every principle which is needed in the study of 
 secular stories is needed here if the story is to live. 
 The introduction is just as necessary, and perhaps 
 more so, for often the children feel that they know 
 what you are to tell them before you begin, and you 
 must make them want to know. The conclusion, the 
 elimination of the moral, the direct discourse, the 
 strong climax, every one of these things are neces- 
 sary in telling Bible stories. But does not this often 
 make one change the story from the way it was 
 written in the Bible ? Certainly it does. Often you 
 have to read the whole book to find the background 
 or the setting or the introduction. Note that I did 
 not say that you had to read the whole quarterly to 
 find It. Quarterlies are fine in their place but their 
 place has been most mightily mistaken. Teachers 
 of the Bible need the Bible as well as the quarterly. 
 
 How differently we teach the Bible from the way 
 we teach other great stories. Did any one ever give 
 to you in one sitting the wonder of the life of St. 
 Paul — his boyhood, his education, his conversion, 
 his work as a great teacher, his magnetism, his exile 
 with the incidents that surrounded it, and his mar- 
 tyrdom? It isn't a long story and It is a wonderful 
 
114. THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 one. No epic story has more of adventure or more 
 of the heroic. 
 
 Tell your Bible stories in the language of today. 
 Create an interest in the Bible itself by showing 
 and loaning to the pupils different versions of both 
 Bible and Testament. Study Mrs. Houghton's book 
 on telling Bible stories and also Dean Hodges' 
 " Bible Stories." Note how much he uses the old 
 Hebrew phraseology, yet in a way that is attractive. 
 
 In the beginning of this book, I urged you to 
 learn to love a story before you told it. Now I am 
 emphasizing this fact again, for you simply must 
 love your Bible stories if you would teach the chil- 
 dren to love them. Study each story in the light of 
 what it can bring to you, and then see what it can 
 bring to the pupils whom you are to teach. 
 
 Teach what you believe and believe what you 
 teach. Teachers say to me : " Next Sunday I have 
 to teach a certain lesson. How can I teach it? I 
 don't believe it." If you teach what you do not 
 believe, you are a hypocrite. You are in the Bible 
 class to show through your life and teaching " THE 
 TRUTH." Not necessarily the fact as given in 
 the lesson as it seems to read, for we are coming to 
 see that many of the things we used to teach for 
 fact were allegories and parables and epics. The 
 lesson is every bit there no matter which they are. 
 You must find the truth in each story and then teach 
 it. Some of the miracles are very hard to under- 
 stand and much harder to teach — especially those 
 of the Old Testament, but the truth is not hard to 
 understand or to teach. FIND THE TRUTH 
 AND TEACH IT. 
 
 Of what use is it to teach the early stories of the 
 
OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE STORIES 115 
 
 Bible as fact stories and later have the boys and 
 girls read similar stories in other ancient literature 
 that antedate the Bible, and then, in their thought- 
 lessness, think that because one story may not be as 
 told, all Bible stories are to be judged in the same 
 way? In a recent conversation with a worker among 
 the Portugese, he stated that their great problem 
 was to get their people to see that the Old Testa- 
 ment heroes were great because they were leading 
 their race toward the trde God. They insisted that 
 they were not great if they did some of the things 
 of which the Bible tells. Our task today is to learn 
 to interpret Hebrew history to the children in such 
 a way that they may keep their belief as they grow 
 older. 
 
 But teaching what you believe does not always 
 mean teaching ALL that you believe. You may 
 have studied the modern books on the Bible and 
 think quite differently from what your church teaches. 
 Shall you create difficulties for this belief? Learn 
 to find the great essential truth and teach it in the 
 very best way you know remembering that your task 
 is to teach the children to think for themselves and 
 to study for themselves and not necessarily to believe 
 just what you do. 
 
 Remember when you are teaching the Bible stories 
 to teach as many as you can of positive stories — 
 not " Thou shalt not," but " Thou shalt." When 
 you have come to the climax of the story there should 
 be in the minds of the children, "I should like to be 
 like him." If you keep this thought in mind you 
 will be more careful as to what you make the climax 
 of your stories — not killing and cheating, but faith 
 in God and work for God and helpfulness for one 
 
116 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 another. Where is the climax of the book of Ruth? 
 It depends on whether you want to teach loyalty 
 to one's friends or the results of a wise choice. In 
 the first case, it would be the words we like to quote 
 so well : " Where thou goest, I will go," etc. And 
 the story can end in two short sentences. But if 
 the second theme is chosen, you will need to carry 
 the story to the marriage with Boaz and the birth 
 of the baby whose lineage was to be so wonderful. 
 
 Sometimes the theme of the story as told in the 
 quarterly is not the one that is fitted to your class. 
 The writer of the lessons must think in general 
 terms when writing them. Learn to study those 
 Old Testament heroes in the light of your class. 
 Not long ago a teacher wrote asking me to send her 
 a story that would teach a certain boy to be inter- 
 ested in building a strong body. On inquiry I found 
 that they were studying David. Where could you 
 find a better story for that? David, who could en- 
 dure nights on the ground, who was strong enough to 
 fight wild beasts, who could sling a stone with ac- 
 curacy, David who could go the long journeys, 
 who was reported to the king for his strong ruddy 
 body. There are many, many parts that are admir- 
 able for teaching physical endurance. " Athletes of 
 the Bible," might be very suggestive to teachers who 
 find it hard to teach these heroes to boys. It can 
 be found at any of the large publishing houses. 
 
 The attitude toward the Bible School teaching 
 in the minds of young men was brought very for- 
 cibly home to me when I was teaching a large class 
 of boys about eighteen years of age. They continu- 
 ally were saying, " I do not believe this and that." 
 Finally at the close of the year I said, " For a time 
 
OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE STORIES 117 
 
 we will study the things that you do not believe 
 till we clear the atmosphere a little." So they 
 brought their questions and dropped them in a box 
 if they chose. Each Sunday we studied a different 
 thought and we went from Adam to the present 
 time. It took us a year; but at the end of the year, 
 we at least knew why we didn't believe things, and 
 never in all my years of teaching have I had a year 
 when every member of the class was so ready to talk 
 in class. Often we should be In the classroom from 
 one half to an hour after the school had closed. 
 But the pathetic thing was this : In almost every case, 
 he had been taught the belief as a child in Bible 
 School, and then had found it contradicted by history 
 or science or human life. In the days when High 
 schools and colleges were less common, it was easier 
 to make the students beheve as the church did but 
 not now. What they learn as fact in school weighs 
 more, usually, than what they learned in Bible 
 School. 
 
 So my plea in teaching the Old Testament is not 
 that you change the content — the Bible is the great- 
 est book In all the world and the content does not 
 need changing. My plea Is that you study how to 
 teach the truth that the Bible teaches. That you 
 be willing to let the Bible be judged as other books 
 are judged. It Is not all history. It was not written 
 as history. It was not meant to teach history. It 
 is the struggle of a race toward their God and that 
 struggle begins as every other nation began — in 
 the days of folk lore and story. 
 
 Show the weaknesses of the heroes as well as the 
 strength and let the children judge for themselves 
 how much of a hero they were. Place much em- 
 
118 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 phasis on the geography and social setting of the 
 story and when you have finished, let there be in 
 the minds of the pupils not that thing which is the 
 center of dispute and doubt — the raising from the 
 dead, the falling back of the waters, etc., but the 
 great quality for which that hero stood. Daniel 
 in the lions' den — let that be an incident of the story. 
 Daniel who would not let the fear of any one make 
 him forget to ask God to bless and use him — that 
 is the lesson which that story is fitted to teach. Tom 
 Brown at Oxford — Daniel at prayer — ^Two stories 
 that, linked together, bring a great message to the 
 boy who is forgetting to pray. 
 
 The Old Testament stories are some of the finest 
 in the world but one needs much time and thought 
 to make them live in the right way. And the wrong 
 way is the way that leads to disbelief. The teachers 
 of the Bible School are responsible for much of 
 the leakage from the Christian church. 
 
 May I repeat the statement with which I started. 
 The teacher of Bible stories should teach what she 
 believes and believe what she teaches. But that 
 very thing has caused untold damage. Underlying 
 the teaching must be an honest, sincere study to 
 know the Truth and its application to the child life 
 of today. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 TELLING NEW TESTAMENT STORIES 
 
 Religion ought to be a very vital part of the ado- 
 lescent life of today but the fact remains that it is 
 not. 'Tis easy to hold and to interest them till 
 they near fourteen years of age and then they seem 
 to drop from the church rolls by magic. Why? 
 It is the age when doubt is very common. Up to 
 this time they have been very sure that father and 
 mother " knew " but now they are very sure that 
 they do not know all the things that they ought to 
 know. They were sure that school was the place 
 for a boy or girl — and then suddenly they were not 
 so sure. What shall we do just here in our Bible 
 School work to help interest them? I prefer to give 
 this chapter largely to telling the New Testament 
 stories to adolescent pupils, for it is there where 
 it should be emphasized and in a very careful way. 
 
 Just to tell the stories from Sunday to Sunday is 
 not enough. Let us think again of the needs of 
 the adolescent group as we studied them in a preced- 
 ing chapter. Chivalry, love, altruistic service, sac- 
 rifice and all the rest. Can we find these things in 
 the life of Jesus and Paul and Peter and Stephen? 
 Indeed we can, and stories that are full of power 
 and conviction. Then how shall we make them 
 ready for this group? You must teach Christ as a 
 great heroic character with less emphasis on what 
 we believe he was, and more emphasis on what he 
 
 119 
 
120 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 believed, and what he did as he lived here. It must 
 be taught in its broad setting with much that is 
 historical and geographical. Teach the divinity of 
 Christ, not by miracle — for they are not eager for 
 the miraculous — but by what he has done to the 
 world, and by what his character still stands for 
 after nineteen hundred years of study. 
 
 Bring out the manhood of the Christ, the sym- 
 pathy with those who suffered, the comradeship with 
 those who worked, the love for his mother and his 
 friends, his fearlessness, the inspiration of his life as 
 he walked and talked with his disciples. Always and 
 everywhere this thought — " What was Jesus' atti- 
 tude toward these everyday tasks? " And what will 
 you do with the great number who doubt the miracu- 
 lous? Don't try to force it down and say, "Be- 
 cause the Bible said it, it must be so," or " Jesus 
 could do anything." The moment you do that you 
 add to their doubt. Show them miracles today — the 
 wireless, the wonderful things done by the doctors 
 during the war, the remaking of men and many other 
 things. Then arouse in them the wish that they 
 knew just how he did the things. Let them very 
 frankly discuss how it could have been done. And 
 when you have done all you can, then show them 
 that the truth of the story is the same however the 
 deed was done. 
 
 I well remember a discussion we had been having 
 over Jesus walking on the water. The boys couldn't 
 see it at all. Finally one boy who was a good 
 swimmer said, " Well now, I can see, for last sum- 
 mer a man was drowning at the summer place where 
 I stayed. I swam as far as I could but I just 
 had to tread water for the longest time before I 
 
NEW TESTAMENT BIBLE STORIES 121 
 
 could help him. Now if I could tread water where 
 another, vfho didn't know how, would have drowned 
 long before, I can believe that Jesus could walk on 
 water just because he knew how. I like to think 
 that Jesus was a young man who knew how to help 
 at any time and he was helping here. Sometimes 
 a fellow knows how to help when he sees danger 
 better than he does at any other time." Then an- 
 other boy said, " Well, I needed some money once 
 and I didn't see a way in the world by which I was 
 to get it, but I finally prayed for it. And the next 
 day I had a letter from a man who had owed father 
 some money. He enclosed five dollars thinking I 
 might need it now that I was at school. I don't 
 think it was any harder to walk on the water than 
 it was to get that money to me. I should say with 
 Will that it was because he knew how." And so the 
 discussion went. I did little and they did much. 
 They were getting the life-lesson out. 
 
 The birth of Christ, the bodily resurrection, the 
 ascension — these are the places where the teacher 
 of adolescent boys and girls often feels perfectly 
 hopeless. But do you know that they are eager for 
 just the lessons that those things teach ? The story 
 of the- birth belongs to the Junior children as a study, 
 but the adolescent needs to be reminded again that 
 Christ was born as they were born, that he grew as 
 they grew, and hence he is an example for their 
 lives. When I said to a class a short time ago that 
 they would find many very serious questions in their 
 classes concerning the resurrection if they were real 
 teachers and knew what their pupils were thinking 
 about, some doubted the statement. One young man 
 said, " Well I surely hope I have been a good enough 
 
122 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 teacher so that they never question the bodily resur- 
 rection at least." I only answered, " Just listen 
 and see for yourself." The cloud burst the next 
 Sunday with one of the pupils asking the question, 
 " How did it happen that Mary did not know 
 Christ?" and he was surrounded by questions that 
 he did not dream were there. 
 
 Teachers! It is that unanswered question that 
 causes the trouble. " How can these things be ? " 
 is still a live question. And what shall you do when 
 they ask you? Study it with them. Search the res- 
 urrection story for all the evidence. Tell the story 
 both ways for them and let them see the two ac- 
 counts if you will but be very sure that they find 
 at the end that one thing was very certain — Christ 
 lived. The rest is only the shell which held the 
 precious kernel — Christ lived. Christ was born of 
 a mother, he lived the life of sacrifice and of ser- 
 vice, he died the heroic death and he lived again. 
 These are the things which appeal to the adolescent. 
 Jesus had temptations as the rest had, but he con- 
 quered. That is a powerful appeal to the boy if 
 the story is carefully told. Do not raise knotty ques- 
 tions; you have enough to do without them but 
 when they come, study them and then bring out the 
 great truth of the story as you tell it. 
 
 Paul is a wonderful character if you study him 
 in the light of the needs of this group. Chivalrous 
 to the extreme, full of self sacrifice, so thoughtful 
 and earnest, so heroic at the end especially. Never 
 mind how many days he stayed in a place. Spend 
 your time in your story either in showing what he 
 did of helpfulness there and the results of his visit, 
 or else what he was teaching. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT BIBLE STORIES 123 
 
 Right along with your Bible lessons teach stories 
 of missionaries, and social workers, so that they 
 will see these men of the New Testament in the 
 light of modern work. Too often I feel that the 
 children think the making of religion stopped with 
 the Bible. 
 
 Search your Bible for new stories or old stories 
 told in a new way. Make the Bible a live book 
 to them. Dramatize many of the stories. Make 
 pageants based on the Bible stories. 
 
 In your stories, make Christ live. Not as a 
 being who was so different from the modern boy, 
 not as a miracle worker, not effeminate as some 
 would have us think, but as a man who, if he were on 
 earth today, would be the friend of the boy and girl. 
 One in whose face there was no sin; in whose life 
 there was no conscious wrong; in whose speech 
 there was nothing unclean; in whose daily life there 
 was toil and trouble ; In whose school life there was 
 success; in whose home life there was helpfulness. 
 Can you not see how these things are the very things 
 where the adolescent needs the Christ? If he needs 
 him there, then you should build your stories in such 
 a way that he finds him there. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 STORY GROUPS 
 
 This chapter must take up several lines of thought 
 as to groups where the religious worker can be of 
 use, outside of the work in her Bible School class. 
 There is a call everywhere for story-tellers who 
 are willing to give an occasional hour to the work. 
 
 There is the playground story hour. The children 
 have romped and played to their hearts' content 
 in the city playground and then they are ready for 
 recreation of a different kind. The story is one of 
 the best things for this time. But the leader of the 
 playground, often a man, finds it difficult to tell 
 these stories. Every one can relate facts but every 
 one can not tell a story. Volunteer helpers are 
 gladly welcomed by all workers in playground, gym- 
 nasium, social settlement, etc. 
 
 Usually three stories will be sufficient for these 
 groups. That is the number usually told in the 
 library story hours where the professional story- 
 teller is doing such fine work. The stories told are 
 somewhat dissimilar however. The library aims to 
 lead the child to the book shelves by telling stories 
 which they would like to read later. The theme of 
 the stories and the message of the stories are care- 
 fully studied, of course, but the teller has almost 
 no opportunity to know the particular needs of the 
 children of the group. This is not true of the story- 
 teller in the playground. How long does it take to 
 
 124 
 
STORY GROUPS 125 
 
 tell the selfish child, the petulant child, the leader in 
 mischief, the leader in real work? Here the story 
 can be built for the needs of the child more espe- 
 cially. Hence the habits and ordinary virtues of life 
 take a prominent place : cleanliness, truth, brotherli- 
 ness, honesty, etc. 
 
 The number of stories for this kind of work is 
 unlimited and the one who would tell them must 
 have many well prepared, for on a given day there 
 may be need for a story of a special type to be given 
 without time for preparation. 
 
 Of the three stories in a group, the first must be 
 so well told and have such a strong introduction that 
 it will at once command involuntary attention. At- 
 tention that is forced by saying, " Now you must 
 sit still or I will not tell you a story," is not worth 
 having. It should be an apperceptive story, build- 
 mg on a very well-known thought in child life. Usu- 
 ally it is One of the shorter stories. After a moment 
 of relaxation — and this should always be a part of 
 the story hour — there comes the strongest story of 
 the three and this is liable to be the longest one. 
 This should be a thoughtful story, a story in which 
 the suspense is well sustained, one in which the 
 power of attention is developed. The third story 
 is usually the lightest story of the three — often it is 
 a humorous story. It should be quite different from 
 the rest, for if it is not, there is likely to be restless- 
 ness in the group. All three stories are built about 
 a common theme, unless there is need for a special 
 story, although each story is quite different in con- 
 tent. 
 
 Suppose for the day you chose to emphasize 
 "helpful work". "The Lion and the Mouse," 
 
126 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 would make a good beginning; the " Stone in the 
 Road " for the second, and " The Little Red Hen " 
 for the third. A good rule for the novice to follow 
 is that the story that makes a child think is best 
 followed by one that makes him do. 
 
 One use of the story group in recreation centers 
 also is to socialize the group. Hence stories of 
 countries and of heroic deeds of those countries are 
 good. Sometimes it is well to take all three stories 
 from the literature of a country and make some 
 special use of the children of that country during 
 the story hour. Oftentimes carrying a flag of the 
 country of which the story is told will do much to 
 create an atmosphere that is desirable. Common 
 ideals should be one of the aims of the story-telling 
 hour here. 
 
 A few suggestions as to details may be of help. 
 Thirty minutes is long enough for a story hour, even 
 though you be a very good story-teller. Seat the 
 group as nearly as you can in a semi-circle with your 
 own chair at the center of the circle >^7^thus. 
 Never sit in the circle itself. Always have the chil- 
 dren where they can look you directly in the face. 
 Always select a theme — home, animal, play, helpful- 
 ness, etc. Tell the better stories several times in a 
 season so that the pupils become familiar with them. 
 Do not try to tell stories for the tiniest ones. Tell 
 usually for the average age but occasionally give a 
 special story for the older as well as for the younger. 
 Tell the children where they can find some of the 
 stories you tell if they go to the library. The 
 librarians will put special books on the shelves or 
 tables for you if you will tell them what you are 
 using. 
 
STORY GROUPS 127 
 
 Occasionally use a poem that is musical. " Hia- 
 watha " used with a group of Indian Tales is very 
 much worth while, for instance. Some children, 
 especially the Italians, will love the music of the 
 poem better than the story. 
 
 In some of the cities of the country there have 
 been formed story groups of those who loved to 
 hear and to tell stories. These are formed of 
 teachers, mothers, club leaders, etc. These groups 
 are productive of great good for they not only 
 emphasize the principles of good story-telling but 
 they also give to the members a fund of the best 
 stories, at the same time furnishing them with 
 a very satisfactory semi-recreational club. Many 
 times they meet in the public libraries so that needed 
 books may be right at hand. 
 
 Some of the places where a person who loves to 
 tell stories can be of real worth are Old Ladies' 
 Homes, children's wards of the hospitals, conva- 
 lescent wards and homes, poor-houses, etc. I have 
 found more sincere appreciation in these places than 
 in many places where one would expect it. They are 
 often so lonely and the days are so long. The little 
 children come to know one as the *' Story-Lady," 
 and the stories you tell can ease many an hour of 
 pain and make life easier for the nurses. Not to go 
 spasmodically, but to go regularly so that you will 
 be, not a visitor, but a helper, is a real Christian 
 work. The stories told should be bright and cheer- 
 ful, often humorous and all far away from the 
 thought of sickness and home. Old ladies want the 
 stories of little children and of cheery homes and 
 country life. They love to live in the happy days 
 that were theirs before age made them useless. 
 
128 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 Perhaps this is the logical chapter in which to dis- 
 cuss briefly the story festival. It differs from the 
 pageant and drama in the fact that the story-teller is 
 the center of all. There is very little of movement 
 or dramatization — sometimes none. The stage is 
 so planned as to give the setting — Indian, primitive, 
 mountain, fairy, etc., and into it the story-teller fits 
 with the dim lights and the quiet of the scene. 
 Oftentimes the out-of-doors makes an ideal setting. 
 I well remember an evening with Scott in a little 
 amphitheater in the mountains with the blue of the 
 sky and the shimmer of the lake to heighten the 
 effect. If very carefully planned, soft music may 
 help. The setting remains the same for the whole 
 story. Occasionally a fairy dance or a short tableau 
 will visualize a part of the story, but rarely can i'v. 
 be used with effect. It is done, not for itself, but as 
 a part of the story, and must not take away from 
 the movement of the story. The story is usually 
 one that takes the whole of the allotted time, though 
 often it is told in parts. Usually its sole purpose is 
 to give pleasure. 
 
 There still remains the group known as the 
 " Story-Telling Class," a group of those who are 
 in the class to learn. These are found in our 
 churches, our clubs and our Community schools. 
 One need not be a professional story-teller to teach 
 such a class. If you know the principles of story- 
 telling and have a few carefully selected stories that 
 you can do well, you can probably help others to 
 be better story-tellers. What teachers need is not 
 for you to tell stories to them but to teach them to 
 tell stories, to show them the power of the story, 
 to inspire them with a desire to do it well and to 
 
STORY GROUPS 129 
 
 carry the gift to the children. Of course, a well- 
 told story helps in the class, but there is need of 
 many who will study, and then go out and gather a 
 little group about them and spread the inspiration. If 
 you can do this, then you can be a helper indeed in 
 the religious work of today, for we must improve 
 the story in the Bible School. We must raise up 
 people for the recreational work who can tell 
 stories; we must give to young people that knowl- 
 edge which shall make them story-telling mothers, 
 a rare thing today. Perhaps this is the place where 
 you can be of most service. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 JUNIOR CHURCH STORIES 
 
 I HAVE thought that perhaps In this book would be 
 the place for the discussion of this question which 
 is such a vital one today. As the type of stories 
 varies in the different kinds of Junior Churches, it 
 may be well for a time to think of the church 
 itself. 
 
 There are three quite different types of Junior 
 Churches. In the first and most satisfactory method, 
 the children come to the regular church service. 
 If they do not sit with their parents, they sit in 
 a group in the front of the church where it will 
 be easy for the minister to talk to them. Pos- 
 sibly in the worship service of the morning a part 
 is assigned to them, a song by the group or by 
 the children's choir; a responsive reading with the 
 congregation, or perhaps a special lesson is read 
 for them. Then, before the sermon to the older 
 congregation, the minister preaches? Oh, no, he 
 doesn't, for if he does, they do not continue to 
 come. He tells the children a story or teaches them 
 an object lesson. Then during the singing of a 
 hymn, they pass quietly out and go home. Chil- 
 dren, who sit with the group, who have left the 
 Junior department, are supposed to stay. This is 
 the Junior Church which leads most naturally to 
 attendance at the Senior Church and membership in 
 the san»e. 
 
 130 
 
JUNIOR CHURCH STORIES 131 
 
 But there are ministers who feel that they simply 
 cannot tell the stories to the children and who 
 frankly say so. They want the children in the 
 church but they cannot give the story as it ought to 
 be told. And when one listens to some ministers 
 tell stories to children, they wish that a course in 
 story-telling for children were a required course in 
 the seminary. It certainly should be, for the min- 
 ister who cannot talk to children has lost half his 
 power for usefulness in the church. Some ministers 
 feel that they cannot give the time necessary to the 
 preparation of the story and so the following plan 
 is used. The children come to the worship service, 
 and then pass to the chapel where the assistant or 
 some teacher gives the story. This may mean a 
 much better story but it at once creates a feeling of 
 separateness between minister and children and 
 creates a " why " in their minds. Then, too, in the 
 confusion of the passing, they lose the mood which 
 had been prepared for the story by the worship 
 hour, and they lose the feeling of reverence which 
 the church auditorium accentuates. 
 
 A third type of Junior Church is found where the 
 whole service for the children is held in another 
 room. The worship service is planned similar to 
 the church service, is dignified, the hymns are of the 
 best and the great hymns of the church are learned, 
 a Junior Choir furnishes the music perhaps and they 
 have their own officers. Perhaps they have a little 
 pledge and become members of this Junior Church. 
 They have their own offerings and plan where they 
 are to be used. It is a miniature church where there 
 are no older people except the leader and some 
 helpers. But although there are many ways in 
 
132 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 which this is ideal, yet again the children lose. 
 They need to feel the presence of the older people, 
 they need to worship in the common place. They 
 need the dignity of the church auditorium. They 
 need to become accustomed to the more dignified 
 service. The Junior Church of this type is apt to 
 fail in its real purpose of leiading the child to the 
 love of the church and its worship because they will 
 not be willing to be transferred when they should 
 be. This is what happens. They graduate from 
 the Junior Church when they are ready to join the 
 Senior Church. They have occasionally gone with 
 the group to the special services of the year but now 
 they are to go to the older church all the time. The 
 Junior Church leader has very carefully trained them 
 in the duties of church membership and a beautiful 
 service is planned when they shall join the church 
 with the Junior Church there, happy that they are 
 to do so. 
 
 They join and they begin to go — but they miss 
 the simplicity of the prayer, the spontaneousness of 
 the songs, the story was so different from the long 
 sermon and they can't quite understand it, but most 
 of all they miss the cordiality of the Junior Church. 
 They say no one cares whether they are there or 
 not and soon they come back to the Junior Church 
 and beg to be helpers there. 
 
 In the days that are gone by, Mr. Eggleston had 
 a most successful church of the first type with over 
 a hundred members at one time and the whole 
 church work felt the impetus of the Junior Church. 
 Then I worked for a time with the second type and 
 for four years I was leader of a Junior Church of 
 the last type. Much depends, of course, on the kind 
 
JUNIOR CHURCH STORIES 133 
 
 of minister as to how each shall succeed. But given 
 the right conditions, the first is much to be pre- 
 ferred. 
 
 But what shall be the type of stories used in these 
 churches? They should be taken from all sorts of 
 sources, but they must be carefully chosen with the 
 thought of the needs of the group in mind, and they 
 must be very carefully studied. The minister who 
 is not willing to spend three-fourths as much time 
 on his junior sermon as he does on his senior ser- 
 mon had better leave it alone. I well remember 
 the first sermon that Mr. Eggleston wrote for the 
 children. He naturally thought in terms of older 
 people, than would do for them. He wrote the 
 story and brought it to me (because I had been a 
 teacher of children) to correct. And away went the 
 blue pencil with a big line through big words and the 
 moralizing at the end. Thirteen times he wrote that 
 sermon and ten times there was a black line at the 
 end. He just couldn't leave off the moral. But he 
 conquered in the end, though for one whole year he 
 spent more time each week on that lo-minute talk 
 than on the 3 5 -minute one that followed. For six 
 years he had his church and in the files of his study 
 when he had gone, I found 270 stories all written 
 out and classified. Junior Church stories take time 
 and strength. The minister must be willing and 
 glad to give it. 
 
 There are books and books of Junior Church 
 stories, but in some of them the mixture of object 
 and story-telling is exceedingly bad. Some of them 
 have a little story and a lot of preaching and a few 
 rare ones contain a collection of worth-while stories 
 that are a great help to the minister or leader. In 
 
134 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 the list given later, not all the stories are usable, 
 but the books will be valuable for your library. 
 
 The hardest part of the task for the minister will 
 be not to tack a moral to the tale. Preach if you 
 must, but preach first and then tell your story as an 
 illustration of what you have preached and stop with 
 the conclusion of the story. 
 
 Not always should a story be used. Sometimes 
 a bit of constructive work is good. How we got 
 our Testaments and how the Bible was put to- 
 gether; the meaning of the sacraments of the 
 church, a bit of Bible History or news from the 
 mission field may all be used, but the leaders 
 should remember that the object of telling a story 
 is identical with the object that underlies the 
 Junior Church — to give pleasure, to create ideals, 
 to form character, to interest in things that are 
 noble and beautiful. Hence the story method is 
 naturally the method to be used in the Junior 
 Church. Sometimes an object lesson may well be 
 used, but it takes a skillful story-teller to use an ob- 
 ject in the midst of a story and not detract from 
 the value of the story. Object lessons are much 
 better used in the classroom than in the pulpit of 
 the Junior Church. 
 
 Shall a text be used? — ^yes, if one can be found 
 
 \that will fit the theme of the story and you can work 
 
 it in naturally, but not a text because you have to 
 
 have one. The theme of the story is good enough 
 
 for a text if no other suitable one is found. 
 
 It is well for the teller of Junior stories to re- 
 member that if they are told in the Senior Church, 
 the seniors get as much from the stories as the 
 
JUNIOR CHURCH STORIES 135 
 
 children, and sometimes more. Many a theme that 
 could not be taken for a sermon without causing 
 hard feeling, can be used and driven home through 
 the story to the children. I remember once when 
 a large amount of money was to be raised for mis- 
 sions, a wealthy man was asked to contribute and 
 refused, saying he had enough to do to support the 
 work at home and did not believe in missions. The 
 following Sunday, the Junior sermon was concerning 
 the life of Cornwall, the missionary, who not only 
 stayed with the Chinese coolies when the boat was 
 sinking and all the passengers and crew had deserted 
 them, but swam with a line the next morning to the 
 shore, fastened it securely, and then went back along 
 the rope to the ship to show the coolies how to use 
 it and to reassure them as they risked their lives in 
 the heavy sea. The text was, " Greater love hath 
 no man than this that he lay down his life for his 
 friends." During the week a check came to the 
 office and the card accompanying it simply said, 
 " If he can be willing to risk losing his life, I can 
 be willing to risk losing some money. Thank you." 
 And it was signed by the wealthy man. Plan your 
 stories for the children and for them alone, but 
 remember that you are not working alone for the 
 children when you prepare them. 
 
 Use stories from any source as long as they are 
 creative stories of great ideils as to what a Chris- 
 tian boy and girl ought to do and to be. One of 
 the greatest opportunities that a minister has in his 
 work is in his Junior Church. And if the minister 
 does not do the work, then it may well fall to the 
 director, the superintendent or the teacher. 
 
136 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 A FAVORITE JUNIOR CHURCH STORY 
 The Little Brown Rat 
 Theme — Love never faileth 
 
 Big John lived in a very large building sur- 
 rounded by high walls on which at times there could 
 be seen walking a man with a gun. In front of the 
 building there was a big iron gate at which stood a 
 sentry who looked at the little piece of paper that 
 was carried by every stranger who entered the gate. 
 There were many windows in the walls of the big 
 house, but every one was crossed and re-crossed by 
 iron bars. Looking through the gate one could see 
 many men, but they were not talking to each other 
 or smiling at each other, and their faces looked 
 either sad and lonely or hard and ugly. Many of 
 them were wearing suits with stripes running around 
 the body, — such queer looking suits as they were! 
 Now over the door of this big house were two 
 words : " State's Prison," and all these men had been 
 sent from the towns and cities around to live here 
 and work for months or years or maybe for their 
 whole life. 
 
 Big John had been here when just a boy and then 
 had been let out again. Then he had done more 
 things that were not right and had come back again 
 for two years. Three times he had been let out, 
 and three times he had had to come back, each time 
 with a face that had less smiles and more ugliness 
 in it. And now every one in the prison was afraid. 
 He had tried to saw his way out of the windows; 
 he had tried to kill the keepers and he had even 
 
JUNIOR CHURCH STORIES 137 
 
 tried to kill himself. So he was continually being 
 watched by the guards lest he do some dreadful 
 thing. 
 
 One day when Big John was in the yard the 
 keeper saw him smile. He was so surprised that 
 he had to go and tell another keeper about it. 
 " Watch him," said this man, " he probably has 
 something ready to do and is smiling to think of 
 the trouble he is going to cause." So that night a 
 double guard was walking along the gallery where 
 John slept. But there was no trouble and John slept 
 quietly through the night as usual. Then the keep- 
 ers noticed that he was much less quarrelsome than 
 he had been and that he did his work in much bet- 
 ter shape, but they noticed, too, that when the other 
 men were in the yards John often preferred to stay 
 "ji his cell. He had been such a bad man that the 
 keepers could not help but feel sure that he was 
 bent on mischief so they changed his cell, and when 
 he objected they searched and searched the old one 
 for some trace of what he was doing but not a thing 
 could they find. 
 
 One day when John thought no one was looking 
 he unbuttoned his coat and looked down at some- 
 thing that was hidden there. Then he put his hand 
 inside and smiled. But a keeper saw it, and think- 
 ing he had a knife or a pistol, perhaps, two keepers 
 caught his hands and started to take away the thing 
 that he had hidden. But it wasn't a gun or a pistol 
 or a knife, it wasn't even a saw. It was a little 
 brown rat. It had come into his cell at night to get 
 the crumbs of bread that had fallen when the pris- 
 oner had eaten his supper in the cell and John had 
 made friends with it. Finally it had become so tame 
 
138 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 that it would ride about in the pocket of his coat, 
 and then he had placed it inside to keep it safe and 
 warm. So every afternoon it stayed there and slept. 
 But when it awoke and scratched with its little feet 
 at John's shirt, he would smile to think how good 
 friends he and the little rat had become. 
 
 The keepers of the prison were going to take it 
 away and kill it, but John begged so hard for its 
 life that they finally gave it back to him and let him 
 keep it. " 'Tis the only thing that ever loved me 
 in all my life," said Big John. " I hadn't any 
 mother or any folks ever. And now it is the only 
 thing in all the big world that has faith in me and 
 believes I will do what is right. Let me keep my 
 friend and I will give you no more trouble, for the 
 little rat will help me to be good." 
 
 So they lived together in the cell for months, the 
 man who had been so wicked and the little rat who 
 loved him. Then the man grew kind and gentle and 
 loving and helpful as the days went by. And when 
 at last the governor sent a pardon to the prison for 
 Big John he refused it, saying, " I would rather stay 
 here where the men need a friend than to go out 
 into the world where I might find none. I will stay 
 and be a friend." 
 
 (This story was told me by a warden of a prison, and I have 
 only reproduced it as he told it to me.) 
 
 M. W, Eggi;eston. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE BED-TIME STORY HOUR 
 
 The task of the religious educator is not done when 
 the needs of the children have been met with in the 
 school and club. We must go into the home and 
 as far as possible inspire the parents to better things 
 there. Many of the mothers and fathers of the 
 children with whom we work are foreign and our 
 manners and customs are foreign to them, but no 
 matter whether American or foreign, every parent 
 has a background of some stories which can be used 
 in child training. But many of these parents do not 
 realize that stories are a part of the education of 
 the child. To them it seems like a waste of precious 
 time to spend the time which is needed for sewing 
 or cooking in telling stories. And so they need the 
 outside influence to show them what a great help 
 this one factor can be in the training and discipline 
 and rearing of the children of the home. 
 
 " Between the dark and the daylight, 
 When the night is beginning to lower, 
 Comes a pause in the day's occupation 
 That is known as the Children's Hour." 
 
 Longfellow had children of his own to whom he 
 told stories, and this is a bit of his own home life 
 that he gives us in the poem. But it is a bit of 
 philosophy which we can hardly afford to forget. 
 The bed-time hour! The impressionable time of 
 the day. The time when it is easiest to tell of the 
 
 139 
 
140 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 things that have been wrong or harmful and then 
 go to bed with a clear conscience. The time when 
 the story has a chance to bring its message in the 
 quiet that precedes sleep. The time when the fairies 
 and heroes chase away the thoughts of the day that 
 are unhappy. 
 
 But what do we find in most of our homes ? The 
 older members of the family coming home from 
 work; the supper where the children have little part; 
 the dishes to wash and the hurry, hurry, hurry to 
 get the little ones to bed and out of the way, or else 
 the sending of them on the street to play till it is 
 too late for them to have any time of their own. 
 All day mother has been too busy to give them a 
 play-time, or a story-time, and father has been away; 
 but at night there is still no time for them. The 
 years roll by and then the parents wonder why the 
 children seem to grow away from them; why they 
 have lost their confidence ; why they fail to talk over 
 with them the things which they are planning to do 
 or be. Social workers could tell you pitiful tales of 
 the girls who have longed to have a bit of mother 
 that was not given. 
 
 Look for a moment at the other side where there 
 is a bed-time hour, a real bed-time hour. A little 
 talk "about today "; no scolding, no fretting, but a 
 little talk filled with love and sympathy. Paul has 
 made ready for bed with hands and face dirty — 
 just a little thing but a very lazy habit. But mother 
 doesn't like to kiss a boy with a dirty face and so 
 they talk it over and laugh about it — and then 
 he slides out of bed and comes back sweet and 
 clean. Then mother tucks him under the covers and 
 she tells him the story, — funny to him at the time, 
 
THE BED-TIME STORY HOUR 141 
 
 of " Pig Brother," and leaves him for the night. 
 And what is on his mind? The story. Was he 
 going to be a little brother to a pig? He wouldn't 
 like one to call him brother. No, indeed — and the 
 message sinks in. Or perhaps she tells him of the 
 ten little soldiers (fingers) who always take their 
 hats off (the black tops) if ladies are to be about. 
 Then, in fun, they look at Paul's soldiers. Mother 
 could have said, " You must clean your nails," many 
 times and still find them unclean. But now, when 
 he looks at them, they are little soldiers with their 
 hats on. 
 
 Kate'has said unkind things to the mother during 
 the day and mother has been hurt. She has said so, 
 but Kate has been angry and the rebuke has been 
 worth little. But when night comes she begins to 
 think about it. If there were a chance, (and she 
 were used to doing it) she would say she was sorry 
 — not when the others were about — ^but when she 
 and mother were alone. And the sweet relationship 
 between mother and daughter would have been ce- 
 mented. But there is no time, and little by little she 
 thinks there is no need to tell mother that she is 
 sorry and she becomes one of the girls whom all 
 grown people wish they could have the chance to 
 train. If she and mother had had a visit — a bed- 
 time talk — and then there had followed the story 
 perhaps of Mother HoUe (if she were younger) or 
 Garfield's appreciation of his mother (if she were 
 older) or any of the beautiful mother stories that 
 are so easy to find, it might have resulted in a dif- 
 ferent attitude. 
 
 I have tried bed-time stories in my own home and 
 I know their worth. Their help in discipline is with- 
 
142 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 out measure. A quiet conscience, a mind full of 
 helpful things and pretty pictures and a feeling of 
 the sweetness of mother-love — these are the rights 
 of every child at bed-time. And what can the 
 church do to promote this? Her workers, as they 
 go in the home, can tell the mothers how to tell the 
 stories, where to find the stories and the value of 
 the stories. They can show the mother the worth 
 of the folk tales of her own mother country as well 
 as our own stories. They can give to the child 
 books of stories which perhaps will be used at the 
 bed-time hour. They can tell to the older children 
 — little mothers, many of them, in our institutional 
 churches — stories which perhaps they will give to the 
 little ones at the bed-time if the mother can not or 
 does not. The church can have clubs of mothers who 
 shall learn to tell stories. At the regular meetings of 
 mother's clubs, a bed-time story can be told each 
 month. The pastor in his work can show to the 
 mothers — and many of the mothers from our homes 
 of refinement and wealth are as guilty of robbing 
 the child of its birth-right as are the mothers of the 
 poorer sections — he can show all mothers that they 
 are neglecting a great duty and privilege. 
 
 It will make little difference ten years from today 
 whether the dishes were washed just at the minute 
 supper was over or not; it will make little differ- 
 ence whether mother went to the whist party on 
 time or not; it will make little difference whether the 
 new dress was finished for the older daughter to 
 wear to the party or not, but it will make all the 
 difference in the world whether the children know of 
 Hans of Holland, the great King Arthur, Nahum 
 Prince, the Little Match Girl, Pandora, Little Daf- 
 
THE BED-TIME STORY HOUR 143 
 
 fadowndilly and Mr. Toil and the many, many 
 other fine, helpful characters who shall live with 
 them and influence them and help them to be fine 
 and true. It will make all the difference in the 
 world whether John goes to sleep planning the mis- 
 chief which the gang are ready to do on the morrow 
 or whether he is living with Sir Galahad. 
 
 This chapter has been placed in this book in the 
 hopes that it may send the church-workers out to be 
 believers in the power of the bed-time hour. 
 
 A BED-TIME STORY 
 The Fairy's Gift 
 
 Long, long ago in a land where the flowers were 
 always in bloom and the trees were full of birds, 
 there lived a little girl named Natalie. She had a 
 little kitten, and a big, big dog and a dear little 
 pony, but she was not happy even with all that. Her 
 papa gave her everything she wanted and her 
 mother did so many nice things for her, but still she 
 was not happy. She wanted one thing — she wanted 
 to see a fairy. 
 
 She looked under every big stone, and she looked 
 In every flower. When the wind whistled in the 
 trees, she would go out and look and look and look 
 up into the leaves — but there was no fairy there. 
 Then she would watch in the coals as they flew up 
 the fire-place, for they looked sometimes as if they 
 were alive, but no fairy came. 
 
 One day when Natalie was playing out in the 
 garden she became very tired, so she sat down 
 under a tree to rest. Just then she heard a little 
 
144. THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 voice saying, " Natalie, Natalie ! Where are you? " 
 " Right here under the tree," said the little girl. 
 " Where are you and who are you? " 
 
 "Look under the stone and right there will be 
 The dear little fairy you've wanted to see," 
 
 said the voice. 
 
 Oh, how happy Natalie was ! As quick as a flash 
 she ran to the big stone and sure enough there sat 
 a fairy. Such a dear little thing as she was ! Natalie 
 wanted to put her arms about her and kiss her but 
 the fairy held up her hand and said, " I am very 
 busy today looking for the very nicest thing to give 
 to a little girl I know, and I haven't a moment to 
 waste. Would you like to come with me?" "In- 
 deed I would," said Natalie. 
 
 Then away they went, with Natalie's hand fast 
 held by the fairy. After a time they came to a little 
 house where there were toys of every kind — dolls 
 that could talk and walk, great lines of cars with a 
 track on which they could run, tricycles, balls; just 
 everything that a boy or girl could wish for. 
 Natalie looked them all over and chose two or 
 three that she would have liked. But the fairy 
 shook her head and said, " Oh, no, this is not the 
 nicest thing in the world for a boy or girl to have. 
 We must hurry on." 
 
 Next they came to a big, big farm where there 
 were all sorts of animals, and Natalie just loved 
 the little white goats that were hitched to the carts 
 and ready for taking to some one. She was sure 
 this was the gift which the fairy would choose. But 
 the fairy looked at the dogs and the kittens and the 
 ponies and the goats and all the rest of the things 
 
THE BED-TIME STORY HOUR 145 
 
 and said, " These are fine, and they are all alive so 
 they could love the boys and girls but this is not the 
 best, I am sure. Something tells me I can find some- 
 thing better than these." 
 
 'Twas a long fly they took after they left the 
 farm, but at last they came to a beautiful building 
 and here there were all the books one ever heard 
 of. Stories of Red Riding Hood and the Three 
 Bears with bright-colored pictures; stories of boys 
 who had wonderful things and of girls who be- 
 came queens and princesses; stories of fairies and 
 giants and animals. Natalie wished the fairy would 
 let her stay right there and read all the day. A 
 dear little lady was in charge of the books, and she 
 tried hard to get the fairy to choose them, for she 
 said, " You know if you take the little girl this gift 
 she cannot break it or have it run away from her. 
 It can be hers for always and always." But the 
 fairy shook her head and went on. 
 
 Then they came to another house and in this 
 house there were beautiful things to wear: dresses 
 and hair ribbons and shoes and parasols and all 
 sorts of things that little girls like. " This is the 
 right place," thought Natalie. " Now I am sure 
 she will find just the thing that a little girl would 
 want most of anything in the world. I am sure 
 these are the nicest things. I hope she will choose 
 that pretty little pink dress with the shoes and rib- 
 bons to match." But the fairy only laughed when 
 Natalie told her her choice and said, " No, indeed, 
 I shall not take those things for they would make 
 the little girl very unhappy and selfish. I am sure 
 I know just where to look. I have just thought of 
 the very place." 
 
146 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 Down through the wood they went and across 
 the meadow, and then over a little, singing brook 
 to the home where the Mother Fairy lived. When 
 she heard them coming she came to the door, look- 
 ing so sweet in her pretty white dress and white 
 cap, with her curls peeping out from beneath it. 
 " Have you just the gift for a dear, little girl that 
 I know?" said the fairy. "It must be sweet and 
 dear to play with, and something that will last; 
 something that she can care for and love. Some- 
 thing that will love her and make her happy. I 
 know that is hard to find, but I love the little girl 
 and I want to give her the very best gift in all the 
 world." 
 
 Then the Mother Fairy smiled and said, " Yes, 
 I have just the gift. Wait a moment and I will bring 
 it to you." she went into the house and Natalie 
 just held her breath, she was so anxious to know 
 what it could be that was nicer than toys or animals 
 or books or pretty things. When Mother Fairy 
 came back, she held in her arms a bundle which she 
 gave to the little fairy, who In turn gave it to 
 Natalie, saying, " Look, dear, and see if you like 
 the gift, for you are the little girl I was thinking 
 •of." Then Natalie lifted the cover and there lay a 
 dear little baby sister with blue eyes, yellow hair 
 and little blue bonnet strings tied under her pretty 
 chin. 
 
 And Natalie liked her so well that she took her 
 home to mother and they were all very Sure that 
 she was the dearest gift in all the world. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE USE OF STORIES IN MAKING GREAT PICTURES 
 AND HYMNS LIVE AND GROW 
 
 All will readily agree that children should be 
 taught to appreciate the beautiful in art and song, 
 but how? Rarely do you find a child especially in- 
 terested in any picture in particular as you pass 
 through the museum, unless it is striking in color, is 
 a picture of animals or has been in some way em- 
 phasized in their school life. Just as one must be 
 well introduced to a person in order to have an 
 interest in them at first sight, so the child must be 
 Introduced to the great art productions of the world. 
 The victrola has done much to make known the 
 great music of the world by purfing it within reach 
 of the poorest and by making it popular. But even 
 then the deeper side of that great music Is still hidden 
 from the child. 
 
 Back of the great art pictures, the great pieces of 
 sculpture and the great music there are wonderful 
 stories, some of them true and some of them 
 legendary, which will be of great pleasure to the 
 youth of the land and arouse an Interest in these 
 works of art that will be lasting and lead to deeper 
 study. It is the privilege of the Bible School teacher 
 to help here also. 
 
 A hymn should never be taught without first being 
 introduced in some way. Why should they want to 
 sing the hymn just because it Is the one the leader 
 
 147 
 
148 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 chooses to sing? If they know nothing about it, 
 they care little about it. Hence it has come to be 
 that much of the music that is popular with the 
 Bible School pupils today is written to dance-time 
 and with meaningless words or catchy music that has 
 caught the ear but has left the soul-life untouched. 
 Music in the Church School is for the purpose of 
 worship, and no worshipful music suggests the dance 
 hall. It is only because we have not introduced the 
 better music to them and then shown them the beauty 
 of that mufeic as it was devotionally sung that they 
 have chosen the other. They have taken what we 
 have chosen to give them, and now the Bible school 
 is suffering the results in a school in which reverence 
 has seemed to be leaving for parts unknown. Not 
 always does this need to be a story. It may be a 
 little fact from the life of the composer or the 
 author, or it may be an interesting incident that 
 caused the writing of the hymn. Just something to 
 catch the attention of the pupils and cause them to 
 want to sing the hymn and to appreciate the spirit 
 of the ones who wrote it perhaps. But any one who 
 has imagination can take the facts of a life and 
 weave them into an interesting little fact or story 
 which will serve the purpose well. For instance: 
 " When he was fifteen years old, Charles Wesley 
 had to choose whether he would be adopted by a 
 wealthy uncle, a member of Parliament, or not. 
 The mother wisely left the choice wholly with the 
 boy and he decided to stay with his fifteen brothers 
 and sisters in the Epworth Parsonage. The cousin 
 who was adopted in his place became grandfather 
 of the great Duke of Wellington and so has made 
 a name in history. But Charles Wesley also made 
 
STORIES IN PICTURES AND HYMNS 149 
 
 a great name for himself. He did not grow up to 
 be a fighter ; he was a singer and he wrote more than 
 6,000 hymns. This hymn which we are to sing this 
 morning was written by him when the Methodist 
 Church was less than one year old." 
 
 Then sing, " Hark the Herald Angels Sing." 
 or this: 
 
 " Once, a few years ago, there lived in Boston a 
 minister who tried to live as nearly as he could just 
 as he thought the Christ wanted him to live. And 
 this is how the newspapers thought he succeeded. 
 The note, printed in the daily paper, read : ' Phillips 
 Brooks walked down Newspaper Row yesterday, 
 nodding to acquaintance here and there. And 
 though the heavens and the pavements were moist, 
 the street was filled with sunshine.' I wonder what 
 kind of a hymn a man like that would write. It is 
 this, — one of our favorite Christmas hymns, — ' Oh, 
 Little Town of Bethlehem,' and it was written 
 after he had spent Christmas on the hills near 
 Bethlehem." 
 
 These are not stories in the true sense of the 
 word, yet they have a story background and are used 
 in such a way as to give pleasure and cause interest 
 in the hymn. Once you teach hymns in this way 
 you will never go back to the old way. You have 
 only a moment or two in which to do it, yet you can 
 show a picture and bring a gift. 
 
 And how shall we make pictures live? In the 
 same way, by telling of the artist, the place where 
 it is hung, a story as to the love of the people for 
 the picture or of its value, — anything that will make 
 it live. Sometimes it is well to tell a life-story con- 
 nected with the picture. The story I am to give was 
 
150 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 told to me from life. I have never seen it in print 
 and can find no trace of the authorship, hence I 
 give it here in that way: 
 
 He was only a boy to his mother, yet he was going 
 away from the home to live and work in the dis- 
 tant city. He was glad to go, eager to leave the 
 watchful care of the home, but his mother felt as 
 if she could not let him go alone, not even sure that 
 he was consciously taking God with him, though she 
 had tried, as best she could, to lead the boy to him. 
 'Twas only a day or two before he was to go and 
 the mother longed to find the right message to give 
 him before he should leave her. 
 
 One day when he came in toward evening, his 
 
 mother said to him, " John, down in the H 
 
 store there is hung a wonderful picture that I should 
 like much to have you see. Will you go down to- 
 morrow and see it? " " Oh, mother," said the boy, 
 " what do I want with a picture ? I don't care 
 about it and I don't want to take the time to go." 
 
 " Son," said the mother, " In a little while you 
 will be where I shall not be asking you to do things 
 to please me. I should like you to do this for me." 
 
 " Well," answered the boy, " if you put it in that 
 way, I suppose I must go." And so he went. 
 
 He was directed to the room where the picture 
 was hung and opened the door to enter. But he 
 stepped back. On the platform at the front of the 
 room was a man praying. He waited for a time 
 and then opened the door again, but still he was at 
 prayer. When he opened it the third time and 
 found it still the same, he decided to enter and in- 
 vestigate. Then he found that the man at prayer 
 
STORIES IN PICTURES AND HYMNS 151 
 
 was the picture he had come to see. It was the 
 Christ in Gethsemane, a very large, life-size picture, 
 wonderfully lighted and framed in black velvet. 
 Eagerly he went forward and studied the picture 
 which could thus mislead him. That was a fine face ! 
 But it seemed very full of care. Why? His mother 
 had told him that the Christ was not afraid to die, 
 that he had done no wrong. Why then did he look 
 so worried? 
 
 After a time he went out but he wanted to see the 
 picture again and he wanted to ask some questions 
 about it. So he said to his mother, " I should like to 
 see that picture again. Will you come down with me 
 tomorrow ? " And with a glad heart the mother went 
 to the gallery with the boy. This time he went 
 toward the picture with his hat off and with quiet 
 step. Silently they stood and looked at it, and then 
 he asked the question which seemed to him so im- 
 portant, " Why does his face look so worried and 
 why do his hands seem to be pleading?" "Son," 
 said the mother, with a silent prayer, " he had only 
 been a teacher for three years and there was so 
 much he wanted to teach and to do. But now he 
 was to die and leave it all undone. I think he was 
 worried for fear the work would not be done, for 
 even the men whom he loved and trusted were asleep 
 when he needed them. I think he wondered if peo- 
 ple all down the years would do the work that he 
 could not do. He was thinking of that, I am sure, 
 as he prayed." 
 
 For a long time the boy stood there, his hands 
 moving one over the other and his face sinking 
 lower and lower as his eyes looked steadily into the 
 face of the man at prayer. Then he straightened 
 
152 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 his shoulders and quietly said, " Oh, Man of Galilee, 
 if there is anything that you left undone that I can 
 do, you can count on me." 
 
 And he went out to live like the Christ. 
 
 We need to interest the boys and girls in these 
 great works of art, and I know of no better way 
 than to give to them in story form something of 
 the artist or author or composer. If this is not pos- 
 sible, then turn to an incident connected with the pic- 
 ture or hymn, and make it live by telling that in the 
 very best way you can. There are very many stories 
 connected with the early life of some of these great 
 men and women that are most interesting to chil- 
 dren. If you can create a friendly feeling before 
 you try to show the picture or teach the hymn, you 
 have laid the foundation for an abiding interest. 
 
 "Pictures in Religious Education," by Frederica 
 Beard, will be of real service to the story-teller In 
 this connection. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 DRAMATIZING THE STORY 
 
 In our religious education work we have for a long 
 time used the re-telling of the story in class, and the 
 writing of it in the notebook as forms of expres- 
 sional work that are worth while; but dramatizing 
 the story has been slow in growth in our Church 
 Schools. Yet it is one of the very best forms of 
 impressing the truth of the story. We have had all 
 sorts of entertainments where the children were 
 fairies and flower children, and where parts have 
 been assigned to be learned and repeated. Pagean- 
 try is coming to the front as one of the things which 
 is well worth while for our work, but here again, 
 the parts are repeated, though there is less of repeti- 
 tion and more of spectacular effect. But there is 
 a simple dramatization of stories, and Bible stories 
 are particularly good for the work, which takes no 
 rehearsal, little if any costuming and much imagina- 
 tion. So they are most effective in the school. 
 
 Let us suppose we have had the story of Lot's 
 Choice in the Bible School class and the children are 
 alive to the selfishness of Lot and the big hearted- 
 ness of Abraham. Suppose we play it for the club 
 meeting during the week or for the review of next 
 Sunday's lesson. Who will be Abraham and who 
 will choose to be Lot? Immediately they begin to 
 live the situation. You will find many eager to be 
 Abraham but many who will not care to be selfish 
 
 153 
 
154. THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 Lot. Then we shall need some herdsmen and some 
 sheep. Are there any other persons needed in the 
 story? Not a person but a voice, for in the story 
 there Is the voice of God speaking to Abraham, and 
 if the story is to move to the finish with no sugges- 
 tions from the teacher and no break, we must plan 
 for every detail. In dramatization, the person of 
 God or Christ is never represented, but from behind 
 a curtain, or in another room, we may have the voice 
 of God. 
 
 When thinking the story through without ever 
 having seen it done, you may think there will be 
 much confusion in the class when some are sheep 
 and some are quarreling herdsmen, and perhaps for 
 the first time or two there may be. It will be deter- 
 mined by the attitude which the teacher has been 
 able to create concerning the story. I have seen 
 thirteen-year-old boys give this same story in their 
 own class with no spectators as reverently as if they 
 were in the church auditorium. If they are living 
 the situation, there will be no difficulty. 
 
 Shall there be a rehearsal? No. But there must 
 be preparation, for the boy who is to be Abraham 
 must know what Abraham is to say, and so with 
 Lot. It will drive them to their Bible as no other 
 homework will do. At first they will give much of 
 the conversation in their own language, but gradually 
 they will come to see the beauty and nobility of the 
 Hebrew and they will put it in. During the last 
 year, I had two brothers who were continually quar- 
 reling. So one day I told the story of Lot, and then 
 we decided to dramatize it. Deliberately I allowed 
 the older brother to choose to be Abraham and the 
 younger one Lot. You will remember Abraham said 
 
DRAMATIZING THE STORY 155 
 
 to Lot, " Let there be no strife I pray thee between 
 me and thee and between my herdsmen and thy 
 herdsmen. For we are brethren." When the story 
 was ready to be given, Abraham had learned the 
 Hebrew words as they were and as he stood and 
 gave his hand to Lot and repeated the words, I won- 
 dered if their message would sink in. Several days 
 later he said to me, " I like that story of Abraham 
 but I hate that man Lot. I should hate to be as 
 mean as he. But I like to say those words of Abra- 
 ham, ' Let there be no strife I pray thee between 
 thee and me for we are brethren,' and every time I 
 have started to quarrel with Bill this week I have 
 heard them." 
 
 A very few details should be thought out before 
 the children are ready to begin the dramatization. 
 Where shall the herdsmen stand? Which shall be 
 the plain over which they are looking? etc. After 
 a time you will find that they will bring a paper cap, 
 or an old shawl, or a roll of paper to represent the 
 ancient scriptures when they are to give a story, but 
 not at first, and I am inclined to think there is less 
 chance for the foolish ones to make trouble at first 
 if there is no costuming. After all the details are 
 ready, the teacher becomes one of the group, often 
 taking part in the dramatization so that there may 
 seem to be no spectator. Then the herdsmen 
 quarrel, Abraham comes, finds Lot, draws him to 
 one side, tells him of his proposition. Lot goes to 
 the window, perhaps talking to himself about what 
 he sees, and then comes to Abraham and makes his 
 choice. The herdsmen slowly disappear (into their 
 seats) and Lot follows, but Abraham remains till 
 all are gone. Then he goes with bent head and 
 
156 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 looks across the plain, realizing that Lot has made 
 a foolish choice, Lot whom he loves as a son. Then 
 there comes the voice of God and Abraham drops on 
 his knees and listens, and then he, too, passes quietly 
 to his seat. 
 
 The teacher makes no suggestions unless abso- 
 lutely necessary. Each pupil takes his part as he 
 sees it. Some will live the story at once, and facial 
 expression and voice will show that they have 
 entered into the spirit of, the story. Others will be 
 slow, and some will never be able to fully grasp the 
 play-thought. But perhaps there are others who 
 would like to be Abraham, or who feel that the story 
 could be very much bettered if repeated by others. 
 The first time the parts are chosen by the children. 
 Perhaps now some one will make a suggestion that 
 as John is older, he should be Abraham. Perhaps 
 John would not have thought he could take the part, 
 but he is flattered at being chosen and so he tries. 
 If it is to be re-done it is well to have suggestions 
 made by the children as to which parts were not 
 quite right and could be bettered. Perhaps the story 
 Is dramatized several times. Then it might be given 
 for an entertainment for a Mothers' club or another 
 class. In this case, those who had done the best 
 work in their parts would be chosen for the dramati- 
 zation. But the practise dramatization Is done for 
 the children's work and not for outside entertain- 
 ment. 
 
 And why is this better than learning parts and 
 rehearsing the story? Because In the dramatization 
 they are not acting; they forget that as they try to 
 live the situation. They are not only learning les- 
 sons which are necessary in their own life, but they 
 
DRAMATIZING THE STORY 157 
 
 are putting themselves into the life of the Hebrew 
 people and will appreciate more of the worth of 
 the characters. Children all love to make believe, 
 and this is a method by which they can give expres- 
 sion to their own appreciation of certain stories. It 
 helps the child to see the events, and especially to 
 feel the climax. In the story of Lot, there comes 
 involuntarily, even as you watch the children give 
 it (and the power over the one who is taking the 
 part must be vastly greater) there comes the realiza- 
 tion of the meanness of being selfish with an older 
 person. You hate selfishness. The situations are 
 real and they themselves are helping to try to solve 
 the life problem involved. Once we were ready to 
 dramatize the story of the prodigal son. The boy 
 who was to take the part of the elder brother came 
 to me just as we were beginning and said, " Would 
 you mind if I changed the end a little? After the 
 whole story has been given, I would like to come In 
 and say, ' Father, I am sorry I was so mean, I am 
 glad to see him back.' " " But," I said, " we are 
 giving the story just as Jesus told it and we could 
 hardly do that." " Well," he said, " then let some 
 one else do it for I feel mean every time I think of 
 it, for that is no way to treat a brother." 
 
 Living a situation ! Thinking through a problem 
 of life and putting yourself in a mean place just to 
 see how it feels, or living the part of one who was 
 noble and kind and good ! The very fact that they 
 are playing the parts with other children, some of 
 whom see these very characteristics in the children 
 who play, the fact that they are at liberty to interpret 
 the parts as they choose, all these things make this 
 method of expression very much worth while. 
 
158 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 Oftentimes we forget as we train the children to 
 be workers and leaders that we aim, not at a finished 
 product at the time, but at a leader some day. The 
 entertainments we give in the churches are aims unto 
 themselves but they should be planned with the 
 thought that they are making the children. We 
 dramatize with the children in the Bible work not 
 for mere pleasure, not to teach the children to act, 
 but to develop an interest in and an understanding 
 of great and noble Bible characters; to develop their 
 powers of expression in a natural way and to stimu- 
 late worthy ideals and motives. We care little for 
 the finished product for we are making characters 
 and not actors. 
 
 To be successfully dramatized, a story must be 
 well told with the scenes very vividly presented. It 
 must be a story where there is action that can be 
 easily represented and which is not foreign to the 
 child. And the teacher who is leading the work must 
 be one who sees the possibilities of the work. It 
 should be done, not because required, but because 
 desired. 
 
 Many of the parables, Esther, Daniel and his 
 three friends, Moses in the BuUrushes (for the chil- 
 dren) and Moses before the King (for the adoles- 
 cents), Ruth, Esther, Abraham and the Three 
 Guests, — these are only suggestions. The imagina- 
 tive teacher will prefer to choose her own stories to 
 dramatize. 
 
 Just a word of caution concerning dramatization 
 in story-telling classes. See that your pupils do it 
 as they wish their classes to do it. A finished 
 dramatization with the parts all learned may be a 
 fine entertainment, but it has not taught your class 
 
DRAMATIZING THE STORY 159 
 
 to dramatize the story. Make them be original. 
 Have a dramatization party. Assign a group to 
 work together and prepare a story of any kind. At 
 a recent party of this kind the following stories were 
 given: "The Three Bears," "Mrs. Jarley," "The 
 Unfinished Prayer," — an original story, — " Brer 
 Rabit and the Fox," and several others. Let the 
 teacher know nothing of the -story till it is given at 
 the party, and then let a vote be taken to see which 
 group most nearly represented the story in life. 
 Whenever I have told the story of the " Three 
 Bears " since the above party, I have seen the little 
 white bear dressed in white bath towels from head 
 to foot and very representative of a bear, hopping 
 along toward the chairs which were to be the bear's 
 bed. 
 
 And dramatization can be a very vital part of 
 the home training also. Neighborhood groups may 
 represent the stories told on Sunday, or even the 
 children in a home. The following story was told 
 me concerning some little children whose mother had 
 told them, as beautifully as she could, the story of 
 little Samuel. Then she asked them if they would 
 like to play the story. Of course they would. So 
 they chose their parts. The older boy would be 
 Eli and the younger boy would be Samuel. Then 
 the mother could be the voice of God. So the chil- 
 dren made ready for bed. Soon the voice called 
 " Samuel," and the little fellow answered by run- 
 ning to the bed of Eli and saying, " Here am I, for 
 you called me." But Eli sent him back to bed. 
 Again the voice called and again he answered, and 
 Eli said, " It is God that is calling you. Ask him 
 what he wants you to do." Again the voice called. 
 
160 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 What would the little fellow do? He was such a 
 baby. Would he understand? He hesitated only 
 a moment and then slipped from his little white bed, 
 knelt on the floor and clasping his hands said, 
 " Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." Did the 
 story live? I leave it for you to answer. I am 
 wondering if some day when there comes the voice 
 of God to the grown boy if he will remember the 
 story of his home life and answer, " Speak, Lord, 
 for thy servant heareth." 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 TELLING STORIES TO ADULTS 
 
 This book has largely dealt with the study of 
 stories for children. But there is a large field for 
 the story-teller in the telling of stories for adults. 
 The stories are harder to find perhaps but there is 
 a need for just this work. It has, however, been a 
 source of much annoyance to me to find how many 
 of the adults seem to feel that a story-teller is like 
 an entertainer, always ready with some words to 
 give out in the form of a story. This is not true. 
 There are times when a story-teller feels that she 
 simply cannot tell a story. The mood of the audi- 
 ence, the surroundings of the group, the physical 
 health of the teller, these all must help the message. 
 A headache is a sufficient excuse any day for one to 
 say she cannot tell a story to a promiscuous group, 
 for the message is sure to be hindered and the story 
 may be a failure. 
 
 Mission study classes are often dry and uninter- 
 esting, and missionary meetings are more so, be- 
 cause of the failure of those in charge to put the 
 material at hand in shape to create interest. Here 
 is a place where a story-teller can be of service. 
 Why not take charge of the programs for one month 
 or six months with the purpose in mind of making 
 those meetings so interesting that the members will 
 want to come? Here is a good chance for you to 
 do some work on original stories. The president 
 
 i6i 
 
162 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 will hand you a letter saying that the society is asked 
 to help support a little girl whose father died of 
 the flu, and who was one of the Christian mem- 
 bers of their church. If the letter is read in the 
 meeting those who are interested in missions will 
 y want to help at once. But the rest will shrug their 
 shoulders and say, " This is a hard year and we 
 have all we can do now." They have said it ever 
 since there was a missionary society, even when the 
 cost of living was half of what it is now. Why not 
 take that little fact and weave it into a story? 
 Describe the little girl, her home, her hard life since 
 the father died and her longing to get into the 
 school. You can even put a little letter at the end, 
 if you wish, that will make its appeal. And some 
 of those interested will want to give more, and the 
 uninterested will want to give some. Perhaps your 
 Bible Class is uninteresting. Get the leader to lef 
 one person each Sunday bring an interesting bit oi 
 world or mission news to the class or tell a Bible 
 story in connection with the lesson. Begin yourself 
 to make collections of these stories and take this for 
 your work. If you know how to tell stories, help 
 the others to do it well. I have heard some fine 
 accounts of the revival of a Bible Class in this way. 
 If your leader is not up-to-date and is losing the 
 class, just let story material fill up a third of the 
 time. 
 
 Invalids and shut-ins need your stories. Get a 
 book of Henry Van Dyke's stories and prepare sev- 
 eral. Then ask the pastor to ^ve you a list of 
 people who would like to hear them. Sometimes it 
 is wise to read, but remember that telling a story is 
 much less tiresome to the old or sick than is reading 
 
TELLING THE STORIES TO ADULTS 163 
 
 it, for they watch the expression of face and eyes as 
 you talk to them and so the words seem less 
 monotonous. To the aged you can tell many of the 
 children's stories, and the sick like stories of people 
 who did things in spite of a handicap. One must 
 be very careful not to suggest by the story that there 
 is any chance of their being handicapped, however, 
 for they are quick to see the suggestion. 
 
 When telling stories to groups of mothers, it is 
 well to find stories that will help them in their prob- 
 lems with the children rather than stories which will 
 be a personal help. Discipline, impudence, untruth- 
 fulness, sex-infatuation, etc. — all these things can be 
 helped by stories. Either tell stories that they can 
 tell to the children or else stories showing that the 
 way to deal with wrong is by love and patience. 
 Mothers of adolescent girls need this particularly. 
 
 But over and over I have been speaking about 
 mothers. Do the fathers need stories? Is there any 
 place where we can reach them in this way? They 
 surely do need them and they enjoy them as much 
 as the mothers. Occasionally the School Mothers' 
 Club has a night for Mothers and Fathers. A story 
 here is very helpful and it can be easily woven into 
 the program as given. Father and Son Banquets 
 have become quite common in the churches. One 
 of the finest programs that I have ever seen given 
 at one of these banquets consisted of stories told 
 by the diners. First a boy told a story, prepared, 
 of course, about a father who had made his son what 
 he was; then the father told a story of the son who 
 had honored his father; then a story of how a father 
 and son had worked together to keep the little home 
 when the mother had gone ; then a story of a father's 
 
164 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 sacrifice that the boy might have an education. 
 Every one was a story that had been sought for by 
 some one and the stories were very well told. After 
 all were finished, a judge told a story called, " The 
 One to Whom We Boys and Men Owe It All." It 
 was a deep, true mother story and after he had fin- 
 ished the judge said, " Now, all who are ready to 
 honor this woman who is different in every home 
 but the same the world over in love and sacrifice, 
 just pin to your coat the little flower at your place 
 — a carnation — and then go home and tell her why 
 you wear it." Do men like stories? You should 
 have seen their faces. 
 
 Men in the wards of the hospitals like stories and 
 they need stories. They are impatient to get out 
 and worried as to where the funds are coming from 
 with which to carry on the home. I have found that 
 there they like " Brer Rabbit," and " Wild Animals 
 I Have Known," and the " Call of the Wild," and 
 the " Ruling Passion " Stories. 
 
 In the early part of the book, I referred to stories 
 told at Camp Sherman on Mothers' Day. I want 
 to give an incident that occurred there showing the 
 great power of the story in a strong man's life. 
 
 Just in front of me, as I began the stories of 
 Mother-love and care, stood a big Armenian. His 
 face and hands seemed so large and his face looked 
 careless and indifferent. 
 
 I knew when I began that he did not care to 
 listen but thought he had to do so. At first the dog- 
 gedness on his face seemed to increase and twice I 
 saw him shrug his shoulders and turn aside. Then 
 I saw that he was thinking and his eyes had left my 
 face. Then his hands began to move, his face grew 
 
TELLING THE STORIES TO ADULTS 165 
 
 whiter and whiter till I thought he would surely fall, 
 and I was sure that he must feel very ill, but to the 
 end he stood there and listened. 
 
 After the stories, the men came past the place 
 where I stood and, one after another, I pinned the 
 white rose on their coat with a mother message. 
 When the Armenian came, he grasped my hand 
 till the pain was intense, and he just stood and looked 
 in my face till those at my side wondered why he 
 was so long in moving on. As I pinned the rose, I 
 said, " I am sorry you feel ill. Let the little rose 
 tell you how gladly mother would care for you if 
 she were here. I am glad to give it to you for her." 
 
 Late in the afternoon the boys were having a 
 feast with a whole tableful of home-made pies that 
 had been sent to the Detention Camp by some 
 thoughtful mothers, and I was helping to serve 
 them when I saw the Armenian. Drawing me to 
 one side he said, " Please, may I have another rose 
 and will you pin it on ? " " Did you lose the other? " 
 I said. " No," he answered quietly, " here it is," 
 and he pulled a little box from his pocket. " It is 
 going home to mother. If you will come to my 
 tent," he said, " I would like to tell you a story." 
 So we walked down the street and he told me of a 
 quarrel with mother years before, of his leaving 
 home with never a word then or since; of his de- 
 termination to go to France and let his mother won- 
 der where her boy was, and so pay her for what 
 he thought injustice. " When you began," he said, 
 " I hated her and I hated you for saying they were 
 all our best friends. I may have to go over the top ; 
 I may be wounded, but I never expect to suffer as I 
 suffered as you told the second story and as you said 
 
166 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 you were giving me the rose for her. But I have 
 fought it all through and I am so sorry for all I have 
 done. Here is a letter to her asking her to forgive, 
 and here is the little rose as a promise that I will be 
 clean and pure, for that is why we quarreled. But 
 I want a rose >to take with me to remind me of the 
 stories and the promise. I shall carry it all 
 through." 
 
 So I gave him the rose and we went our different 
 ways. In my possession I have three letters and 
 a card that I value highly. The card is from 
 France and says, " Dear Foster Mother: The little 
 rose and I are here and helping." One letter was 
 from him in the hospital after he was wounded. 
 Another letter was from the nurse saying that he 
 had asked her to let me know he was to be buried 
 in France ; and the third letter was from his mother 
 telling me of the end of the life, and ending, " To 
 know that some one cared for him, to know that he 
 was helping, to know that he loved me — these are 
 my comforts now that he is gone." 
 
 The children need stories to help them build 
 ideals. The adults need stories to help them brush 
 away the dust that has accumulated on those same 
 ideals; to bring relaxation to tired bodies and 
 , minds ; to arouse enthusiasm in things that are 
 ' around them and need their help and to inspire them 
 to greater usefulness. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 PERSONAL STORIES IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 I HAVE hesitated long about adding this chapter to 
 this book. I have told the story that it will contain 
 several times, but telling a personal story to those 
 whom you feel are friends and publishing that same 
 story in a book for strangers is quite a different 
 thing. But over and over my students have asked 
 that I give it in the book and I realize that a 
 teacher who is not willing to give what will help 
 others is not worth the name of teacher. Just within 
 a week I have received a letter from a member of 
 one of the classes, a young man of great promise, 
 and he writes, " I want to thank you for the story 
 of the 1 2 1st Psalm. You will never know what it 
 means to me to know that some one today really 
 knows there is a God when there is so much of 
 question about the Bible and its teachings. Gladly 
 would I have taken the year's course for that one 
 story." The letter has decided me and I give the 
 story at the end of the chapter out of the heart of 
 my personal life with the prayer that it may come 
 to the students of this book as a little closing mes- 
 sage of the power of a story, and that it may send 
 them out to give, not only of myth and legend, of 
 history and nature, of mission and of Bible, but of 
 self as well. — The Author. 
 
 Shall we use personal stories in teaching the Bible? 
 167 
 
168 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 Is it any use for the boys and girls to see that we 
 too have doubted and conquered, have wondered and 
 been answered, have Hstened and heard? I believe 
 that the teacher who has the most magnetism and 
 power is the one who teaches what she knows and 
 has seen, as well as what she has read and studied, 
 and that this is true in Bible Study as in no other 
 place. Hebrew history and biography are full of 
 tradition and mysticism, but Christian living is full of 
 grave questions and stern reality. How shall we 
 meet the growing wave of doubt and incredulity? 
 Can we meet it by teaching the Bible in the way our 
 grandfathers taught it, or must we use common 
 sense and everyday experience? Shall we be hon- 
 est or shall we be methodical and historic? 
 
 One day I went into a class of boys of sixteen 
 years of age. They were boys from the lower part 
 of the city. Their teacher was a young man who 
 was earnest and sincere, but who did not understand 
 the adolescent boy. In the course of the lesson the 
 question had arisen, "Is there a God?" and boy- 
 like, one had asked the teacher, " How do you 
 know?" He had been battling with the question 
 in the light of Moses, and Ezra, and Jesus, and the 
 flowers, and the sunsets, and the Psalms — every way 
 he knew, but still the boys insisted that that was no 
 proof. " Did any one know that there was a God? " 
 It was plainly to be seen that he was glad to see me 
 when I appeared. " The boys want to know how 
 we know there is a God," said he. " They don't 
 seem to think I have a proof." 
 
 I looked about the group, their faces showing that 
 they thought they had won a victory, and said 
 quietly, " Yes, boys, I know there is a God. But it 
 
PERSONAL STORIES 169 
 
 is closing time. If you will all be here next Sun- 
 day, I will tell how I know. But I assure you that 
 I do know." On the following Sunday they were 
 all there when I entered the room, and two boys 
 whom I had not seen for a long time were there 
 with them. Knowing they lived in the house with 
 the boy who had asked the question, I was sure why 
 they had come. And this is the story I told them 
 — and the result. 
 
 Away up in the hills of Maine there is a little 
 lake named after the Indian word for the West 
 Wind — " Keewaydin " — and on the lake in a dear 
 little tent of three rooms I had lived for four sum- 
 mers. All around us there were mountains, and the 
 birds and chipmunks played right around the door. 
 It might be very hot in the city, but at night the 
 little breezes played about the waters of the lake 
 and cooled the tent so that we could sleep. The 
 woods were full of flowers and berries were plentiful 
 on the hills. One could hardly find a more beautiful 
 place to live. 
 
 But this summer we were not very happy, for 
 in the springtime the father of our little family had 
 been taken verj ill and the doctors had ordered me 
 to take the little girl of seven and the sick father 
 and go to camp for months where all was quiet. No 
 one was to visit us. We must stay alone with the 
 beautiful things about us. So there we were, just 
 the three of us with strength gradually coming to 
 the sick one. 
 
 But there came a dreadful day when a worse 
 sickness came and we were so worried. In the 
 morning the doctor came from the town nearly 
 
170 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 twenty miles away, shook his head, left some medi- 
 cine and went away. But the day went much better 
 than we had expected, and at night we were all 
 asleep when there came a sound at the tent door 
 and I found the doctor there. Calling me to one 
 side, he told me that analysis had found poison all 
 through the system of the sick one and that the 
 medicine which he had left was not the best, that 
 he had come with all speed when he had found the 
 poison. A little while the doctor stayed, but he had 
 other very sick patients and had to go. He could 
 leave me no word as to what the morning might find. 
 The patient might be alive but he might go in a flash. 
 I must give him the medicine every fifteen minutes 
 during the night and hope for the best. 
 
 No neighbors could be called^ though they would 
 gladly have come had they known. He must be ab- 
 solutely quiet and have no worry. And so I stood 
 at the door of the tent and watched the little light 
 disappear through the trees to the road, and then 
 I was alone with the little girl, the one who was 
 fighting death and the darkness. 
 
 How should I spend the time ? I would write to 
 his mother, but when I tried my hand shook so that 
 I could not hold the pen. I would read, but I could 
 not see. The whole night was before me. The 
 whip-poor-will and the owl were both behind in the 
 trees and the frogs were making noises in the 
 swamps. The stillness was so oppressive, and for 
 the first time in my life I began to be afraid. 
 
 After about two hours had gone by and I had 
 given the medicine over and over, I walked to the 
 flap of the tent. Before me, just at the front of the 
 tent, was the lake so still in the moonlight, and be- 
 
PERSONAL STORIES 171 
 
 yond a fine mountain, rearing its peak to the sky. 
 To steady myself, I had to hold to the tent pole 
 with both my hands, but the breeze was comforting. 
 Something was there if it was only a breeze. 
 
 Suddenly there came into my heart a message — 
 the same one that came into the heart life of the 
 Psalmist. 
 
 " I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from 
 whence cometh my help. 
 
 My help cometh from the Lord who made heaven 
 and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved. 
 He that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he 
 that keepeth Israel will not slumber nor sleep. The 
 Lord is thy keeper. The Lord is thy shade upon thy 
 right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day nor 
 the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee 
 from all evil; the Lord shall preserve thy soul. 
 The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy 
 coming in from this time forth and even forever 
 more." 
 
 A second time I heard the message through, but 
 this time I repeated it softly aloud. Then I turned 
 to the tent. The fear was all gone, the weakness 
 was all gone, and I was ready to face the hard thing 
 with God. But God had spoken to me and I knew 
 that though the night was hard and lonely, yet God 
 was right there. " He that keepeth thee will not 
 slumber." I knew there was a God. 
 
 The night passed, the letters were written, the 
 dawn broke red over the sky and the death angel 
 had passed by for the time. 
 
 God had spoken, I had heard, and he had kept 
 
172 THE STORY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 his promise and had preserved me from all evil 
 while the rest of the world slumbered. 
 So I know there is a God. 
 
 There was silence when I had finished and, 
 though the hour was not over, I dismissed the boys 
 and watched them go their own way home. Each 
 boy was thinking as he went. The following Sun- 
 day morning I found a group of older boys from 
 the street in the hallway — more than half a dozen 
 of them. With them was the boy who had first 
 asked the question. I went up to welcome them 
 and asked my boy if he had found them and brought 
 them to the school. " Oh, no," he answered, " they 
 go to all sorts of churches but they all live around 
 here. I told them your story and they said they 
 would like to see a woman who really knew there 
 was a God, and so I knew you would like to see 
 them 'cause they were boys who wanted to know, 
 so I brought them. Now, boys, you see I told you 
 the truth. It was a real story." A little while we 
 talked and I invited them to come whenever they 
 felt like it, for we wanted to be friends with the 
 boys in the neighborhood. Then they went their 
 way. Occasionally I would meet one of them in the 
 street, and always there was the same glad smile as 
 they stopped to speak to me. Always I knew what 
 they were thinking of, and always it reminded me 
 of the statement made to me by my old professor, 
 " Boys long to feel God, to know God and to love 
 God, but the trouble is, they do not like the God 
 we have chosen to show them. Some day we shall 
 find the boy's ideal of God and then we shall win 
 them, for we shall tell them stories that show that 
 
PERSONAL STORIES 173 
 
 kind of God. They are waiting for that person and 
 how gladly they will follow some day." 
 
 Under a white cross in France, the little news- 
 boy who came with that group on that Sunday is 
 sleeping. Often I have wondered if God was there 
 on the battlefield to help him as he helped me. I 
 only hope he, too, heard the voice that said, " The 
 Lord is thy keeper." 
 
BOOKS ON STORY-TELLING METHODS 
 
 (Many of these books contain stories adapted for the 
 telling also.) 
 
 How TO Tell Stories to Children. Stories to Tell 
 TO Children. Sara Cone Bryant (Houghton, MiflBin). 
 
 For the Story-Teller. Carolyn S. Bailey (Milton 
 Bradley) . 
 
 Story-Telling. What to Tell and How to 
 Tell It. Edna Lyman (McClurg). 
 
 Stories and Story-Telling. Edward Porter St. John 
 (Pilgrim Press). 
 
 Stories and Story-Telling. Angela M. Keyes 
 (Appleton). 
 
 The Art of Story-Telling. Julia Darrow Cowles 
 (McClurg). 
 
 Children's Stories and How to Tell Them. Esen- 
 wein and Stockard (Home Correspondence School). 
 
 Story-Telling in Home and School. Partridge 
 (Sturgis and Walton). 
 
 Some Great Stories and How to Tell Them. 
 Richard Wyche (Newson). 
 
 The Art of the Story-Teller. Marie Shedlock. 
 
 Education by Story-Telung. Gather, 
 
 SOME SUGGESTIVE BOOKS AND STORIES 
 
 EPIC 
 
 Boy's King Arthur. Lanier. 
 The Niebblungenlied. Translated by Cobb. 
 
 175 
 
176 BOOKS C M aiUK V!-! .ELLIN G MK'l'HuJJS 
 
 Story of Siegfried. Baldwin. 
 The Story of Siegfried and Beowulf. Ragozin. 
 The Court of King Arthur and the Round 
 Table. Frost. 
 
 SiEGURD, THE VoLSUNG. Morris. 
 Story of Roland. Baldwin. 
 Story of Ulysses. Cook. 
 The Kalevala. Crawford. 
 Adventurers of Robin Hood. Pyle. 
 
 MYTHS, FAIRY TALES, LEGENDS, FABLES, ETC, 
 
 Danish Fairy Tales. Cramer. 
 
 Norse Stories from the Eddas. Mabie. 
 
 Tales of Old Japan. Milford. 
 
 Japanese Fairy Books. Ozaki. 
 
 Chinese Fairy Tales. Fields. 
 
 Prince Harweda in Kindergarten Stories. 
 
 Grimm's Fairy Tales. 
 
 Andersen's Fairy Tales. 
 
 Jacobs' Fairy Tales. 
 
 Fairy Ring and Tales of Laughter. Wiggin. 
 
 The One-Footed Fairy. Brown. 
 
 MopsA, the Fairy. Jean Ingelow. 
 
 Collection of Eastern Stories. Shedlock. 
 
 The Talking Beasts. Wiggin and Smitlft 
 
 Book of Legends. Scudder. 
 
 Books of Indian, English and Celtic Fairy Tales. 
 Jacobs. 
 
 The Blue, Red, Green, Violet and Yellow Fairy 
 Books. Lang. 
 
 The Blue Robin. Mary Freeman. 
 
 Algonquin Legends. Leland. 
 
 Myths Every Child Should Know. Scudder. 
 
 Heroes Every Child Should Know. Mabie. 
 
 Half a Hundred Hero Tales. Starr. 
 
BOOKS ON STORY-TELLING METHODS 17T 
 
 Tanglewood Tales. Hawthorne. 
 Myths of the Red Children. Wilson. 
 Fairy Stories of All Nations. Marshall. 
 
 ALLEGORIES. PARABLES. ETC. 
 
 Story-Tell Lib. Slossom. 
 
 The Golden Windows; Silver Crown. Richards. 
 
 Faerie Queene. Spenser. 
 
 Parables from Nature. Mrs. Gatty. 
 
 Pilgrim's Progress. Bunyan. 
 
 BIBLE STORIES 
 
 Telling Bible Stories. Houghton. 
 When the King Came. Hodges. 
 Children's Treasury of Bible Stories. Mrs. 
 Gaskoin. 
 Kindergarten Bible Stories. Cragin. 
 Old Stories of the East. Baldwin. 
 Story of Bible. Hurlbuft. 
 Story of Bible. Foster. 
 Stories About Jesus. Blackall. 
 Garden of Eden. Hodges. 
 Tell Me a True Story. Stewart. 
 Christ Legends. Lagerlof. 
 Stories for Sunday Telling. Bailey. 
 Sunday Story Hour. Cragin. 
 The Shepherd of Us All. Stewart. 
 Old Testament Stories for Little Children. Cragin. 
 
 FABLES 
 
 ^sop's Fables. 
 
 Fables and Folk Stories. Scudder. 
 
178 BOOKS ON STORY-TELLING METHODS 
 
 . CHRISTMAS TALES AND BOOKS 
 
 Christmas Stories and Legends. Curtiss. 
 Signs in the Christmas Fire. Knight. 
 Legend of the Christmas Rose. Lagerlof. 
 Stories for Every Holiday. Bailey. 
 Christmas Tales and Christmas Verse. Field. 
 Children's Book of Christmas Stories. Dickinson 
 and Skinner. 
 Christmas in Legend and Story. Smith and Hazeltine. 
 
 MISSIONARY BOOKS AND STORIES 
 
 Fifty Missionary Stories Every Boy and Girl 
 Should Know. Johnston. 
 Love Stories of Great Missionaries. Belle Brain. 
 Uganda's White Man at Work. 
 The Splendid Quest. Matthews. 
 Servants of the King. Speer. 
 Comrades in Service. Y. W. C. A. Press. 
 Heroines of Service. Parkman. 
 
 DRAMATIZATION OF STORIES 
 
 The Dramatization of Bible Stories. Miller. 
 Historical Plays of Colonial Days. Tucker. 
 Quaint Old Stories to Read and Act. Lansing. 
 Material in How to Tell Stories to Children. Bryant. 
 Material in Stories Children Need. Bailey. 
 Little Folks' Christmas Stories and Plays. Skinner. 
 
 JUNIOR CHURCH STORIES 
 
 Children's Story Sermons. Kerr. 
 My Junior Congregation. Faarar. 
 
BOOKS ON STORY-TELLING METHODS 179 
 
 COLLECTIONS OF STORIES OF ALL KINDS 
 
 Story-Telling Time, Danieldson. 
 
 Wild Animals I Have Known. Thompson. 
 
 The Trail of the Sand Hill Stag. Thompson. 
 
 True Tales of Birds and Beasts. Jordan. 
 
 True Bird Stories. Mill. 
 
 Hollow Tree Stories. Payne, 
 
 Uncle Remus Stories. Harris. 
 
 The Blue Flower. Van Dyke. 
 
 The Ruling Passion. Van Dyke. 
 
 Around the Fire. Tire (boys.) 
 
 Just So Stories and the Jungle Book. Kipling. 
 
 Twenty-Six Stories for Girls. Conrad. 
 
 Five-Minute Stories. Richards. 
 
 Tell Me a Hero Story. Stewart. 
 
 In the Child's World. Poulsson. 
 
 Some Famous Women. Creighton. 
 
 In Story Land. Harrison. 
 
 Mother Stories and More Mother Stories. Lindsay. 
 
 Firelight Stories, Worth While Stories, Stories 
 Children Need and For the Children's Hour. Bailey. 
 
 Worth While Stories for Every Day. Evans. 
 
 Child's Book of Stories. Coussens. 
 
 Stories for Any Day, Tell Me Another Story. 
 Bailey. 
 
 Stories of Famous Operas. Guerber. 
 
 The Cup of Loving Service. Eliza Taylor. 
 
 King of the Golden River. Ruskin. 
 
 Why the Chimes Rang. Alden. 
 
 The Happy Prince. Oscar Wilde. 
 
 World Stories Retold. Sly. 
 
 The City That Never Was Reached. Stocking. 
 
 The Golden Goblet. Stocking. 
 
 Some very good stories will be found in the following 
 method books: 
 
180 BOOKS ON STORY-TELLING METHODS 
 
 Children's Stories and How to Tell Them. 
 Esenwein. 
 
 How TO Tell Stories to Children. Bryant. 
 For the Story-Teller. Bailey. 
 
 SOME ADOLESCENT STORIES 
 
 In the Land of the Blue Flower. Burnett. 
 
 Ruth and Esther in the Bible. 
 
 Evangeline. Longfellow. 
 
 John Alden and Priscilla. Longfellow. 
 
 The Three Weayers, from The Little Colonel at Board- 
 ing School. Johnston. 
 
 The Road of the Loving Heart, from The Little Colonel's 
 House Party. Johnston. 
 
 Mahala Joe, from the Basket Woman. Austin (other 
 good stories in this book). 
 
 Stories from The Blue Flower; the Ruling Passion, by 
 Van Dyke. Especially, The Lump of Clay, the Last Word, 
 The Other Wise Man. 
 
 How Much Land a Man Needs, from In Pursuit of Hap- 
 piness, by Tolstoy. 
 
 The Two Pilgrims, from In Pursuit of Happiness, by 
 Tolstoy. 
 
 The Heart of the Rose, by Mabel McKee. 
 
 The Selfish Giant, and the Birthday of the Infanta, by 
 Wilde. 
 
 The King's Jewel, from the Unknown Quantity, by Van 
 Dyke. 
 
 Different Kinds of Bundles, from Story Tell Lib, by 
 Slossom. 
 
 The Toiling of Felix, by Van Dyke. 
 
 Red Thread of Courage, from How to Tell Stories to 
 Children. Bryant. 
 
 The Perfect Tribute. Andrews. 
 
 Stories from Love Stories of Great Missionaries. Brain. 
 
 Father Damien, from Tales of Missionary Heroism. 
 
BOOKS ON STORY-TELLING METHODS 181 
 
 Book of Golden Deeds. Yonge. 
 
 In the Desert of Waiting, from The Little Colonel in 
 Arizona. Johnston. 
 
 The Hero of the Alley, from Every land — June, 19 12. 
 Lucille Gulliver. 
 
 The Christ of the Andes. American Peace Society. 
 Washington. 
 
 The Closing Door. Bryant. (A child's story with a 
 powerful appeal for early adolescent girls.) 
 
 A Faithful Follower. Mary Stewart. 
 
 The Parable of the Dragon Fly. Mrs. Gatty. 
 
 Joan of Arc. 
 
 Stories of Sir Galahad and Arthur. 
 
 David and Jonathan as found in The Throne of David, 
 by Ingraham. 
 
 Story Tell Lib. Slossom. 
 
 Keeping Tryst. Annie F. Johnston. 
 
 Bunga. Anita Ferris, from Every land, 19 18. 
 
 A Christmas Present for a Lady. Myra Kelly in Little 
 Citizens. 
 
 The Great Stone Face. Hawthorne. 
 
 Selected Stories from Laura Richards' Golden Windows; 
 The Silver Crown. 
 
 The First Christmas. Wallace (Ben Hur). 
 
 Cassette — Les Miserables — Hugo. 
 
 Historic Boyhoods. Holland. 
 
 Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens. 
 Eggleston. 
 
 Note. — An exceptionally fine bibliography of stories 
 graded by years and also classified by months in which they 
 may be used will be found in 
 
 Education by Story-Telling. Cather. (World Bo«k 
 Co.)