TELLING BIBLE STORIES 
 
TELLING BIBLE STORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUISE SEYMOUR HOUGHTON 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTION 
 BY 
 
 REV. T. T. HUNGER, D.D. 
 
 FIFTH EDITION, WITH AN APPENDIX 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1916 
 
LC4&I 
 M7 
 
 COPTWOHT, 1905 AND 1908, BY 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
TO 
 
 FRANK K. SANDERS, D.D. 
 
 TO WHOM 
 
 OF ALL MY LATER TEACHERS 
 I OWE MOST 
 
 3380:. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 JHAPTKR PACK 
 
 INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 I. THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CHILD. . 1 
 
 II. THE MORNING STORIES 40 
 
 III. MORE MORNING STORIES .... 75 
 
 IV. BEFORE THE FLOOD AND AFTER . . . 101 
 V. A PATRIARCH STORY 135 
 
 VI. OTHER PATRIARCH STORIES .... 169 
 
 VII. HERO TALES 190 
 
 VIII. ROMANCE STORIES 217 
 
 APPENDIX . 287 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 i 
 
 THE subject of Mrs. Houghton's book has not often 
 had the good fortune to be treated by writers of high 
 merit, nor by those who sympathize with modern 
 thought in theology. Consequently the child has not 
 had fair treatment at the hands of either scholars or 
 theologians. Many times over since Jesus was born 
 have the babes of Bethlehem been slaughtered by 
 those who wield the sword for the sake of doctrines 
 that Christ never knew; and others, in pious weak- 
 ness, have borne Him away into some Egypt where 
 He sheds no light upon any part of the divine econ- 
 omy save fulfilling a sentence of doubtful prophecy. 
 
 Mrs. Houghton, whatever else her thoughtful pages 
 may teach, reveals a use of the child in religion hardly 
 yet suspected until we learn the meaning of Christ's 
 words spoken of the child, "of such is the kingdom 
 of God," because " His kingdom is over man, over the 
 normal, the ideal man," and therefore "childhood re- 
 produces from age to age that which is distinctive of 
 man;" that is, the "simply human." God's king- 
 dom could be of no other, and as such it is universal. 
 Hence Christ said that He reigned in that kingdom. 
 The author makes this fact the basis of her entire 
 contention, and because the child is such a revelation 
 of the elemental man, he is by that very fact a reve- 
 
 iz 
 
x Introduction 
 
 lation of man with his face toward God. "The 
 spontaneous instincts of the soul, as manifested in 
 the child, are the essentially human instincts.' 7 The 
 reader will note that this revelation is not supernatu- 
 ral, but natural, and is therefore the reason why it is 
 a revelation of God, yet, as the author states, "of 
 God in relations with man." 
 
 The more definite purpose of the author is to start 
 again in the world what it seems to be fast losing, 
 the habit of bringing a child into a sense of God as his 
 second nature, and so, "without argument, show him 
 that he is in the divine order." To this end these 
 " God-saturated " stories of the Old Testament, the 
 real meaning of which is always God in some human- 
 divine form, may thus be wrought into the growing 
 mind of the child and become his governing force 
 in life. 
 
 Dr. Horace Bushnell seems to have been the first 
 in his day to comprehend this truth of remote an- 
 tiquity; and it is still the best method of learning 
 God. He found himself facing a system of religion 
 that relegated a knowledge of God as impossible until 
 adulthood, when only and after sore striving one 
 achieved a hypothetical election to salvation, the 
 hope of which was regarded as an experience of reli- 
 gion. This system may not have been without good 
 result in view of a lack of something better, but it 
 was without a true knowledge of God, or man, or 
 religion. Its conception and its process were void 
 of nature, and this was regarded as its strong point, 
 for nature was evil. Dr. Bushnell struck at the root 
 of this complication of mistakes, and demanded that 
 Christian nurture should be according to the nature 
 
Introduction xi 
 
 of a child as God made it, in His own image and 
 after His own laws. 
 
 Mrs. Houghton has clearly seen that the right rear- 
 ing of a child lies in this region of thought. With 
 abundant study and keen insight into its cognate 
 truths she has produced a book the value of which 
 is to be measured only by the thoroughness with 
 which the general subject has been treated in the 
 light of to-day's science and exegesis and the divine 
 humanity, as these things now lie in the master minds 
 of the hour. She pays no heed to orthodoxy or het- 
 erodoxy, regarding them as mere phrases without, 
 meaning. Indeed, her treatment lies outside of either, 
 and stays in that larger world of thought where the 
 real questions of life are settled. 
 
 In tracing the likeness of the child to the kingdom 
 of heaven along the stories of the Old Testament, the 
 author touches the peculiar genius of the Jewish 
 people. childlike, but capable of highest thought. 
 How or why these two qualities were coupled in this 
 race it is hard to tell, whether by virtue of some 
 divine force in the child coming straight from the 
 Creator and bringing a trailing cloud of glory, as 
 Wordsworth thought, or springing from some father 
 of nations who had conceived the germinating thought 
 of one invisible God; each is inscrutable mystery. 
 But Mrs. Houghton, with vital common sense, has 
 achieved a lesson well worth learning for its practical 
 use in the family, and also for pondering the question 
 if Christ's consciousness of God as His Father devel- 
 oped from one of these primal possibilities. Even 
 while the child-nation dwelt in tents, it rose to pro- 
 founder thought than the Greeks, who missed the 
 
xii Introduction 
 
 conception of one invisible God for that of many 
 sporting on Olympus, human enough, but without 
 a touch of real divineness. But the Hebrews brooded 
 over a God who divinized their humanity ; the Law 
 and the Prophets telling the same thing until One 
 came, saying that the kingdom of God would come, 
 but made of such as a child, and that their children 
 would lead them to it. 
 
 In working out her task, Mrs. Houghton does not 
 write what is to be read to children, but instead plays 
 the part of a decoy to tempt adults to learn from her 
 pages what the stories mean before they can have 
 any meaning for children of to-day, who, if taught 
 anything, have been taught what the Bible stories do 
 not mean. We are not far astray in saying that for 
 generations children have seldom been told the real 
 meaning of these stories, from that of the Creation to 
 that of Jonah, the first and the last having been 
 taught as history, a perversion that robs both of all 
 meaning. But the Hebrew child, so long as the 
 parents retained their native sense of imagination, 
 was taught to see God in these and all other stories, 
 whatever else it learned or failed to learn. 
 
 It is different to-day. What Sunday-school Society 
 of any great denomination does not permit its agents 
 to give to its schools lesson-books that any school of 
 science in the country would declare to be false; 
 books which find prose in poetry, fact in imagination, 
 and doctrine in sentiment? Yet such, with a few 
 fine exceptions, is the use of Bible stories in the vast 
 majority of Sunday-schools in Christendom. The 
 effect of all this in the Sunday-schools is incipient 
 JtnfideUty. That it does not reach full growth is due 
 
Introduction xiii 
 
 to the fact that it is taught with indifference and dies 
 out through lack of culture, for so the good God 
 hinders some of our well-meant blunders. 
 
 Mrs. Houghton assails with a strong pen and fine 
 courage one of these evils that clings to the church 
 long after all reason for it has passed away. In sepa- 
 rating the Bible stories from other misreadings of 
 Scripture, one would think our author has a definite 
 field in which to win an easy victory for truth and 
 common sense, because the greater part of mankind 
 takes side with the child when a good thing is pro- 
 vided for it. 
 
 The crucial point where the battle lies is the his- 
 toricity of the Old Testament. Mrs. Houghton deals 
 with it in the same way that a sensible parent deals 
 with it, out of her own parental instinct, suffer- 
 ing the literal accuracy to take care of itself, while 
 the truth wrapped up in the story goes straight to the 
 mind of the child. It was the method of the Head 
 Master of Uppingham, whose habit was to read a story 
 from the Bible at daily service, first requiring a per- 
 fect knowledge of the text and then putting tne sharp 
 question : " Now, boys, what is the truth in this story ? 
 Never mind whether the story is true or not; what 
 does it mean?" Dr. Thring sent out from Uppingham \ 
 no incipient infidels due to a lack of correct Bible 
 instruction. No boy taught by him would ever scoff \ 
 B.t the story of Jonah, or raise the question if ravens 
 fed Elijah, or blunder by finding a doctrine of the 1 
 atonement in the sacrifice of Isaac. It would not be 
 extravagant to say that if in the Sunday-schools of 
 our nation this manner of explaining the history and 
 the stories of the Old Testament should be taught, 
 
xiv Introduction 
 
 there would be a vast decrease of infidelity and an 
 increase of practical ethics and belief in God, instead 
 of the meagre fruits that now follow these schools. 
 
 Much criticism is being poured out upon those 
 scholars who pass under the title of higher critics, as 
 though they were the enemies of religion. We would 
 not say a word against their work or method, for it 
 lies in the path of eternal necessity. The very stones 
 in the street would cry out if it were not done. But 
 we could wish their path led more often to the feet of 
 Christ. Then the noblest literature, the truest ethics, 
 the highest qualities of human nature, the sense of 
 law, and, above all, a sense of God and obedience t. 
 the law of God, would not lie upon the pages of dead 
 history, but in the ever-living Christ in whom the 
 truth of the past never dies. 
 
 One who reads these pages carefully will note that 
 Mrs. Houghton's interpretations are in every case 
 lifted and ennobled by the great thought out of which 
 her general conception of the Hebrew mind springs. 
 Its entire scheme of religious teaching and training 
 is to soften and enlighten and mould the whole 
 nature of the child in its plastic years into likeness 
 to the eternal Father, the summation of which was 
 fulfilled in Christ. 
 
 Under such interpretation the Christ is not made 
 to appear as a blank outcome of miracle, but as a 
 divinely natural outcome of a people into whose 
 thought He was already born. 
 
 Mrs. Houghton has entered into the thought 01 
 to-day in regard to the general relation of the Christ 
 of the Kew Testament to the Christ of the Old, but 
 we do not recall any other writer who has found in 
 
Introduction 
 
 xv 
 
 Christ that the kingdom of heaven is correlated to 
 the child-history and character of the Hebrew people 
 and is to be found in its literature. We congratulate 
 Mrs. Houghton upon having wrought out this concep- 
 tion as a fine and tenable piece of valuable interpre- 
 tation, and also of achieving a most carefully written 
 series of studies in the Old Testament, that illustrate 
 and confirm her thesis. 
 
 T. T. HUNGER. 
 
TELLING BIBLE STORIES 
 
CHAPTER I 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CHILD 
 
 WHEN our Lord chose the little child as the 
 concrete illustration of His kingdom, it was not 
 because of the faultlessness, nor even because of 
 the humility of the child. Nor was it because of 
 the readiness of the child to be of use, to serve, 
 though in this respect the normal child is very 
 like the Master. Jesus said of the little child, " of 
 such is the kingdom of God," because His king- 
 dom is over man, over the normal, the ideal man, 
 and "childhood reproduces from age to age that 
 which is distinctive of man"; 1 not man Greek or 
 Roman, Anglo-Saxon or American, but simply 
 human. The spontaneous instincts of the soul, 
 as manifested in the child, are the essentially 
 human instincts. 
 
 There is, therefore, a striking appropriateness 
 in the words which form the subject of this chap- 
 ter. Seldom have two words been so fitly joined 
 
 1 George Matheson, D.D., "The Representative Men of the 
 Bible." 
 
 S 
 
4 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 as these, "the Old Testament" and "the child." 
 For, if the child is the true representative of the 
 human, so is the Old Testament the marvellous 
 and accurate revelation of human nature in all its 
 elemental characteristics. A revelation of God, 
 yes ; but of God in relations with man. This is, 
 indeed, the only possible revelation of Him ; and 
 in the nature of things, therefore, He is most 
 clearly revealed in relations with that man who 
 has most of the child spirit. 
 
 Some years ago the editor of Harper s Magazine, 
 in that profound and original book, "A Study of 
 Death," pointed out that Israel's was essentially a 
 child nature, with all the artless spontaneity, all 
 the sensuous impressionability, which is antipo- 
 dally different from sensuality, all the delight in 
 color, in melodious sound and rhythmic motion, 
 all the quick sense of humor, the boundless reach 
 and compelling authority of imagination, which 
 characterize the child everywhere, in all ages. 
 The Old Testament, therefore, the product of a 
 child nation, is in its very nature the book for the 
 children of every nation. It would be preemi- 
 nently " the child's own book " even if it had no 
 special and unique value of its own over other 
 books for children. 
 
 But the Old Testament has a special and unique 
 value. This every intelligent reader concedes, 
 
The Old Testament and the Child 5 
 
 whatever may be his views of the historic authority 
 or the literary importance of the volume. Its 
 unique value lies in that God-consciousness with 
 which its every page is saturated. The Old Tes- 
 tament, being, like the child, a revelation of the 
 essential human, of the elemental man, is by that 
 very fact a revelation of man with his face toward 
 God. J__.id this is why the Old Testament is the 
 natural reading of the child. For there is in all 
 the world nothing so reasonable to the unsophisti- 
 cated human being as God. We never have to 
 explain the word " God " to the youngest baby to 
 whom words mean anything. Man is, indeed, a 
 religious animal, as has so often been said: the 
 meaning of which is, that long before the age of 
 reason or reflection arrives, almost before the baby 
 has passed the age where its entire consciousness 
 is a craving for the satisfaction of its appetites, 
 the little soul reaches out for God, and grasps with 
 satisfaction the fact that He exists. 
 
 The faculty of God-consciousness with which 
 the child is born is indeed a twofold inheritance. 
 Dr. Matheson, endeavoring to explain the myste- 
 rious and baffling dualism of human nature, its 
 tendency to sin and its faculty for holiness, shows 
 from the story of Adam that every child begins 
 the world with an important capital, a long strain 
 of heredity, " a bias from earth and a bias from 
 
6 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 heaven/' "dust and the Father's breath." But 
 even his inheritance of dust is not without the 
 Father's breath. There are adumbrations of 
 religion, as a recent writer has shown, 1 in the 
 mutual service of flowers and of animals so low 
 in the scale of existence as sponges, no one in- 
 dividuality of which is complete, nor could exist, 
 without the others. These adumbrations of re- 
 ligion are not religion, for they include no God- 
 consciousness, but they clearly show that even 
 man's heredity of dust has an inveterate bias 
 toward that faculty of God-consciousness which is 
 his heredity from the Father's breath, and with 
 which every child of Adam is born into the 
 world. This faculty may be developed to a mar- 
 vellous degree ; it may be perverted, as it is 
 among the cultivated peoples of the East ; its 
 development may be arrested, as it is among bar- 
 barous peoples of all primitive societies ; it may 
 be lost, as it too often is lost among progressive 
 peoples of the West. Occupied and absorbed as 
 they are, with business or pleasure or the cultiva- 
 tion of the intellect, the faculty at last seems to 
 disappear for want of use, and now, in this latest 
 age of history, for the first time in the history of 
 man, we find persons of high intellectual develop- 
 
 1 Greville Macdonald, " The Religious Sense iii its Scientific 
 Aspect." 
 
The Old Testament and the Child 7 
 
 ment and noble social initiative entirely unaware 
 of any need of God. In the Museum of Natural 
 History, New York, one may see those prehistoric 
 skeletons which show that the primitive horse 
 possessed a well developed foot of four toes; and 
 which record the gradual disappearance of three of 
 these. That the change in this instance was in 
 response to life conditions does not affect the sug- 
 gestiveness of the fact. As these members disap- 
 peared through lack of use, so has it come to be 
 with this highest of human faculties. 
 
 Our children are born into this environment 
 of the West and of the twentieth century, which 
 of all other times and places is least congenial to 
 the development of this fundamental human in- 
 stinct, this " inevitable God-consciousness " ; and 
 if this nation is not to become like France, a 
 nation where infidelity has the controlling voice 
 in the national councils, a people whose highest 
 faculty is well-nigh atrophied, parents and 
 teachers are solemnly bound to recognize as their 
 most important task that of developing the sense 
 of God until it becomes the commanding factor in 
 the child's life. For this there is no better method 
 in the case of a very young child there is no other 
 method than "telling Bible stories," in which, 
 without discussion or philosophizing, it is simply 
 assumed and shown that man is in the divine order. 
 
8 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 In France, indeed, they have awakened to this 
 necessity, notwithstanding the noisy attempts of 
 the extreme socialistic party to banish God from 
 " all the thoughts " of the nation. The republic 
 had hardly been well established when in about 
 1878 it was found essential to its preservation 
 to pass a law secularizing the common schools, 
 replacing clerical teachers, monks and nuns, by 
 lay men and women. One result of this act was 
 that remarkable development of " congregational " 
 free schools, which has formed one of the most 
 difficult and dangerous problems of the govern- 
 ment in this opening century. Another result 
 made itself more immediately felt. The next 
 census revealed an appalling increase in child 
 crime, and especially in child suicide. A rising 
 young publicist, a serious freethinker, was set 
 by government to study the causes of this woful 
 condition. His report, afterward published in a 
 book entitled " Crime and the School," made a 
 deep impression. It traced the evil to one cause, 
 the profound soul-discouragement of the child 
 who knew not God. To such a child, at the age 
 of ten, at the age even of seven, life became 
 literally not worth living, and he laid it down 
 in despair, or, failing courage for this supreme 
 act of self-renunciation, he plunged into reckless 
 self-indulgence and crime. This was the more 
 
The Old Testament and the Child 9 
 
 impressive because, in laicizing the schools, the 
 government had been clear-sighted as to the 
 moral danger involved, and had called to its aid 
 the most brilliant minds in France to prepare a 
 series of text-books in morals, in which all refer- 
 ence to religion should be omitted, for every 
 school grade from the infant class up. The 
 result had been, apparently, to the highest degree 
 satisfactory. It would be difficult to find in any 
 country a series of text-books on ethics equal to 
 these in literary character and pedagogic value. 
 Yet ten years' use of these text-books created so 
 thorough- going a pessimism among the children 
 that they found goodness not worth seeking and 
 life not worth living. The result of this inquiry 
 led the French government to admit that how- 
 ever little the grown man may find a need for 
 any Supreme Being, yet, during the educational 
 period of the child, the ultimate sanction of morals 
 must be found in God, and, notwithstanding the 
 clamors of the atheistic group, the name of God 
 is no longer excluded from school text-books of 
 morals. French pedagogics have thus discovered 
 the truth underlying Napoleon's cynical remark, 
 that if there had been no God it would be neces- 
 sary to invent one. 
 
 Yes, the little child instinctively perceives that 
 the religious life is the natural life, the fulfilment 
 
10 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 of human nature in truest, largest ways. The 
 human being lives and moves in the divine order 
 to ignore this is to be abnormal. That " prac- 
 tice of the presence of God," which is the last 
 acquisition of the profoundly religious man, is the 
 ideal atmosphere for the development of the child 
 nature ; and because it was the life habit of the 
 men of ancient Israel, the Old Testament is 
 supremely valuable for the all-round development 
 of the child, the development of all his faculties 
 and capacitieSo 
 
 II 
 
 The culture in the presence of God of all the 
 child's godlike qualities is the mother's supreme 
 task, and for it she can find no more efficient aid 
 than in the " God-saturated " stories of the Old 
 Testament. The progressive development of the 
 child's religious nature, far more important, even 
 for the practical issues of life, than that orderly 
 development of his intellectual and aesthetic fac- 
 ulties which is now the first concern of pedagogics, 
 may best be accomplished by the wise use of these 
 stories, progressively adapted to the developing 
 religious and moral instincts of the child. 
 
 It has been strikingly said that the ancient 
 Roman "practised the presence of Calamity." 
 
The Old Testament and the Child 11 
 
 The Stoic in all ages makes it his study to meet 
 disaster unafraid. The Christian has a more 
 effectual philosophy. The child may be practised 
 in it from his earliest infancy by means of the 
 Bible stories, which keep him always in God's 
 presence, and show him, without argument, that 
 he is in the divine order. In this acutely self- 
 conscious age no corrective is more accurately 
 adjusted to the condition. 
 
 " When," says Professor Coe, " education is 
 taken in the profound sense of bringing to expres- 
 sion that which is deepest and most real in man, 
 then it becomes a means of making him conscious 
 of God, in whom he lives and moves and has his 
 being." "The greatest strategic of the Church 
 to-day," he adds, "lies in this direction." It is 
 preeminently the greatest strategic of the home, 
 nor is it possible to begin this education too early. 
 It is abnormal for the youngest child to be with- 
 out God. Nothing in all the world is so reason- 
 able as God, even to the unsophisticated man, still 
 more so to the child. 
 
 It will be admitted without argument that it is 
 impossible to develop this God-consciousness in 
 children by opening to them the religious experi- 
 ences of their parents or teachers. The absurdity 
 of the idea is self-evident, though as a matter of fact 
 many parents and pastors and nearly all "children's 
 
12 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 evangelists" proceed on this impossible principle 
 and endeavor to make the religious experiences of 
 children conform as closely as possible to those of 
 grown persons. No, we cannot bring the children 
 into relations with God by showing them our own 
 relations with Him, because, notwithstanding our 
 Lord's " Except ye become as little children," we 
 are in fact anything but that. But the relations 
 with God which we find mirrored in the Old 
 Testament stories are the relations of a child peo- 
 ple with their heavenly Father ; they do appeal to 
 the child ; they waken in him a response, not of 
 the affections only, but of the intellect ; they are 
 an adequate and a compelling force to lead him, 
 while yet a little child, into like personal relations 
 with God. And the child to whom the sense of 
 God early becomes second nature can no more lose 
 it than he can lose the art of walking or of other 
 acquired habits which have become spontaneous. 
 Now it is psychologically impossible to separate 
 the development of this God-consciousness from 
 the development of other faculties of the child, and 
 here arises the unspeakable mischief of separating 
 the religious education of the child from all the 
 rest of his education, as a thing apart. Not that 
 it must necessarily become a part of his school 
 training, but that it should be carried along with 
 that, and always related to it. The spiritual fac- 
 
The Old Testament and the Child 13 
 
 ulty is not specifically different from the faculty 
 by which we prosecute the daily duties of life. 
 There is a certain philosophical convenience in dis- 
 tinguishing between soul and spirit, but psychologi- 
 cally they are one. The soul is a unit ; the spiritual 
 nature is simply the mind occupied with spiritual 
 things. 1 Obviously then, the stories of the Old 
 Testament are preeminently the proper mental pabu- 
 lum of the child. " Upon what is the really great 
 mind fed in youth, " asks another recent writer, 2 
 " but the dreamstuff of poets and sages ? Now 
 Homer is good dreamstuff, but the Bible is better." 
 
 Dreamstuff? Is it wise to encourage the 
 children in dreaming ? Is this the way to make 
 practical men and women of them, such as this 
 strenuous age demands ? Is it even the way, by 
 any possibility, to make religious men and women 
 of them? The mother who asks these questions is 
 forgetting that it was in dreams that the word of 
 the Lord came to His servants of old. If we do 
 not hear His voice in our dreams, waking or sleeping, 
 it is doubtful whether we shall ever hear Him. If 
 we have not heard His voice in our dreams, waking 
 or sleeping, may it not be for not having been 
 nourished upon the best " dreamstuff " ? 
 
 This comparison of the relative values of "dream- 
 stuffs " is only another way of saying that the 
 1 Professor Coe. 2 Rev. Newton M. Hall. 
 
14 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 highest use of all literature is not to fill us with 
 facts, but to set us to thinking. We teach the 
 children history not half so much in order that they 
 may know, and always remember, things that have 
 happened, as that they may understand life, and 
 how to meet it. We repeat poetry to the little 
 ones and tell them fairy tales, not merely to amuse 
 them, nor as an exercise for the memory, but as 
 a stimulus to the imagination and to the aesthetic 
 sense. The Old Testament stories serve both these 
 purposes. The spontaneous instincts of the child, 
 and the almost equally spontaneous revelations of 
 human nature in these stories, correspond one to 
 another as face answers to face in water. The per- 
 petual splendor of sentences in the Old Testament, 
 the lofty sublimity of its suggestions, appeal to 
 the sensuous nature of the child as no other litera- 
 ture does ; and there is no nobler endowment of a 
 well-born and well-bred human being than a rich 
 sensuous nature. 
 
 Especially appealing to the child is the freshness 
 of feeling which characterizes the Old Testament 
 poetry, making Herder's remark literally as well 
 as figuratively true, that it should be read in the 
 dawn of the morning, because it was the first dawn 
 of the illumination of the soul. The poetic char- 
 acter of the Old Testament also makes it the chil- 
 dren's book because the child's nature is the poet's 
 
The Old Testament and the Child 15 
 
 nature. Not only does the little child love rhythm 
 and the balance of measured utterance, so that it is 
 not in the least necessary that he should understand 
 a poem or a bit of doggerel in order to delight in 
 it, it is also true that the child rejoices in poetic 
 forms of utterance, in tropes and figures of speech, 
 and in the play of the imagination . In this respect 
 the Old Testament is peculiarly the little child's 
 book. It abounds in metaphor and poetic imagery. 
 For example, where the Old Testament would refer 
 to great trees, trees whose size was notable, it calls 
 them "trees of God." Our giant redwoods in 
 California would surely be " trees of God " to the 
 mind of the old Hebrew, and no other expression 
 would so well satisfy a child's sense of awe on see- 
 ing these trees. So with the mighty voice of the 
 thunder. It was no attempt at scientific explana- 
 tion, but true poetic instinct which impelled the 
 psalmist to call thunder "the voice of Jehovah." 
 
 The voice of Jehovah is upon the waters, 
 
 The God of glory thundereth, 
 
 Even Jehovah upon many waters. 
 
 The voice of Jehovah is powerful, 
 
 The voice of Jehovah is full of majesty, 
 
 The voice of Jehovah breaketh the cedars, 
 
 Yea, Jehovah breaketh in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. 
 
 A.nd in his temple everything saith, Glory ! l 
 1 Psalm xxix. 
 
16 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 The ancient Hebrew had no notion of science. 
 He did not ask for the immediate cause of physi- 
 cal events. It entirely satisfied his instinct for 
 ultimate truth to assume that thunder was God's 
 voice; that God had planted those cedars whose 
 life reached back before the memory of man. He 
 related all mysteries to God, and in that relation- 
 ship his mind rested and his heart was satisfied. 
 
 This is why miracle made such strong appeal 
 to the Hebrew mind. To him it was " a sign," 
 the manifestation of the most profoundly true 
 of all facts, the immanent activity of God in every 
 event of life. This is an important clue to the 
 treatment of the Biblical miracles. As myth is 
 the explanation offered by the primitive mind to 
 the mysteries of surrounding nature, so a people 
 deeply stirred by moral problems have, in primi- 
 tive times, recourse to miracle to explain mys- 
 teries in the moral sphere. This fact is an 
 important clue to the miracles of the Bible, and 
 to far more than its miracles. The very view- 
 point of the writers of the Old Testament, espe- 
 cially of those parts of it that we call Bible 
 stories, is always the viewpoint of God. They 
 looked upon nature and the world from above. 
 Professor George Adam Smith, in that book of 
 revelation which should lie on every mother's 
 and teacher's table beside the Bible, " The His* 
 
The Old Testament and the Child 17 
 
 toricai Geography of the Holy Land," explains 
 the nature descriptions of the Bible by saying 
 that the Hebrew was a highlander, and described 
 nature from the heights. But there is far more 
 in these descriptions than a highlander can see. 
 The Hebrew poet sees even the mountain tops 
 from above, and the cloud effects as if he were 
 looking down from high heaven. "Jehovah march- 
 eth upon his high place ; Israel treadeth upon his 
 high places" Joel sees the lurid light of dawn 
 shattered on the mountain tops, 1 crushed between 
 the hills, " spilled like the wine press of the wrath 
 of God." Though not a maritime people Israel 
 yet had wonderful visions of the sea-coast and 
 the sea, for he saw them as God sees them, from 
 above. For the same reason such words as 
 "valley" and "depth" had a profound meaning 
 to him ; they spoke of God's unfathomable judg- 
 ments. The deep abyss of the Ghor the Jordan 
 Valley was a synonym for terror and destruc- 
 tion; freedom, salvation, were "a wide place." 
 
 The child mind is intensely susceptible to these 
 images. They are the most perfect food and 
 stimulus for it. The poetic descriptions of nature 
 in the Old Testament are the best possible aids 
 to the cultivation of that eminently cultivatable 
 and most valuable faculty, love of fine scenery, 
 i Joel ii. 2. 
 
18 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 Some of the poems in Canticles are admirable for 
 this purpose. As a whole, the Song of Solomon 
 is not a story for the little children, not because 
 it is a love drama, but because its literary char- 
 acter is beyond them, just as " The Princess " is. 
 But its lyrics, like those in " The Princess," are 
 exquisite, and appeal early to the child's aesthetic 
 sense. In fact, the book may come somewhat 
 early into the child's educational experiences if it 
 be used, not to teach the love of Christ for His 
 Church, but to give expression to the child's 
 gladness in the beauty of the world in which he 
 lives. 
 
 For all these reasons, and for many more which 
 will appear as we go on, the Old Testament is 
 preeminently the child's book. This is no doubt 
 what President Stanley Hall meant, a few years 
 ago, when he said that the Old Testament stories 
 are the proper beginning of the religious education 
 of the child. The statement was as much dis- 
 cussed at that time as President Butler's later 
 plea for the literary study of the Bible in the 
 schools has been discussed since then, and to the 
 children it is of more importance than the later 
 utterance. It is the religious value of the Old 
 Testament in the life experience of the little child 
 that most concerns us. Its literary importance 
 is very great. We are hearing much about it in 
 
The Old Testament and the Child 19 
 
 these days, and teachers are beginning to awake 
 to it. Its ethical value is also of the highest im- 
 portance, although in the current discussions of 
 the ethics of the Old Testament we do not detect 
 any general approval. When this nation has 
 advanced as far as the French in a working 
 knowledge of child psychology, we shall see that 
 even as a matter of education the religious im- 
 portance of the Old Testament underlies, as it 
 transcends, its literary and its ethical importance. 
 Probably most of the mothers who read Presi- 
 dent Stanley Hall's remark experienced a feeling 
 at once of relief and perplexity. They were re- 
 lieved, because, having themselves been "brought 
 up on " the Old Testament stories, and still cher- 
 ishing their childhood's love for them, they were 
 glad to find those wise persons mistaken who had 
 assured them that to give the children the Old 
 Testament would be to take a backward step in 
 ethical training. And yet they were perplexed, 
 because having become aware, through much 
 newspaper and magazine discussion, if not by 
 the teaching of pastors and the discoveries of 
 their own Bible reading, that the Old Testament 
 is not precisely the sort of book that their parents 
 and grandparents held it to be, they were thrown 
 back upon the question that had been troubling 
 them before : " How, knowing as I do, that the 
 
20 Telling Mile Stories 
 
 Old Testament is not precisely such a book as I 
 was taught to think it, and not knowing as yet 
 precisely what sort of a book it is, how shall I 
 interpret it to my children ? " 
 
 This question may be answered at once by say- 
 ing that in the beginning it is not necessary to 
 interpret the stories to the children, all the 
 mother has to do is to tell them, as nearly as 
 possible in the very words in which they were 
 written, preserving as far as one may the grand, 
 quaint, old-fashioned simplicity of the Bible 
 language, seeking as far as possible to fill the 
 child with the spirit of the great men of whom 
 the stories tell, and to vitalize their nature with 
 the atmosphere of the old book. We do not try 
 to interpret " The splendor falls " or " Break, 
 break, break ! " or " Oh, Brignall banks are fresh 
 and fair " or even " John Gilpin." We simply re- 
 peat the lines and let the child revel in them, 
 pouring into them such meaning as his own heart 
 supplies. We do not give the dictionary mean- 
 ing of the words with which we teach our babies 
 to talk. We simply say them often, and the 
 child gives them a meaning. As the children 
 grow older, indeed, the task grows more complex 
 in both cases. The present effort is to understand 
 something of the nature of that complexity. 
 
The Old Testament and the Child 21 
 
 III 
 
 There are, indeed, some who, for practical rea- 
 jons, desire to learn how to tell the Bible stories 
 to their children, not from any intellectual per- 
 plexity as to the character of the Old Testament, 
 but simply that they may make their stories more 
 interesting. They are thoroughly persuaded that 
 the Bible is precisely what their parents taught 
 them that it was. They believe that it was in- 
 spired by God, from cover to cover, and all parts 
 of equal authority though not of equal impor- 
 tance, especially to the children A few of these 
 are telling their children the Bible stories in the 
 dear old way of their mothers and grandmothers ; 
 but they are not following the same good example 
 in keeping up the spiritual culture of their chil- 
 dren by encouraging them as they grow older to 
 read the Old Testament by themselves, as they 
 read other delightful books. They do not expect 
 their children to read a chapter a day, as their 
 own parents expected them to do ; they do not 
 feel quite sure that it would be expedient. Nor 
 are they particularly disturbed if the father's 
 business prevents him from reading the Bible 
 with the children at family prayers. Perhaps 
 this would all be just as well if they had estab- 
 
22 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 lished a better way, but they have not; and there- 
 fore the beautiful promise of genuine piety which 
 their little children gave fades away as the boys 
 and girls begin to grow up. 
 
 These parents do not take special pains to 
 give the Old Testament to their children because 
 they fail to see how it can be useful to them. 
 Though they cherish their " mother's Bible " as 
 she cherished it, they are by no means follow- 
 ing their mother's example in its use in the 
 religious training of their children. In which, 
 if Dr. Hall is right, they are surely making a 
 mistake. 
 
 These mothers, however, are a rapidly dimin- 
 ishing class. The younger generation, being of 
 the modern time by years and education, are 
 themselves ignorant of the Old Testament, how- 
 ever carefully they may have been taught to 
 reverence it as the very word of God. Being 
 interested in educational problems, these young 
 mothers need not now to be convinced that the 
 children should know this book. Have not Presi- 
 dent Butler and Dr. Hall and Patterson DuBois 
 and Dr. Hervey and a host of writers on peda- 
 gogics and child psychology said so ? But as for 
 undertaking themselves to introduce their chil- 
 dren to it as well expect them to give them 
 manual training and military drill I It is for the 
 
" The Old Testament and the Child 23 
 
 help of mothers such as these that the following 
 chapters are written. 
 
 IV 
 
 Two things are essential to the mother who 
 would find in the Old Testament that help in the 
 child's spiritual nurture which, as President Hall 
 has said, and as I believe, it has to give her in 
 those brief blessed years before her child goes out 
 from her brooding influence to be acted upon by 
 influences which she cannot entirely control. She 
 must understand the nature of the child, and 
 she must recognize the true character of the Old 
 Testament. Both fields of study are exhaustless ; 
 if one waited even for a beginning of proficiency 
 in either, the fleeting years of the mother's oppor- 
 tunity would be gone. Happily, both these 
 branches of "things to be learned" are of those 
 which, as Froebel says, are to be learned in the 
 doing of them, and, most happily, each throws 
 light upon the other. We have already seen that 
 the child nature is the key to the Old Testament. 
 It is equally true that the Old Testament is the 
 interpreter of the child nature. No work on 
 child psychology will prove so apt and so immedi- 
 ate a help to the mother who would understand 
 her child as the stories of the Old Testament. 
 
24 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 For this purpose those ancient people, as Dr. 
 Matheson says, are not yet an anachronism, " they 
 reveal human nature not only in its eternal same- 
 ness but in its eternal variations," because they 
 are all portraits of the age of spontaneity, that is, 
 of youth, whatever may be the number of years 
 that have passed over the heads of their heroes. 
 In this respect the Old Testament is also the 
 mother's own book. 
 
 Let not the mother, however, underrate the 
 difficulties which she will encounter in giving the 
 Old Testament to her children. There are others 
 besides those of the higher criticism, the au- 
 thorship of the Pentateuch and parts of Isaiah, 
 the historic character of Genesis, and such like. 
 There are questions of morality, the plain 
 speaking of some chapters, the inadequate notions 
 of right in some others, the want of harmony with 
 the assured conclusions of science, the perplexities 
 of miracles. But, in fact, these are difficulties 
 only to the mother who puts the Old Testament 
 into the hands of her growing child, not having 
 early familiarized him with it, and brought him 
 into sympathy with its spirit, by telling him Bible 
 stories while he was yet in her arms. They are 
 not difficulties to the mother who, before she 
 began to tell the stories, had reached an adequate 
 conception of the actual character of the book, 
 
1 The Old Testament and the Child 25 
 
 and its relation to the normal development of 
 her child. 
 
 In seeking for this conception we begin with 
 the Bible story, partly because it is where the 
 little child begins, partly because of the great 
 value of the story in making manifest the actual 
 character of the Old Testament. Very certainly, 
 the more clearly we understand the value set 
 upon the story by the writers of the Old Testa- 
 ment, the better we shall understand the book 
 itself. The Old Testament contains an enormous 
 amount of story lore, far more than any one 
 realizes until his attention is especially directed to 
 this matter. The field of this story lore is very 
 vast. The prophetic use of this lore opens a 
 boundless and beautiful vista. The prophets 
 used the short story for a great variety of pur- 
 poses, though few Bible readers even suspect this. 
 Their striking and effective use of the " walking 
 parable" has lately been pointed out by Dean 
 Sanders. When Jeremiah wanted most effec- 
 tively to warn Israel that if they did not repent 
 and turn from their evil ways they must become 
 captives of Babylon, he put an ox yoke on his 
 shoulders and went walking through the public 
 places of Jerusalem. That ox yoke, as Dr. San- 
 ders says, spelled captivity. The story tells us 
 how the prophet Hananiah, who highly disap- 
 
26 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 proved of such teaching, holding that Israel ought 
 not to be discouraged at such a critical time in 
 the nation's history, took the ox yoke off from 
 Jeremiah's shoulders and broke it, signifying 
 that even should captivity come it could easily 
 be broken or shaken off. But Jeremiah had 
 no notion of submitting to any such contra- 
 diction of his story. He went and had an in- 
 terview with the blacksmith, and shortly after 
 appeared in public wearing a yoke of iron, which 
 Hananiah could no more break than he could 
 avert the threatened captivity, or break it when 
 it came, as it shortly did. 
 
 How fascinating a story this for the little child ! 
 And the prophets are full of such. Ezekiel lying 
 for long days in the sight of the exiled Jews in 
 Babylon, lying first on one side and then on the 
 other, in front of his toy besieged city, with mimic 
 mount and battering rams set over against it 
 and an iron pan by way of wall, thus bringing 
 home to the curious onlookers a realizing sense of 
 the awful siege that their beloved, far away Jeru- 
 salem was soon to pass through ; Jeremiah hiding 
 his linen girdle in the hole in the rock or visiting 
 the potter at work on his two wheels a story 
 the meaning of which is far otherwise impressive 
 and hopeful than the theologians have made it to 
 be, interesting parables like these abound in the 
 
'The Old Testament and the Child 27 
 
 prophets, and to tell them to the children, as 
 stories, while they are young, is the best of all 
 introductions to a very sublime collection of litera- 
 ture, of far-reaching ethical import not only, but 
 of the highest aesthetic value. 
 
 The prophets, indeed, were almost entirely de- 
 pendent upon the story form, and their histories 
 are simply long stories. First Samuel, for in- 
 stance, is one great story, and not in any modern 
 acceptation of the words either a history or a 
 biography. It is one of the most fruitful books 
 in the Bible, whether for the mother, the teacher, 
 or the minister, and from it we learn, among other 
 things, the true character of all the Bible stories, 
 which is to give religious meaning to all the expe- 
 riences of life, even of the life of the little child. 
 We know what great use our Lord Jesus made 
 of the story. Probably those parables which we 
 have in the Gospels are only a selection from a 
 wealth of these incomparable stories. 
 
 It is important at the outset of any study of the 
 Old Testament stories to seek the reasons which 
 actuated Jesus as well as the ancient prophets in 
 using almost exclusively this method of teaching. 
 One reason doubtless was that the story is pecu- 
 liarly well adapted to present truth to the Orien- 
 tal mind. The Hebrew people, even more than 
 other Orientals, were especially fond of story in 
 
28 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 all its forms, parable, apothegm, proverb, care- 
 fully worked out to a high artistic finish. Another 
 reason lies in the purpose of the story. Its design 
 in Scripture is the design of all Scripture, to set 
 forth the essential relationship between God and 
 man, and to show it as a working relationship, 
 capable of being realized in practice. Again, as 
 has already been seen, the purpose of the story 
 is not to fill the mind with facts, but to set it 
 to thinking. All these, but especially the last, 
 are important considerations for the mother who 
 " tells stories " to her children. When the story- 
 telling hour comes, and she asks herself how she 
 shall choose between the stories that she knows or 
 can invent, let her ask herself which of them will 
 best appeal to that marvellous thought apparatus 
 the exercise of which is to the children so thrilling 
 a delight. I do not mean which has the best 
 moral, but which best sets in motion that incom- 
 parable machinery. 
 
 Very important is the stimulus that stories give 
 to constructive imagination. For example, the 
 great vision on the Mount of Olives, in the twenty- 
 third chapter of Matthew, belongs in a sense to the 
 story form, and dwelt upon as we dwell upon the 
 story it stimulates the constructive imagination 
 and gives a boundlessly large view of life and of 
 the great plan of God. 
 
The Old Testament and the Child 29 
 
 The story is particularly valuable because it 
 makes truth attractive. I am not now referring 
 to fact but to truth. The truth, for example, 
 that no pagan is necessarily excluded from the 
 household of God is not particularly interesting 
 to the thoughtful mind. But embody it in the 
 story of Ruth, and how beautiful, how picturesque, 
 poetic, pathetic, dignified a truth it becomes! 
 And though upon the mind of the little child the 
 story will properly make a larger impression than 
 the truth, yet it is a seed truth which needs only 
 the normal degree and kind of care to spring up 
 in the mind of any boy or girl and fructify in that 
 comprehensive interest in the human race which 
 must underlie all future civilization. Had the 
 story been thus treated by our pious ancestors, 
 their children would not have been agitated by 
 the question whether Socrates and Plato might 
 possibly be saved; and foreign missions would 
 have been put upon a more enduring basis than 
 that idea which resulted in calculations as to how 
 many "heathen" are "dropping into hell" per 
 minute. Moreover, had this story of Ruth and 
 that other story of Jonah been understood by the 
 early Church, the sorrowful story of the Jews in 
 Christian lands would never have been told. 
 
 The story form appeals to all ages and all grades 
 of mind. Savage and sage enjoy the same tale, 
 
30 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 though the one may find in it rich values un- 
 dreamed of by the other. For the same reason it 
 is particularly well adapted for conveying spirit- 
 ual truth. The power of man with God is a 
 spiritual truth of unfathomable profundity ; but 
 the theologian or the philosopher has not lived, 
 and perhaps never will live, who will put it more 
 intelligibly and forcibly than it was put ages ago 
 in the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel at 
 the brook Jabbok, a story which the youngest 
 child will delight to hear and to think about. 
 
 In other words, the great value of the Old Tes- 
 tament stories lies in the fact that they put abstract 
 truth into concrete form, to be interpreted by the 
 imagination. It is many years since Horace Bush- 
 nell, to whom the religious thought of to-day, and 
 especially the child nurture of to-day, owes so much, 
 taught an uncomprehending people that "the 
 gift of God in the Holy Scriptures is a gift to the 
 imagination " ; that in it that which is given to 
 faith " is put forth in some fact, form, or symbol, to 
 be interpreted by the imaginative insight." The 
 whole Bible, he said, is in one sense pictorial, " its 
 every line or lineament is traced in some image 
 or metaphor." In it "all the past is taken up in 
 metaphor for the future." Thus the story of 
 Cain and Abel is worth a volume on the sin of 
 murder. The story of the Good Samaritan has 
 
The Old Testament and the Child 31 
 
 become the universal symbol of neighborliness, 
 and to say that Jesus is the great metaphor of 
 God involves no irreverence. 
 
 There are no stories in any language, or of any 
 age of the world, which so aptly and precisely 
 perform this function as the Bible stories, and 
 this for a very simple reason, the language in 
 which they were originally written, the Hebrew, 
 like the child's language, has no abstract words. 
 All Hebrew words are concrete, just as the little 
 child's words are. This explains the splendor of 
 the metaphors in the Old Testament and its rich 
 poetic imagery. The poetic imagery of the Old 
 Testament is often perplexing to grown people, 
 especially of Occidental lands. It continually leads 
 astray theologians, who have even yet not learned 
 from Dr. Bushnell that " in our non-use or abuse 
 of this instrument [the imagination] a great part 
 of our religious difficulties have their spring." It 
 also leads astray the plain people, who, having out- 
 grown the poetry of childhood, have become prosaic 
 without having found their way into the realm of 
 the abstract. But this imagery never puzzles the 
 little child, unsurprised as yet by the experiences 
 of life; that is to say, poetic imagery never 
 puzzles the little child until we begin to explain 
 it to him. Then perhaps it may. 
 
32 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 Now it is precisely the child nature of Israel 
 that makes those parts of the Old Testament 
 which we call historic so much more intelligible 
 to the children than they are to us. The child 
 of eight is in far deeper and more accurate sym- 
 pathy than his mother with Gideon and Samson 
 and David, with Jacob and Rebecca and Joseph, 
 because all these are elemental natures, simple, 
 dominated by a single but imperative motive. 
 His parents are too self -controlled ; they have 
 gone too deep into the complex problems of 
 life as it now is, and character as centuries of 
 civilization have formed it, to have any very 
 real sympathy with characters of this kind. 
 Thus, though ferocity is repugnant to all adults 
 of refinement, the ferocity of some cv *he Old 
 Testament stories is not repugnant to our little 
 children, and we mistake if we refuse to tell them 
 these stories because of their supposed demoralizing 
 tendency. To the little children they are not de- 
 moralizing. It is thoroughly natural and in a sense 
 proper for children to pass through a stage of 
 ferocity. That marvellous science, embryology, 
 teaches us that the unborn child in its nine 
 months of prenatal existence goes through the 
 
The Old Testament and the Child 33 
 
 entire history of the development of sentient 
 life; and this discovery is now leading us to 
 the more important psychological truth that the 
 mental and spiritual faculties of man have an 
 analogous history, and we do a serious injury 
 to the children when we refuse to leave room 
 for their natural development. We do them 
 an injury which the unscientific mothers of a 
 past generation were saved from doing their 
 children, because they left them much to them- 
 selves, and did not insist upon sedulously study- 
 ing and minutely guiding them in every hour of 
 their little lives. And so their minds grew nor- 
 mally, as the tree grows in the open field, not as 
 it grows in a dense forest or in a Japanese garden. 
 The mental development of every child natur- 
 ally repeats the mental history of the race, and in 
 its first years it has not only the strong poetic 
 nature conspicuous in all primitive peoples, but 
 also that instinctive ferocity through which the 
 race has necessarily passed. It was a true im- 
 pulse which gave to nursery lore the grewsome- 
 ness of the ogre and the retributive justice of 
 Jack the Giant- Killer, the machinations of the 
 wicked stepmother and the heartlessness of the 
 older sisters, with all the pains and penalties they 
 brought upon themselves. And those editors of 
 child literature make more than one mistake who 
 
34 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 carefully expurgate these features from the folk 
 tales which are the rightful heritage of the chil- 
 dren. Better a thousand times, not only on 
 literary but on moral grounds, the revengeful 
 dwarfs and the murderous giant-killer and the 
 contemptible older sisters of the old nursery tales 
 than the golliwogs and goops and nonsense rhymes 
 with which our nurseries are flooded. Not that 
 pure nonsense has not also its place there. The 
 little child's sense of humor is surprisingly fresh 
 and keen. It sees real fun in things which to its 
 parents are simply absurd. But the function of 
 nonsense is very limited, and its tendency is pre- 
 cisely the opposite of that of folk-lore, deadening 
 instead of nourishing the imagination. 
 
 Yet it is certainly true that as in the unborn 
 child the history of myriad ages is repeated in two 
 hundred and fifty days, so in the child nature the 
 period of ferocity is perceptibly shortening ; and 
 it is precisely here that the Old Testament has a 
 high value as a classic for children, because the 
 interest of the story does not centre in the fero- 
 city and other indications of a low moral stand- 
 ard, but in that God-consciousness which is so 
 marvellously the essential characteristic of the 
 Old Testament from its first word to its last. If 
 Samuel hews Agag in pieces, he hews him in 
 pieces before the Lord. If Jehu exterminates the 
 
The Old Testament and the Child 35 
 
 posterity of Ahab, it is his zeal for Jehovah that 
 motives the sanguinary policy, as it also motives 
 Elijah's slaughter of the priests of Baal. Even that 
 excessively difficult story of the bears that tore 
 the forty-two children who had been disrespectful 
 to Elisha very clearly has a religious motive, so 
 obvious to the children that we never find any 
 little child shocked by the moral implication of 
 the story. It served the children right. 
 
 By this God-consciousness it is that, meeting the 
 child at every period of its development on its own 
 ground, its love of poetry, its faculty for won- 
 der, its elemental passions, its rudimentary moral 
 standards, the Old Testament never becomes 
 outworn as the nursery tales do, but by its constant 
 appeal to that most universal of all faculties, the 
 religious faculty, the capacity for knowing God, 
 it is always, after all, in advance of the child, 
 always at the same time satisfying and stimulating 
 its enlarging powers, fulfilling, not destroying, as 
 our Lord said. So the Old Testament always 
 presents itself to the children as a book the chief 
 function of which is to make them good. As 
 Matthew Arnold says, the book is pervaded by a 
 noble "passion for righteousness," a passion as 
 vigorous and compelling to-day as it was three 
 thousand years ago. 
 
 Just here, I fancy, some of my readers will part 
 
36 Telling Bible Storiei 
 
 company with me. They are thinking of Abra- 
 ham's sacrifice of Isaac, of Lot's willingness to 
 debase his daughters to save the honor of a guest, 
 and of Joshua's attempt to exterminate the Canaan- 
 ites, and they do not find that it meets the diffi- 
 culty to admit that the Old Testament portrays 
 man in his elemental nature, and not as the pro- 
 duct of generations of a more or less artificial 
 civilization. It may, perhaps, help them over the 
 difficulty to search for the moral ideas inherent in 
 these stories. Is not the impulse to heroic self- 
 sacrifice the very first motive of intense love ? Is 
 not the claim of hospitality proved by the entire 
 history of primitive peoples to be the first of all 
 social claims, transcending even the tie of blood ? 
 And is the impulse to destroy those who are not 
 of one's own religious faith, those who do not 
 worship our God, entirely wanting in the Christian 
 heart? Whence come denominational exclusive- 
 ness and trials for heresy ? To quote again from 
 the Rev. Newton Hall : " It might be considered 
 questionable taste on the part of scholars who 
 belong to nations which believe in expansion by 
 means of the Gatling gun and repeating rifle to 
 criticise the ethical tone of the Old Testament. 
 The campaigns of Joshua and the exploits of the 
 allies in China would compare well in parallel 
 columns. The hosts of Christendom could even 
 
The Old Testament and the Child 31 
 
 give the Israelite warriors points on the artistic 
 finish of certain forms of atrocity. . . . The Bible 
 student will find, however, together with the 
 horrors of war, a passion for holiness, a simplicity, 
 a tenderness, a faith, unmatched in history. . . . 
 When this study is made with sympathy, it will be 
 found that the Bible is the faithful record of the 
 struggle of two adverse forces, the human nature, 
 savage, brutal, domineering ; the divine nature, 
 at work upon the lower force, with infinite per- 
 sistence and patience. The story is of a divine 
 evolutionary force steadily making for righteous- 
 ness. If your history of the movement is to be 
 truthful, you can no more leave out the hoof and 
 claw and nail than you can leave out the holy 
 aspiration which sought God and found him." 
 
 The low ethical standards of the Old Testa- 
 ment characters have far too often been made, 
 by those who ought to know better, an excuse 
 for neglecting the book. The excuse is utterly 
 superficial. We do not so judge modern writers, 
 nor refuse to read books embodying characters 
 whose ethics we repudiate. Alas ! we do not 
 always refuse them to our children. 
 
 The value of the Old Testament is not that 
 certain things are excluded from it, but that God 
 is always in it. So we return to the proposition 
 that it is especially valuable for children, because 
 
38 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 it introduces God to them from their own point 
 of view. The Hebrew intellectuality most closely 
 resembles that of a child, his mental activity 
 small, his spiritual susceptibility deep, and his 
 physical sensibility acute. The Hebrew made 
 no analysis of life ; like the little child, he took 
 it as he found it, without self-consciousness or 
 worldly aspiration. The Hebrew idea of God 
 in the early stages of Hebrew history was very 
 crude, but it was very true. It was the child's 
 idea of his father, of course he is the greatest 
 man in the country ! We smile at this ancient 
 Hebrew conception, because our study of anthro- 
 pology makes us precisely understand the origin 
 of the Hebrew God-idea. It would be good for 
 us to go back sometimes and think the thoughts 
 of our children after them. It would hardly 
 be a less marvellous achievement than that of 
 Kepler, when, discovering the three great laws of 
 the starry heavens, he exclaimed in a transport 
 of holy awe, "I think thy thoughts after thee, 
 O God!" 
 
 For all the mother's study of the child nature, 
 whether in the Old Testament or in the precious 
 lives which God has put into her arms, must 
 bring her back to our Lord's assertion that "of 
 such," and not of the culture or the scientific 
 attainments or the works of piety of grown-up 
 
' The Old Testament and the Child 39 
 
 Christians, but of such as is the little child, is 
 the kingdom of God. Not the theologian but the 
 mother must restore the Old Testament to the 
 coming age. As the affectionate but philistine 
 championship of " our old mother's Bible " has 
 done more to undermine its authority and sus- 
 pend its use than any criticism, however destruc- 
 tive, so it is the bright and cultivated young 
 mothers of to-day, with the little children in- 
 trusted to their care, who must bring back to the 
 American people that God-consciousness which 
 is the priceless gift of the Old Testament 
 Scriptures. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 THE MORNING STORIES 
 
 IN telling Bible stories to the children, or, in 
 fact, in telling them any stories, the important 
 preliminary is to get the children's point of view. 
 Happily, this is above all things easy with the 
 Old Testament stories, because, as has been seen, 
 the child's viewpoint is precisely their view- 
 point. As the morning light of life is reflected 
 from the face of the little child, so the stories of 
 the Old Testament, especially its oldest stories, 
 which we find in Genesis, reflect the morning 
 light of the world. That blind preacher, Dr. 
 George Matheson, of Edinburgh, whose spiritual 
 insight seems to have grown brighter as the outer 
 world has grown dark around him, lately wrote, 
 perhaps with Herder's saying in mind, that 
 the Bible stories belong to the early hour of the 
 day, because they are portraits painted by the 
 morning light. Therefore, that mother is very 
 happy whose circumstances permit her to gather 
 her little ones around her in the early morning, 
 
 40 
 
The Morning Storiet 41 
 
 to give consecration and meaning to the plays 
 and the little duties and trials of the day, by 
 telling them a Bible story. Perhaps the solution 
 of the problem of family prayers may lie here, 
 especially in country homes. The hurried break- 
 fast over, and father and older children sent away 
 to business and to school, why should not the 
 mother ransom from the complicated occupations 
 of her own day, a few minutes for the spiritual 
 sunshine of the very little ones ? Happy the 
 nursery into which the consciousness of God's 
 presence comes with the morning sunlight I 
 
 Morning stories are these Old Testament stories 
 also, because of the freshness of their nature feel- 
 ing. We find this in the very first chapters of 
 Genesis, and it grows upon us in the patriarch 
 and hero tales and some of the later stories. 
 And as in all childlike natures delight in the 
 sensible world is closely allied with high spiritual 
 exaltation, so it was with the Hebrew people. 
 Clearly, it was because the childhood of this 
 people was perennial, lasting on through genera- 
 tions, that their spiritual capacity became so deep. 
 " Heaven lies about us in our infancy." To the 
 Hebrew it was ever close at hand. 1 It was no 
 strange thing to him that messengers of God came 
 
 1 1 have borrowed this and what immediately follows from my 
 " Hebrew Life and Thought." University of Chicago Press. 
 
42 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 and went familiarly between earth and that near 
 sky in which God dwelt, like the shepherd who 
 guards his sheep, spreading out the heavens as a 
 tent to dwell in. 1 It was as much in the natural 
 order as any other event of life. The Hebrew 
 had no more a conception of natural law than a 
 child has, and he received the miraculous inter- 
 ventions of God in his daily life as a child re- 
 ceived his father's gifts, not with surprise or a 
 sense of mystery, but as his way of looking after 
 the well-being of his child. 
 
 We have already seen that this is one reason 
 why the Old Testament is so important a book 
 for the child; that it puts him from the first into 
 normal relations with God. It is even more valu- 
 able to the growing boy and girl, not only as 
 a means for keeping them in these relations, but 
 also as a key to human nature and to the ways of 
 man with God. For these purposes those won- 
 der tales of the Bible which we find so impossible 
 to square with our scientific knowledge, and 
 therefore feel tempted to slur over, are most im- 
 portant. The scientific teaching of the school of 
 to-day soon brings the growing boys and girls to 
 doubt or deny the possibility of miracle, unless 
 as little children they instinctively received the 
 high spiritual impression of these wonder tales 
 1 Isaiah xl. 22. 
 
The Morning Stories 43 
 
 and have been gradually led to apprehend their 
 meaning by that " graded system " of telling 
 Bible stories presently to be described. To chil- 
 dren thus taught it will be a simple thing to ex- 
 plain the significance of miracle as they come to 
 the study of mythology in school, and about the 
 same time to the elementary study of physics. 
 It will be easy to show them that just as myth is 
 the instinctive attempt of all peoples to explain 
 the processes of nature, so with the Hebrew 
 people, who so vividly realized God in all their 
 lives, miracle was the natural way of explaining 
 those wonderful events in their own experience, 
 or in that of their nation, which were out of the 
 ordinary course of things, and for which they 
 could find no other explanation. To the youth 
 thus taught in childhood, the argument against 
 the Bible that " miracles simply do not happen " 
 will be as irrelevant as it is obviously untrue. 
 From the Hebrew point of view they do happen, 
 they happen to all of us ; and the experiences of 
 his own life are least inexplicable to the man who, 
 early acquainted with these stories which, more 
 than any others in the world's literature, give 
 a true impression of the character of God, has 
 come to understand the cardinal teaching of 
 Jesus, that he who does not receive the kingdom 
 of heaven as a little child cannot enter therein. 
 
44 Telling Bible Storiet 
 
 II 
 
 A recent writer on our present subject lays 
 rather strong emphasis on the theory that in tell- 
 ing the children Bible stories one should select 
 first those that have to do with children, begin- 
 ning with the childhood of Jesus, going on to the 
 stories of little Samuel and the boy Joseph, and 
 perhaps the young king Josiah and the Greek- 
 Hebrew boy Timothy, who knew the Scriptures 
 "from a child," and afterward taking up the 
 narratives that relate to older people. There is 
 something in the idea, for it is almost a psycho- 
 logical law that people of whatever age are chiefly 
 interested in other people of their own age. A 
 gray-haired woman is impressed if not solaced by 
 observing that nearly all the women she meets are 
 becoming gray; young girls can give every detail 
 of the dress of the girls they meet ; and young 
 matrons are naturally drawn to the matrons of 
 their own standing. Especially is this the case 
 with the child. In the company of a score of 
 people the two who are children, even though 
 strangers to one another, will be oblivious of the 
 presence of any persons except their two little 
 selves. So far as this is true the method proposed 
 might be of value I am not sure that it would 
 
The Morning Stories 45 
 
 be if the Bible actually were, as many are 
 gravely insisting, simply a book like other books; 
 but its character as the sacred literature of a 
 child people precludes the necessity of this prin- 
 ciple of selection. All the stories are indeed not 
 equally well adapted to children of various ages, 
 but the test of their suitability is certainly not 
 the age of the hero of any one of them. In fact, 
 generations of experience have established the 
 contention that no stories between the covers of 
 the Bible make such quick appeal to the very 
 little child as those which we find in the early 
 chapters of the book of Genesis, those "morning 
 stories," which we have now to consider. 
 
 To the thoughtful reader, who has penetrated 
 the almost unfathomable religious and theological 
 meaning of these stories, this must be a matter of 
 surprise, unless he also apprehends their literary 
 character, the literary class to which they belong. 
 For assuredly, no child mind can possibly fathom 
 to their depths the theological and psychological 
 meaning of these narratives. No child mind could 
 apprehend anything of their meaning were it not 
 clothed in precisely the form of that class of 
 stories which most strongly appeals to him, 
 the form, that is, of folk-lore. 
 
 Let not the word awaken surprise or arrest of 
 sympathy. A moment's consideration will show 
 
46 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 us that these stories must at least have been folk- 
 lore at one time, for, at whatever date they were 
 written, they must in the nature of things have 
 been, either a pure invention of the writer, or else 
 stories handed down from lip to lip. They cer- 
 tainly must have been thus handed down for many 
 hundreds of years before Moses, if he it was, or 
 any one else, committed them to paper, and this 
 is folk-lore. Even a superficial study must show 
 that they are folk-lore still. 1 
 
 As one who tells Bible stories to a child must 
 
 1 An illustration of the development of folk-lore from tradi- 
 tion is given by a comparison of the canonical with the Apocry- 
 phal Gospels. The first three Gospels in the New Testament 
 give unmistakable evidence of being based upon a widespread 
 and carefully formulated oral account of the sayings and doings 
 of Christ. They were committed to writing (writing being 
 then a commonly practised art) before these memories of Jesus 
 had degenerated into fanciful legend. How fanciful were the 
 legends into which oral traditions did degenerate in regions 
 to which the canonical Gospels did not early penetrate, is made 
 interestingly evident in a recent publication, "The Apocryphal 
 and Legendary Life of Christ," by J. de Q. Donehoo (Mac- 
 millan) . In it are woven together, in a series of consecutive 
 chapters, all that can now be rescued of widely accepted stories 
 about Jesus, current in the early centuries in regions into which 
 the authorized Gospels were slow to penetrate. In most cases 
 they were kept from actually becoming folk-lore by the event- 
 ual dissemination and the intrinsic authority of the Gospels. 
 How near they came to becoming folk-lore, the history of 
 Christian art makes clear. 
 
The Morning Stories 47 
 
 for the time being see things as a child sees them, 
 must think, if I may use the expression, with the 
 heart of a child, so it is of no less vital importance 
 to beware of reading into these stories anything 
 which the child will one day have to unlearn. L 
 Not that we should practise what our Roman 
 Catholic brethren call "the economy of truth. " 
 On the contrary, we should above all things take 
 care to be profoundly and unswervingly truthful ; 
 but we should not attempt to teach a little child 
 all the deep significance of any of these narratives. 
 We should simply tell the stories, taking especial 
 care not to weave into them anything that is not 
 there, while we delay till a more mature age the 
 task of unfolding to them much that our maturer 
 experience and study have shown to be there. 
 Telling Bible stories, as has already been sug- 
 gested, must be to some extent a graded system, 
 and it is the purpose of this book to show how 
 largely a graded system of story telling may be 
 made to subserve the spiritual development of the 
 boy and girl. And it is to develop them spirit- - 
 ually, not to store their intellects, that we tell 
 them Bible stories. 
 
 To the very little child the story should simply 
 be told as the folk-tale that it is, with no thought 
 of whether it is or is not true, or in what sense it 
 is true, or what it means. Tp my mind it is a 
 
48 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 great error, which does not in the least meet the 
 true requirements of criticism, even supposing that 
 criticism had anything to do with the children's 
 Biblical knowledge, to treat the early narratives 
 of Genesis as Professor Bennett has done is his 
 otherwise valuable book, " Bible Stories retold for 
 Children." He begins where most conservative as 
 well as all advanced scholars agree that authentic 
 history begins, with the Exodus ; and at the close 
 of the history he adds a chapter of the early narra- 
 tives of Genesis as " some of the stories which had 
 been handed down from the ancients." But this 
 method robs these stories of their most precious 
 character. There is far more in them than in 
 ordinary folk-lore, and their meaning is of another 
 order. The tiny child has no use for the mean- 
 ing of either. Let him hear the Bible stories as 
 he hears fairy tales and nursery rhymes and " Uncle 
 Remus " and Tennyson. He will feel the difference, 
 because God is in all these and not in those, not 
 even in poetry as it is in these stories, and his 
 soul spontaneously rushes forth to meet God wher- 
 ever he finds him. The mischief is not in giving 
 him these stories in his earliest years as true, but 
 in not showing him what is their truth, as he 
 becomes able to receive it. It is essential that 
 they should become familiar stories, a part of his 
 mental make-up, before he is old enough for the 
 
The Morning Storit* 49 
 
 interpretation. When he has heard a story so 
 often that every detail is perfectly familiar to 
 him, when he " knows it by heart," in the best 
 sense of the words, then, when he is about five 
 years old, one may begin to unfold to him its 
 marvellous meaning. And this unfolding may 
 be a gradual process, lasting over years of the 
 child's life, and making the story more wonderful 
 and interesting as years go on. Thus he will be 
 prepared to learn, at the proper age, how the story 
 came to be what it is, and why, and thus, side by 
 side with his growing apprehension of God, and 
 of his own relation to God, he will by degrees 
 learn something of the true character of the Bible 
 as a revelation of God. And thus the mother 
 may avoid that very easy, and alas ! very dis- 
 astrous mistake of giving the child a false notion 
 of what the Bible is as revelation. Revelation is 
 certainly not a communication of facts otherwise 
 not discoverable by human intelligence, though so 
 enlightened and thoughtful a man as Dr. Horton 
 of London did say so. l It is rather a communi- 
 cation of the Spirit of God 2 ; and the earlier 
 we make our children understand this, the more 
 rewarding will be our own work with them. 
 I have already quoted Matthew Arnold as saying 
 
 1 " Revelation and the Bible," by R. F. Horton, D.D. 
 * Edmond Stapler. 
 
50 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 that the Bible is pervaded by a noble sense of 
 righteousness and an intense belief in the reality 
 of a moral order in the world. This is particu- 
 larly the case in the earliest narratives in Genesis, 
 our "morning stories." If we can make the chil- 
 dren early understand the truth about the Bible, 
 they will be in no danger of making a fetich of it, 
 on the one hand, nor, on the other, of committing 
 the capital blunder of supposing that truth is 
 identical with fact, and hazarding their confidence 
 in the Bible with every new discovery of advancing 
 science. 
 
 Matthew Arnold gave an important clue to the 
 character of the Old Testament when he said that 
 with the Hebrews, as shown in all its pages, re- 
 ligion was not a part but the whole of life. This 
 explains St. Paul's charge against the heathen, 
 that God was not in all their thoughts. That He 
 was in some of them, had some part in their life, 
 was not to be disputed, but this did not suffice. 
 All life, to the Hebrew, was religious, and it is 
 this point of view that makes the Old Testament 
 so valuable a book for children. When we come 
 to discover in it not only poetry and prophecy, 
 parable and proverb, but humor and sarcasm, pun 
 and fable, yes, and fiction and folk-lore and myth, 
 for all these are in the Old Testament, then 
 we must perceive that it was just because God 
 
The Morning Stories 51 
 
 was in all the thoughts of the Hebrew writers 
 that they found no incongruity in bringing all 
 sorts of things into Scripture. The superior and 
 unique religious value of the Old Testament over 
 the religious books of other nations, however 
 advanced in thought and aspiration, is not that 
 certain things are excluded from it, the more 
 we study it the more amazed we become on finding 
 that nothing is excluded from it, but that God 
 is everywhere in it, whatever may be the literary 
 form in which the thought of God is clothed. 
 The Hebrew muse, as a French writer 1 says, is 
 always religious. Moses the first poet is brother 
 of Aaron the first priest. 
 
 The first eleven chapters of Genesis contain a 
 series of most valuable stories. They are not his- 
 tory, and the great difficulty with the theology of 
 all churches is that they have been read and 
 explained as history, the theologians of the early 
 Church not having apprehended the value of the 
 story as a means of imparting religious truth. It 
 would seem as if they might have learned it, not 
 only from our Lord, but from the prophets, from 
 Nathan down. Many modern writers have made 
 this discovery, notably Dr. Henry van Dyke, in 
 his Christmas story of " The Other Wise Man," 
 included in the volume entitled " The Blue 
 1 Plantin. 
 
52 Telling Bible Storie* 
 
 Flower." But the early stories of Genesis are 
 supremely valuable to this end, because it was 
 the special function of Israel 1 "to set forth a 
 knowledge of the righteous action of a righteous 
 God and of the right human attitude to Him." 
 These narratives show God active in the natural 
 world, in the world of human action, and in each 
 soul of man; and though it is certain that those 
 who handed down these tales did not understand 
 God as the prophets and our Lord Jesus Christ 
 understood Him, yet it was the same God, and not 
 another, whom they knew. And we must bear 
 in mind, especially in teaching the children, that 
 it is God, not the Bible, who is the object of our 
 faith. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Genesis ii. 4 b 25 
 
 Let us open the Bible at the second chapter of 
 Genesis, leaving the first for a later moment, and 
 imagine ourselves telling a child of three years 
 the story which begins with the second part of 
 verse four. In telling it we remember that a story 
 is not history, and that the difference between 
 them is not that one may be fictitious and the 
 other is true, but that the one appeals to tha 
 1 Henry Osborn Taylor, " Ancient Ideals." 
 
o we 
 tell- I 
 It 
 
 The Morning Storie* 53 
 
 imagination and the emotions and the other to 
 the sense of record and of scientific explanation, 
 not yet awake in the child's mind, though soon 
 to awaken there. Evidently, therefore, the ques- 
 tion whether or not the story is true is not at all 
 to the point. The point with any story, true or 
 fictitious, as Dr. Sanders has said, is, What do we 
 get out of it? Is it a good story and worth the 
 ing ? This Genesis story surely meets the test 
 is a good story. It would be difficult to find or 
 invent any story with a wider horizon, one more 
 enlarging to the little mind, or which more beauti- 
 fully sets the constructive imagination at work. 
 As we all know, it is the story of the creation of 
 man, or, as some writer has called it, 
 
 THE STORY OF THE FIRST-BO EN 
 
 Once upon a time this world in which we live 
 was not like what it is now. There were no grass 
 or trees or flowers. There was nobody living on 
 the earth to take care of the grass and the flowers. 
 There had never been any rain to make the 
 flowers grow. Then God made a soft warm mist 
 to come, just as it comes now sometimes, in the 
 summer mornings. And the mist made the 
 ground soft and warm, so that the little seeds 
 could grow. For God had hidden away many 
 
54 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 little seeds in the earth, and they were waiting 
 till He sent His mist to call them to spring up 
 and make grass and flowers. 
 
 Now God loved the grass and flowers that were 
 going to grow up from the seeds, and He didn't 
 want them to grow untended; so He took some 
 dust of the earth and made a man, and He breathed 
 into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became 
 a living soul. And the man was God's dear 
 child, because God had breathed a soul into him. 
 Every little child and every grown person has a 
 soul, and so we are all God's dear children. 
 
 Then God made a beautiful garden, to be a 
 lovely home for that man. There was a great 
 river flowing through the garden to keep it fresh 
 and cool, and the garden was full of trees and 
 flowers and plants, pleasant to the sight and good 
 for food. And the tree of life was in that gar- 
 den, and the tree of the knowledge of good and 
 evil. God used to come to that garden to be with 
 the man, and the man was very happy, taking 
 care of the grass and the flowers and the trees, 
 and talking with his father, God. He ate the 
 fruit that grew in the garden. He might eat any 
 kind of fruit he liked, except that which grew on 
 one tree. That was the tree of the knowledge of 
 good and evil. God had told him not to eat any 
 of its fruit, for He wanted to teach him to obey. 
 
The Morning Stories 55 
 
 The man did not want to eat the fruit of the 
 knowledge-of-good-and-evil tree, for he loved to 
 obey his father, God. 
 
 But the man was alone in that garden, and God 
 said, " It is not good that the man should be alone, 
 I will make a help-mate for him." So first of all 
 God made the beasts, cows and horses and dogs 
 and cats and all the animals, and He brought 
 them to the man and asked him to name them, 
 for God likes to have us help Him, just as mother 
 likes to have you help her. The man's name was 
 Adam. So Adam got acquainted with all the 
 animals and he gave them all names, just as you 
 name kitty and doggy and the horse and the 
 chickens sometimes, and the birds that you like 
 best. Adam must have been glad to have the 
 animals near him in the lovely garden. 
 
 And yet Adam sometimes wished for somebody 
 else to be with him besides the cow or the horse. 
 Even the kitty and the dog did not always satisfy 
 him ; he wanted God to give him some one like 
 himself to live with him, just as you want God to 
 send you a baby sister or brother. 
 
 One day God made the man fall sound asleep, 
 so sound asleep that he did not know what was 
 happening. Then God took a part of Adam's side, 
 one of his ribs, and made a woman of that rib. 
 When Adam waked up there was the woman God 
 
56 Telling Bible Storie* 
 
 had made to be with him ! Do you not think 
 Adam must have been glad to see her? And 
 when he knew that this woman was a part of his 
 very own self, and a child of God, just as he was, 
 he loved her very much. He said, " She is bone 
 of my bone and flesh of my flesh ! " No creature 
 could be nearer and dearer to him than that. 
 Adam was very glad to have the woman to be 
 his true companion, just as your little brother or 
 sister is more truly your companion than doggy 
 or kitty. Adam called the woman Eve, and 
 Adam and Eve lived together in that beautiful 
 garden. They were very happy, for they loved 
 to take care of the garden, and they loved one 
 another, and they loved God. 
 
 Such a story as this may be told to the young- 
 est child that understands language, and its little 
 soul will be filled with beautiful imaginings upon 
 which it may feed for all time to come, and which 
 will never need to be revised or corrected. For 
 though it will later learn in school some things 
 which are not in this story about the origin of the 
 physical earth and of man, it will learn nothing 
 which contradicts this story, which is a true story 
 though not a narrative of fact. By this one 
 story, oft and oft repeated, as the child demands 
 that every story should be, its little mind comet 
 
The Morning Storie* 5T 
 
 to grasp great fundamental truths : that every- 
 thing that goes on in this world is due to the 
 initiative and the continued interest of God ; 
 that the loving sympathy of God extends even to 
 inanimate nature, of which trees and grass and 
 flowers are a symbol ; that man is in a special 
 sense a child of God ; that God loves to have, 
 and in a sense needs, his help ; that people are 
 bound together in peculiarly dear relations be- 
 cause they are all children of God. The creative 
 power of God, His providence as the expression 
 of His being, which is love, the filial relation of 
 man to his Maker, and the solidarity of the human 
 race are all unfolded in this little folk-tale which 
 a very baby enjoys. Have we not here all the 
 framework that is needed for the larger and ever 
 larger instruction of the growing child ? Within 
 this framework no truth of physical science, of 
 theology, or of social ethics need find itself 
 cramped or contradicted. 
 
 Who can imagine a more delightful exercise 
 than that of gradually unfolding to the eager, 
 unspoiled mind of the growing boy or girl the 
 great truths that lie here in embryo ? So doing, 
 the mother will never make the mistake of teach- 
 ing her child that this story is a narrative of his- 
 toric fact which he must believe, or reject the 
 authority of the Bible. The great truths which 
 
58 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 it embodies have overshadowed the relatively 
 trivial question of fact, and there will be no diffi- 
 culty in admitting to the boy that which he will, 
 instinctively have perceived, that its charactei 
 and its construction show it to be an old folk- 
 tale, told by mothers to their children and by 
 heads of clans to their followers for generations 
 before the art of writing came into existence. 
 
 Happily, this account of creation in the second 
 chapter of Genesis has never been made a matter 
 of orthodox belief. It fundamentally differs from 
 the first chapter in its conception of creation, as I 
 am sure the reader has perceived, perhaps for the 
 first time. The first chapter, besides its vantage 
 of position, is so marvellous a piece of literature, 
 so grand in its diction, so profound in its sim- 
 plicity, that it must almost inevitably have 
 crowded the other story out from the field of 
 vision as a narrative of creation. My readers 
 were probably taught in Sunday-school that the 
 second chapter is an amplification of some parts of 
 the first, but it is hardly necessary here to con- 
 travene such a statement. Not only is the exist- 
 ence of the world taken for granted in the second 
 chapter, not viewed as called into being by the 
 creative word of God, as in the first, but the origi- 
 nal earth is conceived of as dry and waterless, not 
 a chaotic mass of waters; man is created before 
 
The Morning Stories 59 
 
 the animals and even before vegetation, and he is 
 not created male and female, as in the first chap- 
 ter, but man alone, and woman made from himself 
 to be his companion, only after he has found the 
 companionship of the animals inadequate to make 
 him happy. What more impressive protest could 
 possibly have been given to man against regard- 
 ing woman as a mere beast of burden and minister 
 to gratification ? What more impressive teaching 
 can be ingrained in the consciousness of the de- 
 veloping boy ? " Something better than his dog, 
 a little dearer than his horse " ? Nay, but a little 
 lower than the angels, as let man never forget 
 that he himself was made. Let no one who 
 tells Bible stories stultify the child's intelligence 
 by confusing these clear distinctions or defraud 
 his moral sense by ignoring these far-reaching 
 implications. 
 
 IV 
 
 Genesis i. 1 ii. 4 
 
 The consummate value of the first chapter of 
 Genesis is entirely other than that of any subse- 
 quent story in these first eleven chapters, and it 
 appeals to a different set of powers in the child's 
 mind. Yet there is no reason why this chapter 
 should not be told to the very youngest children, 
 
60 Telling Bible Storie* 
 
 if only it is told as another story, and no attempt 
 is made to weave the two into one. In fact it is 
 another story. It is difficult to conceive of a 
 grander appeal to the child's noblest possession, 
 the faculty of constructive imagery, than that of 
 the first two verses of this chapter, God inde- 
 pendent of all things, God creating all things, not 
 by a majestic word, but by long loving brooding 
 over these primal elements which he has called 
 into being. There is room in this story for that 
 evolutionary hypothesis which is now generally 
 accepted, and which, however much it may and 
 doubtless will be modified with the progress of 
 thought and discovery, will probably persist in its 
 fundamental elements. And I know two little 
 children four years old, whose eyes sparkle and 
 grow dark, and whose breath draws deep, as they 
 tell how once upon a time every place and every 
 place all through the sky was full of star dust, 
 and how God set it whirling and whirling until 
 first one round world whirled off and went dancing 
 along the path that God had bidden it follow, and 
 then another and another and another, until all the 
 sky was full of whirling worlds, all dancing along 
 in the paths God bade them follow. And how one 
 of these whirling worlds was going to be this world 
 that we live in, and how God's Spirit brooded over 
 it as the mother bird broods over her nest, until 
 
The Morning Storie* 61 
 
 it was made ready to be a world that animals 
 and people could live in. And the children go 
 through all the six creation days, describing one 
 by one the marvellous things that happened at the 
 word of God, and God saw that they were all 
 good. And so the heavens and the earth were 
 finished, and God appointed a day of rest. This 
 is why we have our happy Sundays, when we may 
 think about God more than we do on any other 
 day, because we are resting from our everyday 
 plays, just as He rested when He had finished mak- 
 ing all the worlds and the sun and the stars and 
 the animals and people. 
 
 Such large, such infinite conceptions are not too 
 large for the soul of the baby girl and boy, because 
 God has put eternity in their heart. It is almost 
 inconceivable the wrong parents do their children 
 when they try to pin the story down to scientific 
 statement, and say precisely thus and thus, in six 
 days, from Monday to Saturday, was the world 
 made. The children will learn something of 
 science when they go to school, and will soon tell 
 their mother that they know better than that. 
 But in fact there is no controversy between science 
 and this chapter, simply because this chapter has no 
 more to do with science than any other poem has 
 
 The spacious firmament on high, 
 Witif all the blue ethereal sky, 
 
62 Telling Bible Storie* 
 
 And spangled heavens, a shining framt, 
 Their great Original proclaim. 
 
 In fact, there is no firmament, there is no blue 
 sky, there are no spangled heavens ; but was Addi- 
 son wrong ? Does not what we see when we look 
 upward though indeed there is no upward 
 speak to us of God ? The purpose of this chapter 
 is not to show the process of creation but to show 
 God. When the attention is directed to the right 
 things in this account, it no more offends the scien- 
 tific sense than it offended the devout heart before 
 the day of science. 
 
 No, rather, let the child be prepared, as his mind 
 expands, for perceiving that the rudimentary science 
 of his " First Book " has no controversy with his 
 religion, that is, his apprehension of God and of 
 God's relations with the world, by being told 
 precisely what is the case with regard to the first 
 chapter of Genesis, and how it came to be put as 
 the magnificent prologue to this Bible which we 
 truly call the Word of God. The chapter is a 
 great canticle of praise, the song of God and the 
 universe. Those expressions that prosaic people 
 have taken to be scientific are pure poetry. Doubt- 
 less they are the honest expression of the beliefs of 
 the people of a time before science was. In those 
 days not the Hebrews only, but all thinkers, be- 
 lieved that there was a firmament, a solid arch 
 
The Morning Stories 63 
 
 between the earth and the sky, keeping "the waters 
 which were under the firmament from the waters 
 which were above the firmament," preventing the 
 upper floods from falling down and inundating the 
 earth. This is what the writer of the story of 
 Noah believed, and he adds to our knowledge of 
 what ancient peoples actually thought the firma- 
 ment to be, for he evidently pictured it as full of 
 windows, which God opened when he sent rain. 
 There is much of this conception in the Old 
 Testament. The psalmist refers to the experience 
 of Israel in the wilderness, when God opened the 
 doors of heaven and rained down manna upon them. l 
 He also refers to the waters that are above the 
 heavens, that is, the firmament, 2 and again he says 
 that God watereth the hills from his chambers, the 
 beams of which are laid in the waters that are above 
 the firmament. 3 Job tells about a watercourse, or 
 sluiceway, by which the overflowing of the waters 
 pour down upon the earth in rain. 4 These are a 
 far nobler conception than that of the early Greeks, 
 who thought that the firmament was full of holes, 
 like a sieve, and that the daughters of Danseus, 
 trying to draw water in it, continually let some 
 spill through upon the earth. The writer of the 
 book of Job, on the other hand, believed the firma- 
 
 i Ps. Ixxviii. 23, 24. 2 Ps. cxlviii. 4. 
 
 * Ps. civ. 13, 3. * Job xxxviii. 26. 
 
64 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 ment to be strong glass, " as a molten looking 
 glass " * stretched over the earth and held up by 
 the high mountains, as by pillars. 2 The prophet 
 Jeremiah thought of the firmament as something 
 stretched out by the discretion of God, 3 or, as he 
 says in another place, by His understanding, 4 and 
 the Revised Version shows us that Amos had the 
 same idea as the author of Job. 5 None of these 
 writers knew anything of science; the writer of 
 this canticle was concerned only to make the ideas 
 that he and all the world held tell the story of God. 
 And in this splendid poem they do tell that story : 
 they show God as one, while to other peoples He 
 seemed to be many; they show Him as loving man, 
 where as other peoples believed their gods to be 
 jealous of man ; they show Him as creating the 
 world to be the congenial environment in which 
 man could grow to be more and more like God. 
 
 There will be no need to tell the child that this 
 chapter is not folk-lore like the other story. He 
 felt the difference, as he felt the difference be- 
 tween the stories of when mother was a little 
 girl and those in his book of fairy tales, both of 
 which he found equally, but differently, convinc- 
 ing. Explain to him as he grows older he will 
 read it soon on the first page of his ancient his 
 
 * Job xxiYii. 18. 2 Job xxvi. 11. * Jer. x. 12. 
 
 * Jer. li. 16. Amos ix. 6, R.V. 
 
The Morning Stories 65 
 
 tory that all peoples of the world have their 
 stories of how the world was made, and tell him 
 some of them, that he may see how essentially 
 they differ from this one, though in many things 
 they may agree. Tell him then the Assyrian 
 story of creation, which if you do not already 
 know it, you may find in the Biblical Encyclo- 
 pedia ; you will hardly need to show him how 
 like this it is and yet how unlike. Tell him that 
 the Assyrian story is very old ; that it was written 
 in a great epic poem, like Homer's Iliad, which 
 his brother or sister or the boys in the high school 
 are studying ; and that educated people all over 
 the world in ancient days studied it, as they now 
 study Homer, and believed it to be the best pos- 
 sible conception of the creation better than that 
 of the Egyptians or the desert tribes or the black 
 people. And yet the people of Israel were not 
 satisfied with it, because it told of many gods, 
 and of their bad actions, their quarrels and fight- 
 ings, and it taught that the gods sprang out of 
 the world, whereas Israel believed that there was 
 only one God, and that He was perfectly good and 
 holy and strong, and that He made the world, 
 instead of Himself springing out of the world. 
 And so some gifted Israelite, no one knows who, 
 wrote this great poem, the Song of God and the 
 Universe. He drew his ideas of the order of 
 
66 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 creation from the great Assyrian epic, which prob- 
 ably Abraham had studied in school before he 
 left Assyria to go to Canaan. He followed it in 
 this respect, for no one knew any better science 
 then ; but he left out all those wrong ideas about 
 the gods and how the world was made, putting 
 in true ideas about the one God, the Creator of 
 heaven and earth, and the Father of the souls of 
 men. 
 
 Nothing of all this is beyond the comprehension 
 or outside the interest of the growing boy, initi- 
 ated almost from his first school days into the 
 mythology of Greece and the Norse folk and the 
 rudiments of popular science. And this marvel- 
 lous poem having been thus explained to him, 
 before he has been taught that science contradicts 
 the first chapter of Genesis, his faith will no more 
 be shaken by such teaching when it comes, nor 
 the chapter robbed of its thrilling appeal to his 
 highest and deepest nature, than any other poem 
 will be robbed of its interest, or his "Aladdin" 
 and wonder tales be made by his science book good 
 for nothing but to be thrown away. I am not 
 putting the Old Testament stories on a par with 
 " Aladdin " and the wonder tales ; I am only say- 
 ing that as regards physical science they are in 
 the same category of entire aloofness, being 
 utterly unrelated to it. And therefore, the scoff- 
 
The Morning Stories 67 
 
 ing teacher, or the superficial book that may 
 some day tell the boy that his religion, or the 
 authority of the Bible, " stands or falls " with his 
 ability to reconcile geology and Genesis, will be 
 to him as the prince of this world was to our 
 Lord when he approached Him, finding " nothing 
 in Him " to which to make an appeal. 
 
 The first chapter of Genesis, seen from this 
 historic and literary point of view, gives the 
 right key to all the other stories of these eleven 
 chapters, the reason why we find them in the 
 Bible. However far back discovery may carry 
 the arts of reading and writing, archeology 
 teaches us that for many generations, probably 
 for thousands of years, while people were think- 
 ing on all sorts of subjects, there were yet no 
 means for recording the product of their activity, 
 or at least for disseminating it among the people, 
 except in the memory, by stories passed down 
 through generations on the lips of those who 
 heard them. We certainly know from study of the 
 North American Indians and other primitive folk, 
 and from the mythologies of all peoples, that all 
 this time the minds of men were tremendously oc- 
 cupied with the mysteries of life and the mysteries 
 of nature. What makes the sun disappear in the 
 evening ? A dragon has swallowed it. How does 
 it come back every morning? A god has pierced 
 
68 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 the dragon, and set it free. What makes the wind 
 blow? A god is shaking the trees. What makes 
 the sky so beautiful in the morning? A goddess 
 paints the clouds. Why do people die and leave 
 us ? The gods are jealous of our happiness, or the 
 people have done some wrong that must be pun- 
 ished. Why does winter come after summer? 
 The dreadful god of the underworld has carried 
 away the fair daughter of the goddess who makes 
 the corn grow, and she has gone to seek her. And 
 so on and on, through the whole cycle of nature 
 and of human life. 
 
 These answers we call mythology, and that there 
 is no primitive people, however benighted, without 
 its mythology, however rude, proves that there is 
 no mind so densely ignorant as not to occupy itself 
 in some degree with these dark mysteries. We 
 may be sure that the early clans and tribes who 
 later formed the people Israel were not different 
 from others in this respect. They differed from 
 others, however, in just this : that for the blessing 
 of the world they had been inspired with a mar- 
 vellous and unique God-consciousness, and they 
 were therefore far more interested and perplexed 
 by the moral and social problems of the world than 
 by its nature mysteries. Whence came sin ? Why 
 are crimes against life and property crimes ? What 
 is the true relation between man and man ? Whence 
 
The Morning Stories 69 
 
 came the universal law of blood revenge? How 
 arose the tremendous inconvenience of various 
 languages? How came there to be various 
 peoples in the world ? Why do good men die ? 
 These problems they attempted to solve, not by 
 nature myths but by historic stories, moulding and 
 remoulding the folk tales that they received from 
 father and transmitted to son as their ideas of 
 God and of human relations became clearer. 
 Doubtless there were scores of these folk tales, 
 problem stories as we may properly call them ; 
 and whether the few selected from among the 
 wealth of Israel's folk-lore for the first eleven 
 chapters of Genesis were reworked by the writer 
 of the book or incorporated in it as they came to 
 him is a matter of importance for anthropology 
 and psychology, but is of no moment for the 
 children. 
 
 This question of folk-lore in the Old Testament 
 is of great importance for the interpretation not 
 only of Genesis but of certain Psalms and of the 
 prophets. The perspicacious reader will find in 
 them much evidence that the minds of even the 
 later writers were saturated with this old folk- 
 lore, just as the minds of cultivated people of 
 
70 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 to-day are saturated with the classics of Greece 
 and Rome and of their own language ; and more 
 than one disputed theological dogma, more than 
 one mistaken view of the past and the future, is 
 due to failure to discriminate between the literary 
 use of these old ideas and direct religious teaching. 
 Other parts of the Old Testament show that 
 the minds of the Hebrew writers were greatly 
 occupied with the mystery of creation. To them 
 it was a subject of special interest, because accord- 
 ing to their view the history of Israel, the chosen 
 race, began with the creation, God having had 
 Israel in His mind when He began to create the 
 universe. Again and again they recur to the 
 subject, and with no care to make their accounts 
 square with either the first or the second chapter of 
 Genesis. There is a very sublime and most poeti- 
 cal account of creation in Proverbs viii. 22-31, 
 in which the heavenly wisdom is represented as 
 being with God during the creation period, "re- 
 joicing always before him " while the work was 
 going on, and (as a more accurate translation 
 makes it) "sporting in the habitable part of the 
 earth," those parts that He had finished. This 
 account contains allusions to ancient myth, from 
 which the first chapter of Genesis is remarkably 
 free : the " circle upon the face of the depth " is 
 the rim or barrier which the ancients supposed to 
 
The Morning Stories 71 
 
 encompass the flat disk of the world to keep the 
 ocean from spilling off ; and there is a clear refer- 
 ence to the pillars upon which many peoples be- 
 lieved the earth to be founded. A creation story 
 in Job 1 speaks not only of the bounds with 
 which the waters are compassed, but also of the 
 " crooked serpent " ; that is, the dragon which 
 every evening swallowed the sun. In this ac- 
 count, along with these mythical ideas, is the 
 sublime conception of the earth hanging upon 
 nothing, to which the concrete Hebrew mind must 
 with great difficulty have attained. More com- 
 monly, with thinkers of other ancient nations, the 
 Old Testament writers conceive of the earth as 
 resting upon something, or "founded upon the 
 seas and established upon the floods." 2 There is 
 in the One Hundred and Fourth Psalm a descrip- 
 tion of creation of exquisite beauty, which not only 
 refers to " the foundations of the earth that it be 
 not removed forever," but contains an extremely 
 picturesque description of the dividing of the 
 waters, entirely different from Genesis i. 
 
 The same feeling of the necessity of keeping 
 the sea in its place appears in the book of Job, in 
 a magnificent poem of creation, represented as 
 uttered by God himself. 3 The passage is very 
 clearly poetic ; it is one of the most sublime 
 i Jcb xxvi. 7-14. 2 p s> xxiv< 2 . Job xxxviii. 
 
72 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 poems in all literature, and if the mothers of past 
 generations, like the mother of Ruskin, had caused 
 their children to commit it to memory, the first 
 chapter of Genesis would never have been set up 
 as the norm of the creation idea, and the world 
 would have been saved an incalculable amount of 
 controversy. 
 
 These creation stories are not for the youngest 
 children, as the first two chapters of Genesis are. 
 It is as they grow older, and have begun to com- 
 mit poetry to memory, and are studying myth- 
 ology in school, that the mother should direct 
 their attention to these poems in Job and the 
 Psalms. This is the time for the children to 
 know them, not only because of their sublime 
 language and grand sweep of vision, but also be- 
 cause through them they will gradually perceive 
 the true purpose of the creation stories of Genesis, 
 which they have known since before they can 
 remember. To know God is the beginning of 
 wisdom as well as eternal life, and all these crea- 
 tion stories most effectively reveal God. 
 
 VI 
 
 But they have also another value, immensely 
 practical, for the young people of college years, 
 when they begin to study philosophy. To mosfc 
 
The Morning Stories 73 
 
 young people the first effect of this study is 
 extremely disturbing to the mind. It is the first 
 summons that calls them to think abstractly, 
 and outside of the lines in which their minds have 
 hitherto worked. Nothing can possibly be a 
 better preparation for such a course of study than 
 those thoughts of God and of His relation to the 
 universe which these stories embody, provided 
 that as children they have been encouraged to 
 think in freedom and to exercise their minds upon 
 the subject in the various aspects presented by the 
 various accounts. For in them all God is shown 
 to be entirely independent of matter, and yet the 
 very soul and living principle of matter. Neither 
 identified with matter nor confused with it as if 
 material things were an emanation from Him, in 
 all these accounts, however various, God is shown 
 as bringing matter into being by His creative 
 word, and controlling it by an active exercise of 
 will. He speaks and it is done ; he commands 
 and it stands fast. The mother need not try to 
 explain all this to her grown children in terms of 
 the schools. Doubtless they will prove to be more 
 at home in such language than she. But if all 
 these stories, and their true significance, have 
 long been a part of the young people's mind-stuff, 
 she will now perceive that nothing in all their 
 education has been as accurately calculated to give 
 
74 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 them a clear conception of unseen things, a sound 
 basis for that collegiate study of philosophy, which 
 is so often unsettling to the faith of the student. 
 The ideas inherent in and common to all these 
 creation accounts, first presented to the mind in 
 early childhood, and permitted to develop freely 
 in the expanding intellect, will prove their best 
 safeguard in those bitter-sweet years when the 
 children are passing out from the shelter of their 
 mother's thought, their mother's faith, and com- 
 pelled to formulate their own thought and to 
 attain to a faith of their own. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 MORE MORNING STORIES 
 
 Genesis iii. 
 
 I 
 
 OF all the problems which have exercised the 
 mind of thoughtful man, the problem of sin is the 
 darkest and most perplexing. It is therefore no 
 matter of surprise that an attempt of the Hebrew 
 people to explain this pivotal problem of human 
 life, in the mythical way in which all problems 
 were first explained, should find an early place in 
 Genesis. The story contained in the third chap- 
 ter, commonly called " The Story of Paradise and 
 the Fall," has indeed a far deeper meaning than has 
 usually been found in it. A title more profoundly 
 expressing its purpose is "The Story of Man's 
 Separation from God," for its essential motive is 
 to explain this problem which underlies the other, 
 since when we realize the presence of God we do 
 not sin. It is the answer to the question, How 
 came it about that we human beings, made in the 
 image of God, with a God-breathed soul, dear to 
 Him, therefore, as His children, cannot always live 
 
 75 
 
76 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 in constant, visible fellowship with Him ? It would 
 be so easy in that case to be good ! And surely 
 that must be the normal, the natural life for 
 beings whose souls are an inbreathing of God ! 
 
 With the problem of sin, as a problem, the little 
 child has nothing to do, but at an earlier age than 
 the mother deems possible, he has wondered why 
 he cannot see God and hear Him speak. This 
 story of " The Separation of Man from God " tells 
 him why. 
 
 For intrinsic reasons it is a beautiful story to 
 tell the little child. It makes immense appeal not 
 only to his constructive imagination, but also to 
 his faculties of awe and love, and to his sense 
 of right and wrong. It is one of the most 
 thoroughly symbolic of all the stories in the Bible, 
 and for this reason also it is a beautiful story to 
 tell the children. For the same reason it is of 
 tremendous importance that as we tell it to them 
 as their very first lesson in practical ethics, we 
 read into it nothing that is not there upon the 
 surface. The story is itself so exquisitely adapted 
 to the early mental processes of a child, that to 
 force it into the service of any theological inter- 
 pretation is the worst sort of philistinism. But 
 let the mother be most sensitive to all that is in 
 this brief but marvellously pregnant story. For 
 example, it was not the voice of God, calling His 
 
More Morning Stories 77 
 
 naughty children, that made them shrink away to 
 hide among the trees, and try somehow to cover 
 themselves with aprons of leaves. It was simply 
 the sound of His footsteps, walking in His garden 
 as He was wont to do, in the cool of the day, that 
 terrified the disobedient pair. To prepare herself 
 for telling any Bible story, the mother needs to 
 read carefully the simple words. 
 
 In the nature of things the tree of the knowl- 
 edge of good and evil, the tree of life, the serpent, 
 are symbolical, if we say not, mythical. But this 
 concerns the little child only as he instinctively 
 feels in the symbol the thing symbolized, and pre- 
 cisely for this reason. The story is all idyllic 
 freshness and beauty until the tragedy comes, and 
 still it is idyllic, as God comes to walk in the 
 garden in the cool of the day, and for the first 
 time His footsteps startle His children into terror 
 instead of awakening joy and glad response, as till 
 then had always been the case. Evidently we are 
 expected to picture to ourselves that until this sad 
 evening Adam and Eve had always run joyfully 
 to meet God when they heard Him walking in His 
 garden, just as children run to meet their father 
 coming home to them in the cool of the day. And 
 there is no little child that does not feel that he 
 would run quick to meet God, if he heard Him 
 coming. 
 
78 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 This is not reading into the story something 
 that is not there ; it is simply filling in the outline 
 in a natural and inevitable way. The Levitical 
 legislator a writer of far more imagination than 
 a superficial reading of Leviticus is likely to re- 
 veal saw the truth in the idea, and with evident 
 reference to the paradise story promises that God 
 will walk still among His people, on condition of 
 their obedience. 1 This is the ideal to give to 
 the child as he comes to the thoughtful age. 
 
 There is something to be made, even to the little 
 child, of the character of the temptation. Eve saw 
 that the fruit was pleasant to the eyes, and even 
 the baby is attracted by bright color; she saw that 
 it was good for food, and the first impulse of every 
 child is to eat, to put things into its mouth. 
 Later, the fact that these two desires, both useful 
 and right in themselves, the love of the beautiful 
 and the desire for the useful, are the basal elements 
 of temptation may well be developed, in connec- 
 tion with those other teachings about temptation 
 which will presently be brought forward. 
 
 It is a disastrous thing indeed when the mother 
 loses the typical force of the story by teaching her 
 child that the serpent is Satan or that labor is a 
 curse, or indeed that God laid any curse upon 
 Adam and Eve. The story distinctly says none 
 iLev. xxvj. 12. 
 
More Morning Stories 79 
 
 of these things. There is nothing, indeed, in all 
 the canonical Old Testament to show that the 
 Hebrew people ever understood the serpent in 
 this story to be Satan. In the Apocryphal book 
 of Wisdom, written after the exile had brought 
 Israel into contact with the Eastern peoples, the 
 serpent is indeed called the devil, though the devil 
 is not identified with this story. The Babylo- 
 nians and Assyrians had this myth, and the very 
 philosophical Persians, searching for the origin of 
 evil, could only account for it by the belief that 
 two opposing principles ruled the world, the prin- 
 ciple of good and the principle of evil. They 
 personified these principles as Ormuzd and Ahri- 
 man, and through the influence of these ideas the 
 later Jews came to personify evil as Satan, as is 
 particularly seen in the Apocryphal books. A 
 casual reading of some parts of the New Testament 
 seems to show that their writers identified Satan 
 with the serpent in paradise, and assuredly many 
 of the Church Fathers did so. But with the 
 knowledge of other literatures and other religions, 
 which all intelligent persons of to-day have, and 
 which the Church Fathers were not to blame for 
 not having, it is impossible for any thoughtful 
 reader of the New Testament not to see that such 
 New Testament expressions as identify Satan 
 with the serpent in paradise are purely literary, 
 
80 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 not in the slightest degree theological, and de- 
 signed not to teach a dogma but to illustrate a 
 truth. 
 
 Therefore, the mother will be quite beside her 
 purpose if she reads such things as these into this 
 story. The time for explaining why the serpent 
 is here comes later, when the child has studied 
 the mythologies and read some of the folk tales of 
 other nations. Then, too, may come the impres- 
 sive unfolding of the meaning of the command 
 not to eat of the forbidden tree, and the precise 
 character both of the disobedience and the penalty 
 that it incurred, as I shall try to show. But long 
 before the time for developing the story to this 
 extent, indeed, at the very earliest time of telling 
 the story, the mother can put it upon the plane 
 where her little child stands, if she thinks of it 
 in her own mind, not so much as an answer to 
 the question of the origin of evil, as of that sim- 
 pler, yet all inclusive question, " Why cannot we 
 see God now, and hear Him speak ? " 
 
 From this viewpoint she can make far more of 
 the story, both for filling the child's soul with 
 great thoughts and as a means of elementary 
 ethical teaching, than if she had the problem of 
 sin in her mind. For with sin, as sin, no imma- 
 ture mind has by any possibility to do. Good- 
 ness and naughtiness the little child knows, and 
 
More Morning Stories 81 
 
 the happiness of its mother's approving smile and 
 the pain of her reproving frown ; and the well- 
 taught child soon comes to feel precisely thus 
 with regard to God ; but there is as yet no ques- 
 tion in his little heart as to sin, nor, indeed, can 
 be. Yet even thus early his little soul feels 
 instinctively that being the child of God he ought 
 by right to be the companion of God, and this 
 story shows him why it is that God does not live 
 with him as his father and mother do. Though 
 not a word as to the moral necessity of punish- 
 ment for wrong-doing has ever been said to him, 
 his moral sense perfectly approves of the sentence 
 that Adam and Eve, having disobeyed God, could 
 not go on living in His garden, although the 
 symbolism by which this ethical fact is justified 
 cannot be explained to him till later. But he 
 must be told, right here, that Adam and Eve 
 were sent out of the garden, not because God was 
 angry with them, but because He wanted them to 
 learn, by hard work and trouble, how to be good. 
 And thus setting goodness before the child as the 
 one thing that God cares about, is it not also 
 the one thing that mother cares about for her 
 children ? it will not be difficult to make him 
 see that hard work and sickness and troubles are 
 just helps to be good. It will even be possible, in 
 case the child has already come to the knowledge 
 
82 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 of death, and in this case it will be most desir- 
 able, to make him see that even dying is noth- 
 ing to be unhappy about. It simply means that 
 the hard lesson has been learned, and the Father 
 has sent for His child to come home from school 
 to live happy with Him forever. But this part it 
 is not necessary to develop until the time comes. 
 The word death does not appear in the Biblical 
 story, nor need it in the mother's account. Though 
 as the child learns that birds and animals die, it 
 may be well to teach him something of the benefi- 
 cent law of dust to dust, before the time comes 
 to teach him that the spirit returns to God who 
 gave it. 
 
 That the third chapter of Genesis is not what 
 children call " a true story " it will never be 
 necessary to explain, any more than we explain 
 that "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," or "The Ice 
 Maiden," is not true. The child understands that 
 perfectly from the beginning. But before very 
 long, as soon, indeed, as he is thoroughly familiar 
 with all its incidents, it will be possible to teach 
 him that the story has a meaning, that the trees 
 and the serpent and the curse stand for some- 
 thing, and this will be a very valuable addition to 
 the categories of his thought. A new set of his 
 faculties will come into delightful exercise when 
 he first learns that the story has been told him 
 
More Morning Stories 83 
 
 precisely because it has a meaning. Something 
 of this meaning he has already felt : the misery 
 of disobedience, the wrong of listening to any one 
 who asks him to disobey, the woe of being made 
 afraid of God by having disobeyed, the impossi- 
 bility that naughty people should live in God's 
 garden where He loves to walk, the promise that 
 a naughty child may conquer his naughtiness if 
 he tries, in Jesus' help. Now that he has come 
 to school years the symbolism of this story should 
 be related to what he is learning there. This 
 may easily be done if in his early years the story 
 has been told to him simply, just as we find it in 
 the Bible. He will soon find things in his mythol- 
 ogy book and in his book of fables that will make 
 it easy for him to understand that the serpent in 
 this story was a mythical animal, and that it so 
 appears in many primitive legends. At the age 
 when his teacher sends him to the library to look 
 up things it will be well to put this method in 
 practice in connection with his Bible stories, by 
 setting him to find in other parts of the Bible 
 places where the serpent is spoken of in pre- 
 cisely the mythical or symbolic way in which it 
 appears in this story. 1 Later, when he begins his 
 
 1 For instance, Isa. xxvii. 1 ; Ps. Ixxiv. 13, 14 ; Isa. li. 9 ; 
 Ezek. xxix. 3, xxxii. 2. It may be well to explain that the 
 word Kahab is equivalent to Egypt, and dragon and leviathan 
 
84 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 classical studies, he will see in the serpent the 
 truly spiritual and ethical treatment of the com- 
 mon belief of ancient peoples that the gods were 
 jealous of the happiness of men, and continually 
 intervened to make them trouble. How dif- 
 ferent from the old Hebrew writer's conception 
 of God ! 
 
 Sacred trees and mythical trees also appear in 
 mythology, and this is the proper time to point 
 out the likeness and the differences between the 
 tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good 
 and evil and such mythical trees as that which 
 bore the golden apples in the garden of the Hes- 
 perides. Here, again, will come the opportunity 
 to show without argument or discussion the true 
 character of the inspiration of the Bible. As the 
 child grows older, and his reading grows wider, 
 he can be taught that though stories of mythical 
 trees abound, in Persian, Indian, Scandinavian, 
 as well as in Greek folk-lore, not one of them is 
 
 to serpent. Egypt itself is sometimes personified as a dragon, 
 see the Ezekiel references. The reference is to the great ser- 
 pent that nightly swallows the sun. All these expressions refer 
 to the sun myth, and never to the devil. The Ezekiel refer- 
 ences and the second in Isaiah are especially telling, since they 
 implicate Egypt, in whose religion Osiris, the setting sun, was 
 nightly swallowed by the serpent, which in turn was pierced 
 by the lance-like rays of Horus, the rising sun, thus setting him- 
 self free. 
 
More Morning Stories 85 
 
 made the vehicle of any teaching as to right and 
 wrong. There is a Persian seal in the British 
 Museum which remarkably suggests this para- 
 dise story ; for it bears the impress of a tree with 
 a serpent coiled about it and a man and a woman 
 on either side Until very recently it was be- 
 lieved that this seal indicated that the ancient 
 Persians had tried by a similar story to explain 
 the problem of sin; but now that scholars are 
 better acquainted with the literatures of early 
 Eastern peoples, they find that this is not the 
 meaning of the seal. So far as we know, only 
 ancient Israel attempted at so early a time to 
 explain the dark mystery. Here is the time and 
 place to fortify the mind of the school child 
 against the pernicious idea, too frequently grafted 
 into this story, that God disapproved of knowl- 
 edge in itself or desired to keep it from man. 
 The serpent suggested this, but the serpent lied. 
 God had no objection to their knowing, only to 
 their disobeying. The words "knowledge of 
 good and evil" are a comprehensive figure for 
 "all knowledge." And since, as the proverbial 
 writer says, " The fear of the Lord is the begin- 
 ning," the very foundation, " of wisdom," so this 
 story is meant to teach that true knowledge is 
 possible only to the obedient. The mere prohibi- 
 tion to eat of this tree, by giving to Adam and 
 
86 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 Eve their first opportunity to obey, laid for them 
 the foundation of all knowledge. 
 
 We have seen that the little child has no con- 
 cern with sin as a problem, though he is con- 
 cerned with it as a fact. And just as this story 
 is the best possible way of opening to him the 
 sorrowful truth that disobedience is what sepa- 
 rates him from God, so as he grows older it 
 should be made the means of opening to him the 
 wonderful mystery of evil overcome by good, 
 moral character developing out of struggle with 
 temptation, ultimate salvation wrought by the 
 perfect obedience of One who, bruising the ser- 
 pent's head, destroys the power of temptation. 
 
 II 
 
 In every human life there is a period of inno- 
 cence, typified by Adam and Eve in the garden. 
 This innocence has no moral character until the 
 opportunity to obey (and consequently to dis- 
 obey) is given, and it is for the great good of 
 humanity that the innocent human being is led 
 by struggle to attain moral character. In the 
 youngest child, though the period of innocence 
 is not yet past, nor will be for long, the struggle 
 has already begun. To the growing boy, face to 
 face with temptations only half understood, but 
 
More Morning Stories 87 
 
 bewildering and often agonizing, the happy con- 
 viction of his earlier years, that it would be easy 
 to be good if one lived in God's garden, turns to 
 the cruel inquiry, " Why has God not made me 
 to be good ? Why has He made me susceptible to 
 temptation?" The mother whose heart is torn 
 with the struggles and the soul-agonizing ques- 
 tions of her child may turn to the simple story 
 which for years he has known by heart, to explain 
 to him that it would not be easy for man or 
 woman, whom God has created free, to be good, 
 even in the garden of God. Even a boy will 
 recognize that the playmate for whom all things 
 are made easy is but a weakling, that the boy 
 from whom all temptation has been removed by 
 the fond foolishness of indulgent parents is no 
 true boy at all. Even a boy will prefer to be left 
 free to choose for himself, at the risk of disastrous 
 mistake. And this story will show him that the 
 Almighty Father's method with His children is 
 precisely the method of wise and loving earthly 
 parents. Even when he was a baby they did not 
 remove from the nursery everything which might 
 possibly hurt him ; instead, they taught him not 
 to touch. Yet, at the same time, they put a fender 
 before the fire which might fatally burn him and 
 guards before the window from which he might 
 fall. Now in his boyhood they are giving hin? 
 
88 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 greater freedom of choice, but still they watch 
 over him that he make no fatal error. So God, 
 in His garden, not only laid upon His children a 
 command of irksome obedience, He also permitted 
 a tempter to come in and suggest that the com- 
 mand was unfair and that disobedience was only 
 what was due to themselves. But even then God 
 did not let them go on to fatal sin. Rather, He 
 put them, as the wise father often puts his child, 
 where hard conditions would develop moral 
 strength, and bring out all that was best and 
 noblest in them. 
 
 At this age, and not before, let the boy be taught 
 the precise nature of the sentence pronounced by 
 God upon Adam and Eve. No curse was laid upon 
 them emphasize this fact. Punishment they did 
 incur, as every disobedient child must, but we do 
 not want our children to look upon punishment 
 as anything but a blessing. The serpent indeed, 
 the tempter, was cursed, and it is impossible to 
 lay too much stress upon the wickedness of tempt- 
 ing another to do wrong. Yet though this 
 teaching perhaps may better come even later 
 the serpent was not treated as a moral being; it 
 was simply for the sake of Adam and Eve that it. 
 equally with the earth, was cursed. The subtlety 
 of the serpent (more properly, the wisdom, as in 
 the Revised Version) made it a dangerous com- 
 
More Morning Stories 89 
 
 panion for Adam and Eve, since it might find 
 some new way to tempt them to do wrong; and 
 therefore " enmity " was put between them, as the 
 most effectual safeguard. The earth was cursed 
 (only in a figure, for this expression is symbolical, 
 like all the rest), simply as a means of helping 
 Adam and Eve to be good. And the work by 
 which they were thenceforth to earn their living 
 was no more a curse to Adam and Eve than it is 
 now to the schoolboy who is eagerly looking for- 
 ward to the time when he may begin to do a man's 
 work in the world. Here is the time for the 
 mother to explain to her boy that if work is not 
 a curse, neither are those strong impulses to idle- 
 ness, to disobedience, to impurity, against which 
 he is called to struggle, and sometimes with such 
 humiliating defeat. They are the tree in the 
 midst of his garden, the opportunity for him to 
 grow in moral strength. 
 
 The children know enough of history now to 
 understand when they are told that the sentence 
 pronounced upon Eve, of subjection to her hus- 
 band, was the tenderest mercy through the long 
 generations of barbarity and semi-civilization, 
 when the protection of a strong man was essential 
 to woman's happiness and to her honor, if not to 
 her very life. And the mother may easily ex- 
 plain to her growing boy, as to her growing girl, 
 
90 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 the peculiar sacredness of the tie between her and 
 them, in the sorrow with which she brought them 
 into the world. Arid now is the time to show 
 them that the fact that it was to Eve, the proto- 
 type of motherhood, and not to Adam, that the 
 promise was given of eventual triumph over evil 
 through the Son that should one day be born, 
 raises the sorrowful sentence, as it raises the 
 entire story and the dark problem which it 
 symbolizes, into the brightest region of hope 
 and into the sunlight of a blessed anticipation of 
 ultimate perfection. 
 
 It will do no harm to inform children of this 
 age that this blessed hope was not forbidden even 
 to peoples to whom God did not reveal Himself as 
 He did to IsraeL They will find in text-books 
 and encyclopaedias that in many nations there is 
 a more or less well-developed mythical expression 
 of the hope of a redeemer. It found perhaps its 
 best expression, outside of the Old Testament, 
 among the Assyrian people, who inscribed on 
 their tablets a promise that Merodach (the god 
 Marduk) should be their redeemer The Baby- 
 lonians had a similar myth, but both were inex- 
 tricably interwoven with much that is degrading 
 in polytheistic mythology. To point out to the 
 schoolboy and girl the contrast between these 
 accounts and the simple dignity and pure mono 
 
More Morning Stories 91 
 
 theism of this Bible story is to give them a new 
 perception of Biblical inspiration. The time for 
 teaching the symbolism of the exclusion of Adam 
 and Eve from the garden on account of the pres- 
 ence there of the tree of life, and the significance 
 of death as the consequence and penalty of sin, 
 comes not with the study of mythology, but at 
 this later time with the first study of elementary 
 ethics. And then the mother will point out the 
 beneficence of death to one who loves God, by 
 shortening the time of sorrow and pain, limiting 
 them strictly to " the days of life." By sending 
 Adam and Eve out of paradise, away from the 
 possibility that they should " eat of the tree of 
 life and live forever," God saved them from the 
 woe of living forever subject to sin, and gave 
 them death as the glad release. 
 
 That it is not an instinct of humanity to regard 
 death as evil, and therefore that it is possible to 
 train our children to look upon it as a blessing to 
 good people, a little reflection will show. Not 
 only are primitive peoples the North American 
 Indians, for example without fear of death, but 
 such cultivated peoples as the Hindus and the 
 Japanese are singularly devoid of such fear. The 
 Norsemen called death " heimgang" home going, 
 the joyful return of the seafarer from his voyage. 
 We may even see in this attitude toward death 
 
92 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 something that seems to whisper that " dust thou 
 art and to dust thou shalt return " was not said to 
 Adam and Eve as a threat, but by way of comfort, 
 being simply a natural fact. No, it is profoundly 
 and far reachirigly true that the sting of death is 
 sin, as St. Paul taught ; and only those who by 
 the Gospel of Christ and the teachings of the Old 
 Testament have come to some adequate conception 
 of man's relation to God, and therefore of the 
 awfulness of sin, realize this sting. 
 
 Ill 
 
 As with the creation stories, so with this story 
 of paradise and the separation from God, there is 
 much that will prove both a light and an anchor 
 to young people in their first serious study of phi- 
 losophy and ethics. To them the question of 
 temptation is almost as baffling as the question of 
 sin. It comes home to them, indeed, long before 
 this time, though not formulated until now. Very 
 early in the child's life the mother may enforce 
 by this story the teaching which she finds it so 
 often necessary to repeat, that the fact of having 
 been tempted is no valid excuse for having done 
 wrong. " I did it because sister " or brother or 
 playmate " asked me to " is one of the most fre- 
 quent of nursery excuses. It would be hard to 
 
More Morning Stories 93 
 
 say at what age it would be too early to teach the 
 little one that a child created in the image of God 
 is not compelled to do wrong simply because it is 
 tempted. The Child Jesus, who is the Model for 
 every little child, did no wrong, though He was 
 tempted just as often as any other child. He did 
 not yield, because even while He was a little child 
 He realized that the child of God ought not to do 
 wrong. This, I submit, is quite as legitimate a 
 lesson to draw from the third chapter of Genesis 
 as the doctrine of original sin, and far more per- 
 tinent to the need, not of the child only, but of 
 all humanity. With the theological tenet drawn 
 from this story by St. Paul I have no quarrel. 
 Experience teaches that it is the scientific ex- 
 pression of a very profound truth. But for the 
 practical duty of bringing up a child to be 
 good, it is simply of no value. The mother's 
 task in the moral training of her children is 
 not scientific, but practical ; not theological, but 
 religious. What she must look for in the Bible 
 stories is their vital truths, which impress them- 
 selves upon the character years before any theo- 
 logical dogma, however well formulated, can meet 
 it at any point. It is the vital truths which in- 
 form dogmas, and not accuracy of theological 
 definition, that give whatever value they have to 
 the catechisms children study in childhood. And 
 
94 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 these vital truths lie upon the surface of the Bible 
 stories. 
 
 Half the battle is fought for the growing boy 
 and girl in their first study of ethics, their first 
 recognition of the problem of temptation as a per- 
 sonal problem, if they have learned from the Bible 
 stories they heard at their mother's knee that 
 temptation is not something inherent in human 
 nature, but is something from without, which, and 
 which alone, is the symbolism of the serpent. 
 Human nature is the nature that God gave to 
 man when He breathed into his nostrils the breath 
 of life ; this fact explains, and is intended to ex- 
 plain, the reason why man is so inexpressibly dear 
 to God, so dear that God is ready to incur suffer- 
 ing, sending His Son to die, to save him from sin. 
 The fact is repeated more than once in the course 
 of these early stories. 1 From this point of view, 
 the inexpressible dearness of man to God, it is 
 even not robbery for him to be equal with God. 
 And this makes it possible for our boys and girls 
 to accept the Man Jesus as the model of their 
 mature lives, as they accepted the Child Jesus as 
 the model of their childhood. If Jesus were not 
 "very man" it would be vain to try to imitate 
 Him. If He were not the ideal man, the man 
 whom the Creator had in mind when He said, " Let 
 1 Gen. v. 1, ix. 6. 
 
More Morning Stories 95 
 
 us make man in our own image," it would be de- 
 rogatory to any boy's manhood to ask that he 
 should take Him for his model. But being what 
 He was, it becomes the very mainspring of struggle 
 against temptation, to know that it was because 
 from His earliest childhood Jesus had been kept 
 from sin by the realized presence of God, that 
 therefore in the fulness of His young manhood He 
 could successfully resist the tempter. He had 
 had no experience in sinning, and there was no 
 weak point in His moral sense. Thus the promise 
 of God was kept, and the seed of the woman which 
 through all the generations had been bruising the 
 serpent's head bruised it at last fatally. Appre- 
 hending this, perceiving to what imitation of his 
 Model he has been called, the youth who yields to 
 temptation will repent of it with that sharp but 
 salutary pain, which has well been called "the 
 pain of not being holy." 1 
 
 In this teaching there is no intention of deny- 
 ing or even of ignoring the divinity of Jesus 
 Christ. The truth of this theological dogma, 
 which is one purely metaphysical, can hardly be 
 controverted by any one who thinks profoundly. 
 But children do riot think profoundly, nor have 
 their minds any metaphysical questions needing 
 to be satisfied. Their needs are purely practical, 
 1 The late Dean Auguste Sabatier. 
 
96 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 and theological truth is of value to them simply 
 for the large thought it awakens in them, the 
 illimitable horizon it unfolds before them. It 
 should not be left out of their training, and it is 
 not left out of the training of children to whom 
 the Bible stories are told. But the time for ex- 
 plaining this truth, even for dwelling upon it, 
 except as a self-evident fact, comes later. 
 
 Again, it is possible to teach even the very little 
 child that it does not suffer alone when it does 
 wrong, that parents and playmates must suffer 
 too. Later comes the time for impressing upon 
 his mind that even animals and nature share in 
 the suffering entailed by the sin of man. This is 
 implied not only in the cursed serpent and the 
 cursed ground, but also in the death of the beasts 
 which furnished the skins for clothing. Suffer- 
 ing, death, even of animals, typify the sorrow of 
 God for the sin of man, and this is what St. Paul 
 meant when he pictured all creation, which now 
 is groaning and travailing in pain, as sure to be 
 redeemed from pain when all mankind have been 
 redeemed from sin. 1 
 
 One more thought in the story remains to be 
 
 developed to the growing children. While they 
 
 are little no more explanation is needed of the 
 
 newly awakened sense of shame and the search 
 
 1 Rom. viii. 22, 23. 
 
More Morning Stories 97 
 
 for clothing than of any other part of the story. 
 Presentation is the mother's only task, here as 
 elsewhere, in telling Bible stories to the little 
 ones ; explanation comes later. She should wait 
 until self-consciousness has awakened, until the 
 child is at least ten or eleven years old, before 
 undertaking to point out that only the child who 
 has done wrong thinks about himself. The good 
 child thinks of father and mother, of plays and 
 pets, and of other children, of things wonderful 
 and things delightful, but he does not think about 
 himself. And when he has done wrong, and feels 
 ashamed and wants to hide and cover himself up, 
 how little he can do it ! The voice of conscience 
 will reach him amid the thickest trees. The fig 
 leaves that Adam and Eve hastily fastened to- 
 gether were no useful covering. It needed that 
 God should come to their help and give them 
 coats of skins. 
 
 This is enough for the time, but later, when 
 moral questions assail the growing children, it can 
 be shown them by this story that sin is never 
 an act that concerns the sinner alone. Adam 
 thought that he could cover himself with leaves 
 from a tree that had no feeling. God showed 
 him that something must suffer before his sense 
 of shame could be relieved. The animals had to 
 die. that their skins might be used for dress. 
 
98 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 Yet is dress not an evil, any more than the 
 moral results of struggle with sin are an evil. 
 These coats of skins were the beginning of civili- 
 zation, the first manifest good arising from the 
 moral struggle of man. 
 
 IV 
 
 Some quiet Sunday evening when the children 
 are grown up, the mother may gather together, in 
 free and interesting conversation, all the lessons 
 which, through the course of years, she has 
 brought home to their personal experience, by 
 this graded system of telling the first three sto- 
 ries of Genesis. " That there is one God, that He 
 is a righteous God, that He demands righteous- 
 ness of His children, and that if they desire right- 
 eousness He will forgive their sins and help them 
 to become worthy to be called His children ; " 1 
 that the ideal state of man is to live in the sun- 
 light of God's presence, in the full enjoyment of 
 his physical powers (dressing and keeping the 
 garden), of his intellectual faculties (naming the 
 animals), and of social relations, his happiness de- 
 pending on his obedience., these are the religious 
 lessons of these chapters. That these stories did 
 show what the people who told them and the 
 iJtfcFadyen, "The Messages of the Old Testament." 
 
More Morning Stories 99 
 
 inspired man who committed them to writing 
 actually believed, is the ethical teaching of the 
 chapters. How profoundly this teaching influ- 
 enced them for example, that temptation in 
 itself is not wrong is shown in subsequent 
 stories, 1 such as that of Abraham and of David 
 when God Himself is pictured as the tempter. 
 The later author of Job has a different concep- 
 tion, yet still God is represented as allowing and 
 even as making use of temptation. By the time 
 that Chronicles were written this idea, no longer 
 understood in the truly ethical sense of the old 
 Genesis writer, was repudiated, and Satan was 
 made the tempter of David, and this is interest- 
 ing precisely as it sets off by contrast the better 
 ethical sense of the earlier writer. That the 
 writer of these chapters had a double object in 
 view to preserve the traditions of the race and, 
 at the same time, to make them embody the reli- 
 gion of Jehovah 2 is the historical truth to be 
 drawn from these chapters. That the stories were 
 originally attempts to solve moral mysteries the 
 mystery of sin, the mystery of death, the mystery 
 of pain, the mystery of separation from God is 
 the literary truth. And all these so work to- 
 
 1 Gen. xxii. 1 ; 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, lOff. 
 
 2 The proper word is Jahveh, but the Kevised Version 
 makes the corrupt vocalization current. 
 
100 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 gether, at once to prove the inspiration of the 
 book of Genesis and to show the true character 
 of inspiration, as to set the children thus "brought 
 up upon " Bible stories forever beyond the reach 
 of those who attempt to reduce the Old Testa- 
 ment to the level of the scriptures of other 
 peoples. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 BEFORE THE FLOOD AND AFTEK 
 
 Genesis iv. 116 
 
 I 
 
 THE story of Cain and Abel contains much for 
 the little child, and like those which precede it 
 should be told to him as nearly as possible in the 
 words of the Bible. The meaning of the story is 
 most profound, yet on its very surface lie two 
 truths which even the youngest story-hearing 
 child understands. The first is that people natur- 
 ally want to offer something to God. It is the 
 same desire which makes every little child love to 
 help mother (and if he soon outgrows the lovely 
 impulse it is the mother's fault), the same which 
 gives him joy when he adds his penny to the offer- 
 ing in church, knowing though without under- 
 standing how that he is giving it to God. That 
 was why the shepherd Abel brought some of his 
 little lambs, and the farmer Cain some of his good 
 fruit, for an offering to God. The second truth 
 is in beautiful accord with the child's earliest 
 social instinct ; his delight in watching baby, in 
 
 101 
 
102 ^ C ^ { \ \ l J Celling ' Bible Stories 
 
 being his brother's keeper ; and though this truth 
 is taught only by the contrast of Cain's repudia- 
 tion of the duty, the little child's own experience 
 of times when baby seemed a trouble, rather than 
 a joy, makes him understand that too. 
 
 He can understand that God was pleased with 
 Abel's offering because Abel was lovingly longing 
 to please, and that He was displeased with Cain's 
 offering because Cain had not "done well." The 
 rest, too, he can understand, dark as is the shadow 
 that rests upon it. When we are naughty we 
 love nobody, not even our own brother. He 
 knows at three years old quite as well as if he 
 were thirty that it is naughtiness that makes him 
 sometimes cross and selfish with his brother, and 
 it is not hard for him to accept, however little he 
 may understand, the fact that the act of Cain in 
 killing his brother was the dreadful outcome of 
 selfishness. A little later the story may be told 
 in fuller detail, though still mainly in the Bible 
 words ; and by the time the child is about seven 
 years old the mother should be prepared to answer 
 the questions that will surely arise in his mind, 
 notwithstanding his early instinctive sympathy 
 with the story. 
 
 This child will not make the mistake which 
 many wise expositors have made, of supposing 
 that the things offered by these brothers had to 
 
Before the Flood and After. 103 
 
 do with the " respect " of God for their offering. 
 The mother has not so far departed from the 
 spirit of true Bible story telling as to use the 
 word sacrifice, which the Bible does not use, and 
 she has therefore not found it necessary to antici- 
 pate the stories of later years with any sugges- 
 tions of the Jewish sacrificial system or any 
 theological implications of the death of Jesus 
 Christ. It is, indeed, precisely here that Abel's 
 death differs from that of Christ, and his offering 
 from Christ's offering of Himself they were not 
 for others. Abel no more perceived that he was 
 his brother's keeper, than Cain did ; and his offer- 
 ing was acceptable to God, not because it was a 
 type of the death of Christ for the salvation of 
 the world, but because it was a gift of love. And 
 Cain's offering was rejected, not because it was of 
 the fruits of the earth, and therefore " unbloody," 
 but because it was not offered in an obedient, that 
 is, a loving, spirit. Each brought precisely what 
 he ought to bring, that which he had, and this 
 is the lesson for the child, one which he may carry 
 with him all his life. 
 
 Observe the mother may point it out to her 
 child of ten and even of seven that the story 
 speaks first of God's interest in the man, and only 
 after that of His interest in the offering. The 
 question was not which gift was most pleasing to 
 
104 Telling -Bible Storie* 
 
 God, but which soul. And here, to the child of 
 ten or twelve, the lesson may be taught which 
 in later years our social system will make it so 
 hard for him to learn, that it is always the soul, 
 and never the circumstances, that measures the 
 worth of man or woman 
 
 How did Cain and Abel know that God was 
 pleased or displeased? The child is sure to ask 
 sooner or later. This is a story and not a bit 
 of history, and the mother is free nay, is she 
 not compelled ? to answer according to the anal- 
 ogy of the story. In a few minutes we hear of 
 God as talking with Cain, trying to change his 
 heart and make him good ; why not believe that 
 He had spoken His approval and disapproval in the 
 same way ? Consistency relieves the mother from 
 every effort to give historic truth to her narrative 
 by saying, as some excellent expositors do, that 
 God showed His sentiments by prospering Abel 
 and not prospering Cain; or, as others do, that He 
 spoke to them in their hearts by the voice of con- 
 science. No ; let the story be the story that it is, 
 self-consistent throughout. God had told the 
 brothers how pleased He was with Abel and his 
 offering and how displeased with Cain and his 
 offering. Instead of feeling sorry and trying to 
 do better, Cain did as some children do when they 
 are reproved, he went about sullenly, with a 
 
Before the Flood and After 105 
 
 long face and hanging head. And then God, who 
 was Cain's heavenly Father as well as Abel's, and 
 who wanted him to be good, spoke to Cain and 
 asked him why he acted thus. "Why is thy 
 countenance fallen ? " He asked. " If thou doest 
 well, shall it not be lifted up ? " So every naughty 
 child's lowering face grows bright, and his head 
 no longer hangs down, when he has decided to 
 "do well" again. " And if thou doest not well, sin 
 lieth at the door," crouching ready to spring, 
 wanting to be master over Cain, "but thou 
 shouldest rule over him." 
 
 It is hardly too early, at any age, to use the 
 Bible idioms, explaining them a little where the 
 context does not make them clear- We may bear 
 in mind, however, that all idioms, though our usual 
 modes of speaking, are equally foreign to a little 
 child. In general, children take words for 
 granted, and understand them by degrees, as they 
 become familiar with them, and so it will be with 
 the idioms of oft-repeated Bible stories. However, 
 this idiom it will not be amiss to explain, because 
 a very little child will be greatly interested in the 
 explanation, picturing to himself sin lying like a 
 baby lion at the door of Cain's heart. If Cain 
 chose, he could tame the young lion before it grew 
 big and strong, and teach it to obey him, but if he 
 did not do so at once, the lion would soon grow 
 
106 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 strong enough to spring upon him and destroy 
 him. It will hardly be necessary to draw out in 
 words the profound meaning of the little allegory. 
 The child will understand. 
 
 Something has evidently dropped out from the 
 eighth verse of this story, and it will be wise to 
 supply it as the Jews do, by telling how after God 
 had tried to make Cain resolve to be good, " Cain 
 said to Abel his brother, 'Let us go into the 
 field.' ' We may believe that Abel was glad to 
 go, thinking that Cain was ready to be friends 
 again. Ah, no ! While they talked together in 
 the field, Cain killed his brother ! That crouch- 
 ing baby lion had grown strong, and had got the 
 best of him. This is where envy and jealousy and 
 bad feeling end ! 
 
 Now God spoke to Cain again, but in what a dif- 
 ferent way ! He was not now trying to induce him 
 to be good, but punishing him for his dreadful sin. 
 And yet even a child of seven can be shown, 
 especially if he already knows the story of the 
 disobedience and punishment of Adam and Eve, 
 that God was merciful to Cain even when he pun- 
 ished him, as a father always is when He punishes 
 his child. God had sent Adam and Eve out of 
 paradise that they might learn by hard work and 
 sorrow to be good. Now He sent Cain away from 
 his home and his family, where he would have to 
 
Before the Flood and After 107 
 
 work even harder. Cain did not want to go away 
 from his family ; he was afraid that some one 
 would kill him, for his conscience told him that he 
 deserved to be killed. And God, who was still 
 the loving Father of this wicked man, gave him a 
 sign by which he could know that his Father God 
 was still watching over him and would not let any 
 one kill him. 1 And so Cain went away, and built 
 a city, and lived all the rest of his life away from 
 his father and mother, and without the love of 
 God in his heart. 
 
 When the children are older, and have studied 
 ancient history, this story may be considerably am- 
 plified in accordance with what they have learned, 
 or may understand by analogy with what they have 
 learned. The ancient peoples always looked for 
 some visible sign that their offerings were accepted 
 by their gods. Almost anything in nature would 
 do, a rustling in the trees, birds lighting on 
 the offering, or any such thing. Probably some- 
 thing of the sort was in the old folk tale which this 
 writer was retelling in order to make the Israelites 
 understand about God ; but he left out all that, for 
 it did not help to make God seem real to those who 
 would read it, and this was what he wanted to do. 
 
 1 The best rendering is not to the effect that God put a 
 mark upon Cain to distinguish him, but that He gave to Cain 
 a sign or mark by which to realize God's presence. 
 
108 Telling Bible tftorie* 
 
 These children of twelve or thirteen, having 
 been told the Bible stories as the Bible tells them, 
 will not wonder where the people were who might 
 kill Cain, for they have never been told that Adam 
 and Eve and their two sons were the only people 
 upon the earth. These chapters do not say 
 so, the Bible nowhere says so, and evidently 
 this writer did not think so. Certainly the 
 later Hebrew people thought so, and until a 
 short time ago nearly every one thought so. But 
 scientific investigation has led many people to a 
 different conclusion, or at least to admit a degree 
 of uncertainty in the matter, and, whatever may be 
 the fact, there is no reason why we should teach 
 our children anything about the Bible which 
 is not there and which they may one day have to 
 unlearn. 
 
 It will be best, however, to wait until they are 
 still older, and know more about the thoughts and 
 ideas of ancient peoples, before going more largely 
 into this fear of Cain ; but when the time comes 
 at perhaps fourteen or fifteen they will be 
 much interested in learning that Cain's fear was 
 due to the instinct for blood revenge, which is 
 common to all peoples in early times. If a man 
 killed another it was the duty of a relative of 
 the dead man to kill his murderer and then 
 of the murderer's relatives to kill the " avenger of 
 
Before the Flood and After 109 
 
 blood,*' and so the "blood feud" would last, some- 
 times, for generations. This almost universal 
 human instinct survived in Scotland until quite 
 recent times, as the young people know who read 
 Scott's novels. 1 It survives to this day among 
 the peasants of Italy and the mountaineers of Ten- 
 nessee and Kentucky, as the young people who 
 read the newspapers know, and it appears in its 
 most debased form in the passion for lynching. 
 
 Now every universal custom has a justification 
 in something, and there is no doubt that in the 
 early age of the world the law of blood revenge 
 served a good purpose, in preventing many mur- 
 ders among the widely scattered nomadic peoples 
 who formed a certain early stage of civilization. 
 The Arabs to this day dread to commit murder, 
 because they believe that the ghost of the mur- 
 dered man hovers over his grave in the form of a 
 bird that cries, " Give me drink ! give me drink ! " 
 and can be quieted only when the blood of the 
 murderer has been shed. Cain felt all this. The 
 story does not tell us that he had ever heard the 
 command " Thou shalt not kill," but he felt that 
 men would kill him for killing his brother. The 
 voice of Abel's blood seemed to him to be crying 
 from the earth in so loud a tone that some one 
 would be sure to hear and avenge his death. 
 1 "The Monastery." 
 
110 Telling Bible Storie* 
 
 The children who are discussing this story with 
 their mother will be ready to perceive that at the 
 time when it was written the practice of blood 
 revenge had grown to be a terrible evil, and that 
 this writer saw an opportunity to use this old folk 
 tale about Cain and Abel to show that God does 
 not approve of blood revenge. 
 
 When they were younger they saw nothing sig- 
 nificant in Cain's reluctance to be sent away, on 
 the ground that "from thy face I shall be hid." 
 They instinctively felt that one who has done 
 dreadful wrong cannot enjoy the light of God's 
 face. But now that they are older they may be 
 shown by Cain's objection and God's reply that 
 the writer of this story was using it to correct 
 another almost universal mistake. The Israelites 
 of that early time believed that God was the God 
 of Israel only, and that outside of Palestine He 
 was not to be found. All the other peoples had 
 the same idea of their gods, and though the people 
 Israel thought that Jehovah was greater than all 
 other gods, they could not understand how He 
 could be God over the whole earth. So devout a 
 man as David believed that if he were banished to 
 the land of Moab, he would be obliged to serve 
 another god. The prophets did not think so, nor 
 the most devout men in Israel, but most of the 
 people did ; and this story was meant to show that 
 
Before the Mood and After 111 
 
 Grod rules over the whole earth and over all men, 
 since even in his far banishment He was looking 
 after Cain, and able to punish any who might kill 
 him. 
 
 As to the mark that was " given for " Cain, the 
 Revised Version of this chapter shows that it was 
 not, as used to be thought, some mark put upon 
 him to deter others from killing him ; it was a 
 " sign " for Cain's own benefit, as the rainbow was 
 a sign for Noah and his descendants after the 
 flood. We do not know what the sign was ; it 
 may have been a star in the sky or any other nat- 
 ural thing which would remind him that he was 
 not too far away from God to be protected by 
 Him. 
 
 II 
 
 At this point in the children's development, 
 fourteen or fifteen, they will be interested in 
 learning that except among Bible-reading people, 
 Cain's question, " Am I my brother's keeper ? " 
 is the universal question. A celebrated French 
 pastor 1 once said that it might almost be taken 
 for the device of humanity outside of the gospel. 
 All primitive peoples feel justified in killing a 
 stranger for no other reason than that he is a 
 1 The late Eugene Bersier. 
 
112 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 stranger. And as all the Bible stories are meant 
 sooner or later to lead the growing mind to 
 Christ, the story of Cain and Abel may be used as 
 the basis of a comparison between the narrow 
 ideas of brotherhood of even the most civilized 
 peoples, of even the noblest Jews, before Christ, 
 and the ideas which have been gained from the 
 teachings of Jesus. A few extracts from such a 
 book as Brace's " Gesta Christi " might be given 
 them to read, that they may see the enormous dif- 
 ference between the Christian idea of brotherhood 
 and that of people who do not form their ideas 
 on the teachings of Jesus. And it will interest 
 any bright boy or girl to learn that the first hospi- 
 tal was founded in Ephesus, where the beloved 
 disciple had preached that God is love, and that 
 the first orphanage was founded there not long 
 after. Thus this story, which the children have 
 known all their lives, may take its place at the 
 very foundation of that study of social obligations 
 which happily will be an integral part of the edu- 
 cation of the rising generation. 
 
 The significance of this little story does not 
 end even here. With the study of literature, 
 this, like the preceding stories, should be re- 
 lated to the world's literature, by showing that 
 like the other stories it has its place in the 
 legends of many peoples. It is not so easy to 
 
- Before the Flood and After 113 
 
 trace as some others, because this writer so care- 
 fully omitted every feature that would not bear a 
 spiritual meaning ; but they will find analogies to 
 it in their studies or their encyclopaedia researches. 
 When psychology and ethics are added to their 
 school curriculum the time has come for a review 
 of the whole story from the point of view of the 
 history of the ethical development of man. The 
 story begins by showing mankind, shut out from 
 paradise, beginning life anew in a new environ- 
 ment, consequent upon the failure of Adam and 
 Eve in their first moral conflict. It shows them 
 as accommodating themselves freely to the law of 
 labor, each brother choosing the occupation he 
 preferred, and still able to draw near to God with 
 the offering of faith. It shows the evil results of 
 sin, that Adam and Eve having yielded to the 
 tempter, an external tempter is no longer needed, 
 temptation may come from within a man's own 
 heart. It shows, too, what comes of separation 
 from God, such a separation from brother man, in 
 heart, as to result in murder. Yet as the young 
 people have already learned that good came out of 
 the first failure, even the acquisition of moral char- 
 acter, so it might have come even out of the second 
 most woful failure. Cain, driven to shift for him- 
 self, builds a city, 1 an advance upon nomad life, 
 1 Gen. iv. 16-24. 
 
114 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 and becomes the father of those who introduced 
 civilized arts into the world, Tubal-Cain the first 
 artificer in bronze and iron, Jabal the first musician, 
 Lamech the first poet. If Cain had but returned 
 to obedience this advance would have blessed the 
 world, instead of ending in corruption and the 
 flood. 
 
 These concluding verses of the story are not 
 historical facts any more than the others ; like 
 them, they are psychological facts, and the time 
 is rapidly passing when the mother will make the 
 mistake of giving to them any other than psycho- 
 logical significance. But it is possible, from this 
 story, to unfold to the thoughtful young mind 
 truths of greater than psychological importance. 
 The narrative has the deepest spiritual signifi- 
 cance. Cain and Abel were types, the first of 
 the fit, the second of the unfit, to survive. Cain, 
 adapting himself to his environment, became the 
 father of an active, intelligent, civilized race. 
 Abel, unfit for his environment, was cut off in 
 his youth. The names their mother gave them 
 at birth were typical : Cain was a man, Abel was 
 but a breath. Yet where are the descendants of 
 Cain? While Abel, being dead, yet speaketh. 
 His life-work still goes on. His was a type of 
 the sacrificial life, and the sacrificial life is the 
 true life, nay, since Christ made the ideal a 
 
Before the Flood and After 115 
 
 reality, it is the only life worth living. In 
 Abel the sacrificial idea was but a spark ; but 
 to quote again words of the blind seer, that 
 spark "became a candlestick with Abraham, a 
 lamp with Moses, a fire with the prophets of 
 Judah, until at last it burst into a conflagration 
 on the summit of Calvary." 1 At this conflagra- 
 tion thousands of martyr men and women have 
 lighted their candles, from the apostles James 
 and Paul to Coleridge Patteson and the Chinese 
 Christians. They have carried the torch of sacri- 
 fice into every country on God's earth ; and every 
 thoughtful youth must perceive that however daz- 
 zling may appear the millionaire's success, the scien- 
 tist's reputation, the poet's renown, it pales before 
 this flame of sacrifice which " has ultimately given 
 its law to man as man." By it pilot and engineer 
 die at their posts, that the burning ship may bring 
 others to land and safety ; by it Father Damien 
 gives himself to the comforting of lepers, and 
 dying, his work is taken up by women and by men 
 who will not be denied the privilege ; by it nurse 
 and doctor brave pestilence, and the little child 
 risks life to save another child from drowning. 
 Nay, it has come to inspire even those whose 
 highest ideal is wealth, and by it men take all 
 risks for the sake of this low ideal. Let the chil 
 1 Matheson, " Representative Men of the Bible." 
 
116 Telling BiUe Stories 
 
 dren in Christian households be brought up with 
 sacrifice as their life principle, and the new para- 
 dise will soon descend from heaven to earth, for 
 all men will have been brought into harmony with 
 the inner principle of God Himself, who so loved 
 us that He sent His Son to die for us. 
 
 Cain, the archetype of sin, is the antithesis of 
 Christ, as the Apostle John perceived, 1 and though 
 an eminently successful man, who would desire 
 to imitate him ? Abel, the " righteous," 2 was only 
 a faint foreshadowing of Him whose blood crieth 
 louder than that of Abel, and for better things 3 
 not vengeance, but pardon. Who would not 
 rather die Abel's death than live Cain's life ? 
 
 One thing more this story shows, and shows it 
 alike to little child and fallen man, the in- 
 finite yearning of God over men, however guilty, 
 and His longing for the companionship of the chil- 
 dren He has made. The half -understood desire for 
 God which impelled Cain and Abel to bring their 
 offerings gave joy to the heart of God. It was be- 
 cause He longed for fuller companionship with Cain, 
 that He tried by remonstrance and persuasion to 
 bring him to a better mind. Oh, pathetic and 
 dreadful thought, that God should try to bring His 
 child to such a mind that He can commune with 
 him in love, and try in vain ! 
 
 1 1 John iii. 12-16. 2 Ib. 12. * Heb. xii 24. 
 
Before the Flood and After 117 
 
 God loves to be longed for, He loves to be sought, 
 For He sought us Himself, with such longing and love; 
 
 He died for desire for us, marvellous thought ! 
 And He yearns for us now to be with Him above. 1 
 
 Ill 
 
 Genesis v. 2124 
 
 In the fifth chapter of Genesis, in the midst of 
 a dull record of names which to the little child 
 have no meaning, but to which as a boy he may 
 later return with interest, flashes out one of the 
 most gemlike stories of the Old Testament. No 
 child is so young as not to be impressed with the 
 story of Enoch; the man who loved God so much, 
 and who walked with Him, because, as some one 
 has said, 2 he was going the same way. The story 
 is very short, but it awakens long thoughts in the 
 little child's mind. Let no mother tell her child 
 that Enoch went to heaven without dying. He 
 does not know what dying means, and the story 
 says nothing about it. The entire force of the 
 narrative is that the man who loves God and walks 
 with Him has no concern at all with death. He 
 has eternal life. His life is so full of God that 
 "What seems death is transition." All there is 
 to tell the little child is the lovely story of the 
 i F. W. Faber. a Dr. M. A. Dods, 
 
118 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 man who pleased God so much that He took him 
 home to live with Him in heaven. 
 
 The school children will learn before long that 
 the minds of men in early days were full of this 
 immortal hope of reaching eternal happiness with- 
 out passing through death. In his Livy, the boy 
 may read that Romulus, one of the twin founders 
 of Rome, went to the land of the blest without 
 dying so did the Greek Ganymede and Hercules 
 and the Assyrian Queen Semiramis and the Baby- 
 lonian Xisuthrus. It is the natural human protest 
 against death, the protest which our Lord answered 
 when He said, " He that liveth and believeth in me 
 shall never die." The mother can say all this to her 
 children of twelve and fourteen, and they will be 
 deeply impressed when she points out to them the 
 essential difference between all these mythological 
 fancies and the Bible story. For mythology dei- 
 fies all these translated people ; they become gods 
 or demigods. Enoch, on the contrary, remained 
 man all through, and was made the type of the 
 perfect human being, the ideal of human goodness. 
 He walked with God, he had no separate interests; 
 even before his translation, the writer of the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews says, " he had this testimony, that 
 he pleased God." His capacity for God fellowship 
 was perfect ; but it was human, and therefore the 
 ideal for each one of us. Thus his life becomes a 
 
Before the Flood and After 119 
 
 revelation that every young person may appro- 
 priate as something possible for himself, to meet 
 God now, and walk with Him. 
 
 These children will be interested when their 
 mother tells them that Enoch played an important 
 part in Jewish legend. The Apocryphal books 
 have much to say about him. He was believed to 
 possess all wisdom, and one of these books is 
 devoted to " The Secrets of Enoch." It was an 
 instinctive recognition that " the fear of the Lord 
 is the beginning of wisdom," the idea that superior 
 piety must argue superior wisdom. They will 
 also be quite able to recognize the difference be- 
 tween the legend of Enoch's translation and that 
 of other ancient heroes. In none of them is any 
 religious meaning attached to the escape from 
 death ; but the story of Enoch foreshadowed the 
 teaching of our Lord, that " this is life eternal, to 
 know God." 
 
 IV 
 Genesis vi. 529 
 
 No story is easier to tell the little children than 
 that of Noah, and if it is made concrete by the 
 possession of that very unsesthetic toy, the Noah's 
 ark, so much the better. Two lessons from this 
 story the youngest children will understand : that 
 
120 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 wickedness must be punished, and God's loving 
 care of man's need, the lovely symbolism of the 
 rainbow, connecting heaven with earth. The 
 older children will not be puzzled by the fact that 
 the rainbow must have been seen by Noah and his 
 sons many times before the flood, of course it 
 had, but never before had they understood the 
 suggestion of the rainbow. Now God appointed 
 it for a sign, that the tie between earth and heaven 
 had not been destroyed by the flood, or by the 
 wickedness which had made the flood necessary. 
 The older children will have learned in ancient 
 history and mythology that flood legends are 
 found among nearly every people, Greek, As- 
 syrian, Persian, Indian, Scandinavian, probably 
 those of Mexico and South America and even 
 of South Africa, and it may be well to show them 
 that this fact does not argue that the flood actu- 
 ally covered the entire world. Rather, the memory 
 of some awful catastrophe occurring in the early 
 home of mankind was carried with them by the 
 people in their wide migrations. As with most 
 other legends, we find in Babylonia the one which 
 most nearly resembles the story of the flood in 
 Genesis. This fact makes it very profitable for 
 the school children to read the Babylonian account 
 and observe the differences, that they may again 
 see how the inspired mind of the Genesis writer 
 
Before the Mood and After 121 
 
 turned to deep religious teaching a legend which 
 was the common property of all men. The Baby- 
 lonian legend, too, was worked over by a highly 
 intelligent mind, as is shown in an inscribed brick 
 excavated about thirty years ago in that region. 
 This brick was a part of the library of the great 
 conqueror Asurbanipal, who lived 668-626 B.C., 
 and it is the literary treatment of the ancient 
 legend. 1 The likenesses with the Genesis story 
 are very striking : the god Ea commands Hasis- 
 adra to build an ark ; there is a seven days' down- 
 pour of rain ; birds are sent out, first a dove, then 
 a swallow, then a raven, which feeds on the float- 
 ing carcasses even the rainbow and the covenant 
 are in the Assyrian story. The deluge reaches 
 unto heaven and terrifies even the gods. The 
 terror of the earth people is vividly described 
 and the awful sight of their corpses floating on 
 the water. The account concludes with the de- 
 parture from the ark, the altar, and the sacrifice : 
 " the gods smelt the savor and gathered like flies 
 over the sacrifice." In all this there is no religious 
 sentiment, the deluge has no moral purpose, it was 
 a mere caprice of the god Ea, who also by mere 
 caprice selected Hasisadra to be saved. The 
 revelation of Israel's God in the Genesis story 
 
 1 A translation may be found in any library, with the 
 librarian's help. 
 
122 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 is all the more impressive by contrast. In fact, 
 the story is not so much the history of Noah as 
 the history of God Himself, 1 so marvellously does 
 this story reveal Him in His relation to man. 
 
 The children at this age will not be in the least 
 disturbed by having learned that Ararat is not 
 the highest mountain in the region, nor by any 
 calculation showing that an ark of the size de- 
 scribed could not by any possibility have con- 
 tained two of every species of animals. Nor will 
 they ask how the writer knew the depth of the 
 water. These questions trouble those expositors 
 who insist on considering these chapters as literal 
 history, but these children have not been so 
 taught. 
 
 It will therefore be something that the mother 
 will encourage, and not check, when the children, 
 in their interest, study the chapters so closely as 
 to discover a number of mutually inconsistent 
 statements, as, for example, that two and that 
 seven of each species of animals were taken into 
 the ark, as also differing periods of time for the 
 storm. It is not necessary for the mother to 
 point out things of this kind, but when the chil- 
 dren observe them let her be glad. Now is the 
 time to show them that the inspired writer, who 
 has all along been using old folk tales tc teach 
 1 Ewald. 
 
Before the Flood and After 123 
 
 the people about God, has here woven together 
 two or more legends of the flood, since he could 
 make a fuller narrative by doing so. It will be 
 an interesting exercise for the children, on a rainy 
 Sunday afternoon, to try to separate the two 
 legends and discover their differences,. Thus 
 they will gain their first and absolutely safe 
 introduction to that Biblical criticism which has 
 so often unsettled the faith of those who have 
 first met it in some less natural way. 
 
 There is so much in this story of value for the 
 older children, capable of being interested in the 
 religious and ethical development of mankind, 
 that it is impossible here even to touch upon it 
 all. In general, it must be observed that as the 
 expulsion from paradise and the exile of Cain 
 gave to mankind a new chance, a fresh start, so 
 with the flood. Wickedness had by this time so 
 prevailed that the earth needed to be washed from 
 sin ; but God did not repeople it with a new race 
 set above the possibility of wrong-doing rather, 
 the race of man was given a new opportunity. 
 The moral necessity of the catastrophe is empha- 
 sized by God's long attempt in the preaching of 
 Noah for a hundred and fifty years to win men 
 back to goodness, to induce a voluntary change of 
 heart. 
 
 The outstanding feature of the story is the 
 
124 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 covenant, which henceforth runs through the his- 
 tory of Israel, and of the spiritual Israel. In thia 
 covenant Noah stands as representative not only 
 of all men, but also of the animal creation ; and it 
 will be worth while to study, through the entire 
 Bible, references not only to the covenant, but to 
 the part which animals bear in God's thought for 
 man. 
 
 The emphasis laid upon the sanctity of life is 
 especially worthy of note. The sons of Noah 
 might well have believed that God held life cheap 
 after its wide-spread destruction. Observe, there- 
 fore, the insistence upon this command, and that 
 its sanction is still the same as before the almost 
 universal appalling wickedness, that man is made 
 in the image of God. The principle of the flood is 
 not destruction but salvation, as was that of the 
 sentence of death upon Adam. By the flood the 
 danger of departing from God was emphasized for 
 all generations. 
 
 Noah was the renewer of the world. Abel and 
 Enoch had failed to make their environment 
 better. Abel had lived for himself, Enoch had 
 lived for God, but had been unable to impress the 
 world by his life and had been lifted above the 
 world. Noah was the first who tried to save 
 the world. The building of the ark in the sight 
 of all mankind has been called the first attempt 
 
Before the Flood and After 125 
 
 at reform, and so it was. The tragedy of Noah's 
 life was not the flood but the wickedness ; it 
 made his loneliness almost like the loneliness of 
 Christ. There is a beautifully suggestive picture 
 which may well encourage reformers of to-day, 
 in the moment when Noah walks forth from the 
 ark upon the clean-washed earth, waiting silently 
 under the rainbow of hope. Corruption has never 
 conquered the world. 1 
 
 It must be observed by the older children that 
 we are never told of any wicked deeds of the men 
 of Noah's time, but simply of their evil imagina- 
 tions. " As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." 
 It is evident from the verses lying between the 
 story of Cain and this story that Cain, the suc- 
 cessful man, and not Abel the righteous man or 
 Enoch the God-transformed man, was the ideal 
 of that time. His name reappears in the names 
 men gave their children : Tubal-cain, Cainan 
 he was their hero. Is there not something here 
 for our time? 
 
 1 The rainbow is far from suggesting to all peoples the re- 
 ligious ideas of the flood story in Genesis. The Greek Iris, the 
 goddess of the rainbow, is the sister of the Harpies, and Iris 
 herself makes use of the bow to descend to earth to inspire 
 men with madness. 
 
126 Telling Bible Storin 
 
 Genesis iv. 1924 
 
 The intermediate passages just referred to in- 
 clude two incidents which do not appeal to little 
 children, but which the older ones may hear about 
 with profit. The story of Lamech, with his " Song 
 of the Sword," which is properly given in poetic 
 form in the Revised Version, reflects the delight 
 of the ancient world in scientific discovery, a 
 delight which is peculiarly that of the present 
 age. Lamech glorifies in song his son's discovery 
 of the uses to which bronze and iron may be put. 
 Tubal-cain has made him a sword, with which, 
 when necessary, he can avenge himself. But inci- 
 dentally, while vaunting himself over Cain, he also 
 glorifies him, adopting his standards, choosing evil 
 rather than good. 1 
 
 The passage which introduces the story of 
 Noah, Genesis vi. 1, 2, has puzzled many commen- 
 
 1 Lamech and his family are familiar characters in mythol- 
 ogy. Apollo in his character of protector of flocks and herds 
 corresponds to Jabal, as the inventor of the flute and lyre and 
 the god of song he answers to Jubal. Tubal-cain is evidently 
 Vulcan. Naameh, "the beautiful," corresponds to Venus. 
 Yet in the Biblical story none of these is deified, though the 
 writer's deep appreciation of the benefits they rendered to the 
 human race is very evident. 
 
Before the Flood and After 127 
 
 tators, but it need not puzzle any child who has 
 studied mythology. The story is evidently mythi- 
 cal, and it is very clearly allied to the grosser 
 myths of paganism. It is impossible to know even 
 superficially, as the children properly study them, 
 the myths of Greece and Rome, not to say of 
 India and Egypt, Assyria and Babylonia, and not 
 see in this passage an exact, though most reticent, 
 counterpart of their unspiritual and naturalistic 
 explanation of that truth which is so incontro- 
 vertible and yet so mysterious, the kinship of 
 the human with the divine. Greece, with all her 
 philosophy, India, with all her idealism, was able 
 to explain it only by an actual union resulting 
 in the birth of demigods and heroes, the giants 
 (Rephaim) of this passage. The Bible alone of 
 all ancient lore offers a reasonable, a thinkable 
 explanation of the mystery. It is not found in 
 this passage, but in the story of the creation of 
 man in the divine image, inbreathed with the 
 divine life. How it was possible, after that noble 
 and satisfying explanation, for the author of Gene- 
 sis to incorporate this ancient myth into his 
 work, is to be explained here, as we have already 
 explained some things in the story of Noah. Evi- 
 dently the devout writer found this story current 
 among the people for whom he wrote, and he as 
 evidently found it valuable for his purpose to give, 
 
128 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 by putting a religious meaning into a myth other- 
 wise devoid of religious character, an explanation 
 of that baffling mystery, the persistence, not only, 
 of sin, notwithstanding the lessons of paradise 
 and of Cain and Enoch, but also its apparent 
 triumph. We must remember, and must show 
 the children, that the Bible was given to a child 
 people, who, like children to-day, were often 
 best taught through the imagination. " I taught 
 Ephraim to walk, taking him on my arms," as we 
 support the faltering steps of a little child ; and 
 this bit of ancient folk-lore, in which must be 
 some guess of truth, since it is found among every 
 people, may have been a valuable part of that 
 early training. It is not needed for the early train- 
 ing of our children, but thus reasonably explained 
 to them when they come upon it in their read- 
 ing, it may be made a help to wean them from 
 that subjective and selfish attitude toward the 
 Bible which is too common among Christians, 
 as if every word of it had been written for their 
 personal profit. 
 
 Incidentally it will be a matter of interest to 
 the children to perceive that the idolatry of mus- 
 cle, of athletic strength, so prevalent at the pres- 
 ent day, was deemed by this ancient writer a 
 snare to the men of old. There was no harm in 
 giants, but when they became " men of renown " 
 
Before the Flood and After 129 
 
 just for their bigness and strength, then the harm 
 began, and then it was that God saw that the 
 wickedness of man was great. 
 
 VI 
 
 Genesis x. 811 
 
 Embedded in the genealogical account of the 
 descendants of Noah are four verses which will 
 strike any boy's imagination, simply by their sug- 
 gestions, for they are not a story. They tell of 
 Nimrod, the "mighty hunter before Jehovah." 
 There are only one or two allusions to Nimrod 
 in the Bible, 1 but the fact that his fame had be- 
 come proverbial is indicated here, and ancient 
 Assyrian legend is full of him. When the chil- 
 dren come to study ancient geography they will 
 find the name Nimrod frequently occurring in the 
 names of places, Birs-Nimroud, Tel-Nimroud, etc. ; 
 and those of them who have begun to study the 
 classics, or the history of literature, will be inter- 
 ested to know that Nimrod is the hero of the 
 oldest epic ever written. It was probably written 
 nearly two thousand years before Christ, to ex- 
 press the sorrow of the people of Erech (one of 
 Nimrod's cities) when that city was conquered 
 1 1 Chron. i. 10 ; Mic. v. 6. 
 
130 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 by a cruel foreign people ; but like all epics it em- 
 bodies older legends and myths, and the deified 
 Nimrod is its hero. Nimrod occupies large space 
 in ancient imagination as a hunter (as we have 
 seen from the proverb in Genesis), and also as 
 a conqueror, builder, and fortifier of cities. He 
 used to be identified with the constellation Orion ; 
 and this is an interesting thing to tell the child 
 when the stars are being studied. Those re- 
 searches which are being carried on in ancient 
 Babylonia have brought to light many legends 
 about him, and he is found identified with all the 
 cities named with him in Genesis, except, as yet, 
 Accad. 
 
 VII 
 
 Genesis xi. 19 
 
 The last of our " morning stories " is that of 
 Babel. Its peculiar freshness, and artlessness all 
 its own, make it very attractive to the little child. 
 It is the endeavor of the ancient people to account 
 for the wide scattering of races, and for the very 
 inconvenient fact that they speak different lan- 
 guages. This is not a world legend ; it is not 
 found among other peoples of that region of the 
 world, not even at Birs-Nimroud (Borsippa), 
 which is traditionally the site of Babel. This is 
 
Before the Flood and After 131 
 
 interesting, because only the Hebrew people so 
 realized the unity of humanity in their relation- 
 ship to God as to be puzzled by the facts which it 
 attempted to explain. 
 
 There is, indeed, a Greek legend of the giants 
 scaling the heights of Olympus, which offers a 
 slight suggestion of the story, and Livingstone 
 found among the people of Lake Ngami an ex- 
 planation of the diversity of tongues somewhat 
 similar to this. The Jewish rabbis did not, indeed, 
 always attribute this story to the desire to explain 
 this mystery. They taught that the motive of 
 the people in building a tower which should reach 
 up to heaven was to support the sky and keep it 
 from toppling and spilling out another deluge; 
 and such a naive idea well accords with the im- 
 pression which the tradition of the deluge must 
 have made upon a primitive people. 
 
 The explanation of the name Babel (Confu- 
 sion) given by this old writer shows that he did 
 not understand Assyrian, for the true meaning of 
 Bab-el is the gate of God. But his motive was not 
 to teach etymology ; he was simply indulging in 
 that love of playing with words which is very 
 characteristic of Hebrew writers. The explanation 
 was simply a pun, or rather a figure of speech, a 
 kind of play with words that children delight 
 in, somewhat as if they were to say that Babel 
 
132 Telling Bible Storie* 
 
 means babble, and so confusion of tongues. The 
 lightness of the old writer's spirit, shown all 
 through this narrative, did not prevent the serious- 
 ness of his motive, which was purely religious : to 
 show the evil of man exalting himself against his 
 Maker, and seeking his own glory instead of the 
 glory of God. When men rebel against God they 
 become discordant among themselves, as here typi- 
 fied by the confusion of their speech. 
 
 VIII 
 
 I have failed indeed in my purpose if I have not 
 by this time made it clear to every mother who has 
 read thus far that there is absolutely no better 
 way than by these stories of introducing the hu- 
 man mind to the great universal fundamental 
 truths truths of the character of God and His 
 relation to the universe and to man, of the nature 
 of sin and its deadly effect upon man's character 
 and destiny. No system of pedagogy, no psycho- 
 logical insight, can devise a better way of present" 
 ing these great truths to the human intelligence 
 than simply by telling these earliest Bible stories to 
 a little child. I have tried to show that they may 
 be so told to a very little child as to need no revi- 
 sion of the impression they have made in his later 
 years ; that the expanding mind of the boy or girl, 
 
Before the Flood and After 133 
 
 working upon the material which has been made 
 familiar to it by much repetition, will be able, by 
 applying its subsequent acquisitions to this very 
 material, to attain to larger and ever larger appre- 
 hension of these truths. 
 
 The bent of mind which generations of teaching 
 from another point of view have given to the 
 mothers of this generation makes it hardly possible 
 too earnestly to insist that the purpose of these 
 Genesis stories is not historical but religious, or 
 too often to remind them that their own purpose 
 in telling Bible stories to their children has not 
 been so much to teach them what once happened 
 as to vitalize their natures with the large thoughts 
 that these stories suggest. Hebrew tradition, as 
 Ewald has said, possesses a vivid sense of truth 
 and fidelity, of sobriety and modesty, and an aver- 
 sion to everything immoderate, vain, and frivolous. 
 In these respects it is a whole heaven apart from 
 all other tradition ; for example, the Biblical 
 writer of the flood story omits all the dramatic 
 horrors of the Babylonian narrative, the terrors 
 of the people, the corpses floating on the water, 
 and the like. 
 
 It is a striking fact that Hebrew tradition did 
 not make the earliest patriarchs semidivine, demi- 
 gods, as other tradition invariably does ; they are 
 simply men, and it is because they are simply 
 
134 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 men that these traditions are so valuable for us. 
 The legends in these chapters are of varied origin, 
 but they are marvellously adapted to the religious 
 belief and the religious needs of the people for 
 whom they were written. "The amalgamation 
 of these legends, and their infilteration with the 
 spirit of a higher religion, is one of the most brill- 
 iant achievements of the people Israel." 1 
 
 Their adaptability to the religious needs of 
 to-day is hardly less remarkable, for they reveal 
 not only elemental but potential humanity, not 
 only what man once did but what he may always 
 do. When, for example, was the lesson of the 
 forbidden fruit more imperatively needed than 
 now, when social conventions more than imply 
 that experience of evil is necessary for the en- 
 largement of the soul ? What Adam gained by 
 eating the forbidden fruit was not culture, but 
 separation from God, an evil conscience, "the 
 pain of not being holy." Again, when did the 
 world ever more urgently need to hold up before 
 itself the unique ideal of immortality shown by 
 Enoch, that immortality is not fame nor heroic 
 deeds nor even continued existence, but being 
 with God ? What can we better do for our own 
 children than to fill their souls with such ideals ? 
 1 Gunkel, " The Legends of Genesis." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 A PATRIARCH STORY 
 
 Genesis xii. xxiii. 
 
 I 
 
 WITH the story of Abraham we enter upon a 
 new story class, and although these stories are 
 quite as well adapted to the youngest children as 
 any others in the Bible, it may help the mother if 
 we begin to-day with the older children, and set 
 them at work, some Sunday afternoon, upon a 
 study of the book of Genesis as a book. At the 
 head of the book stands the title " The First Book 
 of Moses, called Genesis." If we could read 
 Hebrew we should see that the title in the 
 Hebrew Bible consists of only the last word, 
 Bereshith, "In-beginning," or, as Greek scholars 
 translated it, Genesis. The Hebrews made this 
 word the title simply because it is the first word 
 of the book, as is their frequent custom. 1 But it 
 is a very appropriate title, as the book tells about 
 
 *For example, the book called in the English Bible "The 
 Lamentations of Jeremiah" is in the Hebrew called simply by 
 its first word, <; How." 
 
 135 
 
136 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 the beginnings of things. The other title, " The 
 First Book of Moses," is simply traditional. 
 Neither in the book itself nor elsewhere in the 
 Bible are we told that Moses wrote it. Without 
 doubt, the tradition that he wrote it dates from 
 very far back. The Hebrews believed it long 
 before the time of Christ, but they never ex- 
 pressed this belief by putting it in their Bible. 
 A part of this title is, indeed, justified ; Genesis 
 is very evidently the first of a series of which the 
 general subject is the early history of Israel. We 
 have already seen that to the Israelitish writer 
 this history dates from the creation. " When God 
 said, Let there be light, he had Abraham in view," 
 says the Haggadic commentary of the Jewish 
 rabbis. But as to the authorship, not only of 
 this first book, but of the entire series, the Bible 
 says not a word. Even our Lord, when referring 
 to what Moses commanded, does not so much as 
 imply that he wrote the books, any more than we 
 imply that legislators write our law books when 
 we quote their utterances. 
 
 When the mother is explaining these things to 
 the boys and girls she can go on to tell them that 
 the chapters and verses are an arrangement of 
 comparatively recent date, and designed for con- 
 venience, precisely as the line numbers on the 
 margin of their Homer or Virgil or Milton 
 
A Patriarch Story 137 
 
 are. None of the old manuscripts of the Bible 
 have them. They were made by a Frenchman 
 named Richard, about the fifteenth century. 
 Nevertheless, the book of Genesis is not all 
 one piece, nor did the Hebrew people so regard 
 it. Its divisions are very clearly marked, and 
 the boys and girls will be interested in discover- 
 ing these for themselves. As they afford a clue 
 to some essential characteristics of the book, this 
 research will be quite worth while. 
 
 To begin with, the volume evidently consists 
 of two books. The first of these books contains 
 the first eleven chapters ; we have just completed 
 that book in the Bible stories already told. 
 
 The second book begins where we begin to-day, 
 with the call of Abraham, and it includes the 
 stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, 
 the patriarch stories. The difference between 
 the two books is as clear as possible. 
 
 These books are divided into chapters, which, 
 however, are not equivalent to the chapters in 
 our Bible. Each chapter has a title, with the 
 exception of the first in each book, which needs 
 no title precisely because it is the first. Alert- 
 minded children will easily discern where and 
 what these titles are, and if two or three are 
 working together, they will be immensely inter- 
 ested in a sort of competitive search for them, 
 
138 Telling Bible titories 
 
 who will find them soonest or in greater number. 
 It appears that each chapter, or section, is a genea- 
 logical story, or at least " the generations of '' 
 something ; not always of a person, as the very 
 first title that of Section Two shows, since it 
 is "The Generations of the Heavens and of the 
 Earth " ; that is, it is the story of creation and 
 of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. It begins at 
 Chapter ii. 4, in our Bible. The next title occurs 
 in the first verse of the fifth chapter, and shows 
 that Section Three is " The Book of the Generations 
 (that is, the descendants) of Adam." It contains 
 the Enoch story, and the mythological story de- 
 signed to show how evil became so prevalent as 
 to require the washing of the earth by a flood. 
 The fourth section, beginning at Chapter vi. 9, is 
 " The Generations of Noah," and tells the story 
 of the Flood ; the fifth, at x. 1, is " The Genera- 
 tions of the Sons of Noah," and contains the 
 stories of Nimrod and of Babel ; the sixth, at 
 xi. 10, is "The Generations of Shem," and in- 
 cludes no story ; the seventh, a very short sec- 
 tion, begins at xi. 27, " The Generations of 
 Terah," and has only five verses. Its design is 
 to introduce the story of the next book. 
 
 Thus we have in seven chapters a number of 
 exquisite and profoundly significant folk tales, set 
 in a framework of genealogy, designed to cover 
 
A Patriarch Story 139 
 
 die history of the world from the creation to the 
 call of Abraham, u the great father of the He- 
 brews." The second book is of like character, in 
 that it consists of a number of exquisite stories of 
 the Hebrew people, set in a framework of gene- 
 alogy. The first chapter, or section, of this book, 
 the story of Abraham, like the first chapter in the 
 first book, has no heading, simply because it is 
 the first and needs none. We find Section Two 
 at Chapter xxv. 12, " These are the Generations 
 of Ishmael." Section Three begins at the nine- 
 teenth verse of this same chapter, " The Genera- 
 tions of Isaac " ; Section Four, at xxxvi. 1, " The 
 Generations of Esau"; and Section Five, at xxxvii. 
 2, u The Generations of Jacob." This section 
 goes to the end of the book. 
 
 Thus the first book has seven sections and the 
 two books together twelve. Both these numbers 
 were, with the Hebrews, and with many other 
 primitive peoples, regarded as " sacred " or mysti- 
 cal numbers, and it is useful to recognize this fact 
 for two reasons. The first chiefly concerns the 
 mother, clearly pointing as it does to the con- 
 clusion that the scheme of the book of Genesis is 
 a mystical scheme, and that this must be taken 
 into account, as we have done hitherto, in seeking 
 for its meaning. No other book in the Bible has 
 any such divisions, and evidently none other has 
 
140 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 precisely such a purpose as this book, or should 
 be interpreted in precisely the same way. The 
 second reason is of practical interest for the 
 children, whom we now imagine to be studying 
 the scheme of the book of Genesis. They have 
 come to that point in their school education when 
 they are sent to a library to look up things, and 
 thus have learned how to use books ; and it will 
 be intensely interesting to them, and a valuable 
 exercise both religious and intellectual, to study 
 the use and significance of mystical numbers in 
 the Bible three, seven, twelve, forty, a hundred, 
 a thousand. No exercise will be more valuable 
 as a means of divesting the child's mind of the 
 notion, if he has unfortunately been permitted to 
 acquire it, or to preserve him from acquiring it, 
 that truth is synonymous with literalness ; none 
 will be more valuable for making him feel the im- 
 portant relation of imagination to truth. It is 
 almost impossible for us grown people to attain to 
 this freedom of mind, so fixed are we in the bond- 
 age of preconceived ideas, but if we begin right 
 with the children they need never wear our mental 
 fetters. There is no more deadly enemy to spirit- 
 ual truth than prosaic literalness. 
 
A Patriarch Story 141 
 
 II 
 
 The stories of the first book of Genesis, as we 
 may now call it, those which shine out like gems 
 from their setting of dull genealogical record in 
 the first eleven chapters, are true folk tales, re- 
 deemed from mythology not only by the truths 
 about God, of which they have been made the 
 vehicle, but also by their high spirituality and 
 ethical significance. They show God "acting in 
 the natural world and in the soul of man." As 
 one turns the page between the eleventh chapter 
 and those that follow, he becomes immediately 
 conscious of having to do with another sort of 
 literature. The stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, 
 and Joseph are not folk-lore, nor do they in the 
 smallest degree suggest the mythology of any 
 ancient people. We should not think of saying 
 of them, as we have properly said of the preced- 
 ing stories, that they are the product of inspira- 
 tion working upon material which has sprung out 
 of the wondering questioning of primitive minds 
 as to the causes of natural and moral phenomena. 
 There is an essential difference between the 
 patriarch stories and the earlier narratives of the 
 book of Genesis which is clear to every reader. 
 Yet it may not be easy to say just what the dif- 
 
142 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 ference is until we have established a relation 
 between these patriarch stories and the literary 
 culture of to-day. It is the mother's high privi- 
 lege to guard her children from the fundamental 
 error of most Bible reading of to-day, that of 
 making it an exercise apart, unrelated to the 
 knowledge which has been otherwise gained. 
 The method of telling Bible stories which has 
 already been described establishes that safeguard ; 
 and just as the mother has shown how the " morn- 
 ing stories " of Genesis are related to myth, so 
 she will show that these patriarch stories belong 
 in the literary class that we call legend. They 
 are not history, any more than the earlier stories 
 are. The children will instinctively feel the very 
 real difference between the patriarch stories and 
 the narratives of the book of Kings, for example, 
 and an intelligent classification would certainly 
 put them into an entirely different category. A 
 profound student of the Old Testament a very 
 suggestively compares the stories in the first part 
 of Genesis with Hesiod, and those in the second 
 part with Homer. They may with equal correct- 
 ness be likened to the old sagas of Scandinavia, 
 which tell the stories of the families that first 
 settled in the country. Another distinction may 
 be made between them. In the earlier stories 
 i Rev. J. P. Peters, Ph.D. 
 
A Patriarch Story 143 
 
 God is always represented as directly active, so 
 that, as has already been said, they may almost be 
 called the history of God rather than of men. In 
 the second part of the book, although His presence 
 is all-pervading, it is, so to speak, veiled. He 
 speaks in dreams or He is not immediately rec- 
 ognized, and the true heroes of the stories are 
 the men they tell about. But they are men of 
 national importance, and this is characteristic of 
 legend and especially of saga. 
 
 The important feature of legend is that, being 
 the product not of any one mind but of the ideas 
 of a whole people, it is expressive of the people's 
 mind. Every ancient people had its legends of 
 the founders of the nation, as every child knows 
 who has studied ancient history. Those were 
 usually kept current among the people by wan- 
 dering story-tellers, or bards, such as existed in 
 Scotland and Ireland until very recent times. 
 Evidently there was such a class of story-tellers 
 in Israel. The book of Numbers alludes to the 
 Moshelim, reciters of sarcastic verses (" they that 
 speak in proverbs," Numbers xxi. 27), and they 
 were evidently members of the story-telling 
 profession. 
 
 There are many incidents in these patriarch 
 stories, each one complete in itself, which may be 
 told to the younger children ; but as a whole the 
 
144 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 best time for introducing a child to this group of 
 stories is the period between eight and ten years 
 of age, the time when he begins to enjoy hero 
 tales, to which class these stories in part belong. 
 If any parts of these stories are told earlier, 
 and such incidents as the visit of the three men to 
 Abraham's tent, Jacob's dream, or the selling of 
 Joseph into Egypt may properly be told to much 
 younger children, care should be taken not to 
 read into them anything which they do not con- 
 tain. They should be told as nearly as possible 
 in the Bible words, trusting to the child's imagi- 
 nation to fill out the picture. The child's imagi- 
 nation may err, but it is far more likely to be 
 true than our own. At any rate, whatever we 
 may put in to fill out the framework, it must be 
 nothing that will require paring down or explain- 
 ing away when the time of proper appreciation 
 arrives. Rather, let the stories be told as the 
 earlier stories were told, with strong appeal to 
 the child's constructive imagination to complete 
 the picture and interpret the truths they embody 
 and are meant to teach. 
 
 For these patriarch stories, widely as they differ 
 in character from the early stories of Genesis, 
 have this in common with them, that their main 
 purpose is not to narrate facts but to make an 
 impression. This is the purpose of every story- 
 
A Patriarch Story 145 
 
 teller, whether he be inspired or not inspired, and 
 therefore, in all story- telling, questions of fact 
 fall into the background and questions of method 
 take precedence. The method of the writer l of 
 these stories is conditioned by his purpose ; each 
 story has its own motive, and while in general the 
 scope of these legendary stories is by no means as 
 large as that of the earlier, mythical stories, and 
 is motived not only by the truths implied, but also 
 by the desire to embody in permanent form the 
 floating legends about the founders of the Hebrew 
 nation, yet the writer's general purpose, in select- 
 ing precisely these incidents from the enormous 
 mass of story and legend which must have clus- 
 tered round the names of the patriarchs, was none 
 other than the purpose to impress upon Israel 
 what has been called " the basic principle of both 
 Old and New Testaments : the perfect God wish- 
 ing to bring man to holiness and true communion 
 with Himself." The accuracy of this description 
 is striking ; it should always be the underlying 
 consciousness of the mother who tells these stories 
 to her children. 
 
 Each of these stories has a special purpose of 
 
 1 The question of the various narratives which go to make 
 up the book of Genesis, J, E, JE, R, has no place here. 
 Some one put the stories into their present form, and that is 
 all that here concerns us. 
 
146 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 its own, and it is this special purpose, apart from 
 their high literary value, which makes them su- 
 premely important from the point of view, not 
 only of religion, but also of the development of 
 human thought, and therefore of the mind of 
 the child. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Now it is a marvellous thing that the essential 
 purpose of the story of Abraham is to reveal that 
 deep truth which is just now especially occupying 
 the thoughtful mind, the great cosmic fact of 
 unity. The one God, the one nation in whom 
 all families of the earth were to be blessed, these 
 were the prominent thoughts in the writer's mind. 
 The peoples of the time in which he wrote were 
 polytheistic ; they worshipped a multitude of 
 gods, and the inveterate tendency of Israel to fall 
 into their ways is abundantly shown in the books of 
 Kings and of many of the prophets. The peoples 
 among whom they lived, far from recognizing the 
 unity of humanity, were perpetually at war with 
 one another, making conquest indeed their busi- 
 ness. All the energies of the writer's mind were 
 devoted to showing that Israel's entire history 
 must be interpreted by the fact that its founder, 
 Abraham, worshipped the one God who was the 
 
A Patriarch Story 147 
 
 of heaven and earth, the Father of men, 
 the centre therefore of cosmic unity and of the 
 essential unity of humanity, and that it was 
 through the one nation which knew and wor- 
 shipped this God that all the nations of the earth 
 were to be blessed. In those days, when the pos- 
 session of wer/th, either in cattle or slaves, was a 
 sufficient reason why those more powerful should 
 make war upon the wealthy clan and rob it of its 
 property, it was a strikingly significant illustra- 
 tion of the function of Israel in the world, that 
 Abraham, with his large band of retainers and his 
 great wealth., lived out a long life of peace in the 
 midst of contmually warring peoples, on that very 
 soil of Canaan which from the dawn of history to 
 the conquests of Napoleon has been the battle-field 
 of the world. 
 
 The form in which the writer clothes these 
 truths of unity, cosmic and human, is to the last 
 degree idyllic, and though there is hardly a word 
 of scenic description in the whole story, the all- 
 pervading nature consciousness is as striking as 
 in any idyl of Theocritus. The reader of these 
 chapters seems always to be aware of hills and 
 plains, of the starry expanse of heaven and the far- 
 off ocean roar ; and when the time comes to intro- 
 duce the children to the geography of Palestine, 
 they should be shown what long vistas between 
 
148 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 hills, and what beauty of surrounding scenery, 
 have a part in this story of Abraham. There is a 
 description in the thirteenth chapter (verse 10), 
 where Abraham and Lot survey the land, that Lot 
 may choose his own portion, which, though the 
 revisers have not put it into poetic form, is 
 in fact a little poem, a nature song such as one 
 finds in Canticles and Proverbs, or in the classic 
 writers. The story contains an unparalleled num- 
 ber of manifestations of God, no fewer than nine 
 in all, and in nearly every one there is a surprising 
 sense of surrounding nature. Abraham is sitting 
 in his tent door in the heat of the day, looking off 
 upon the wide plains of Mamre ; he is standing 
 before the Lord on the hill east of Hebron, look- 
 ing down the long vista between the hills to the 
 far-off Jordan Valley and the cities of the plain ; 
 he is building an altar beneath the far-famed 
 soothsayer's oak in the place of Sichem ; God has 
 led him to some commanding summit, that he may 
 look northward and southward and eastward and 
 westward, over the hills and valleys of the land 
 he shall inherit, washed on its border by the 
 illimitable sea ; or he " brings him forth abroad," 
 to look toward heaven and count the stars, by 
 them to learn the innumerable multitude of his 
 descendants. The eighteenth chapter, when the 
 three angels come to Abraham's tent and he pre- 
 
A Patriarch Story 149 
 
 pares a meal for them, is pure pastoral, and pre- 
 cisely such a scene is often witnessed to this day 
 by travellers among the nomadic tribes of the 
 East. It is good and most elevating to bring 
 home to the children this lovely nature feeling, 
 just as it is good and most refining to train them 
 to the enjoyment of fine scenery, and to the dis- 
 cernment of the varied beauties of nature, even 
 where it offers no particularly grand or picturesque 
 features. 
 
 There is much in Abraham's story which is 
 likely to slip out of the narrative unless the 
 mother prepares herself for telling it by some 
 pretty thoughtful reading, filling out the outlines 
 not only by imagination, but by knowledge gained 
 from other sources. For example, even the de- 
 parture of Abraham with his father and his 
 nephew and his wife Sarah from the great capital, 
 Ur of the Chaldees, will start the little child's 
 imagination to work when he learns as the 
 enormous mass of legend teaches that this was 
 an influential family in that country ; that they 
 might have lived there as princes, if they had been 
 willing to worship idols as the other people of the 
 city did ; and that they gave up all their property 
 and their pleasant home to go away where they 
 might be good and worship the true God. The 
 long night journeyings under the starry sky, the 
 
150 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 days being too hot for travelling, strike the idyl* 
 lie keynote at once ; the building of altars and 
 calling upon God at every halting-place strikes 
 the religious note in such wise as will awaken 
 response in even the youngest child, and the death 
 of the old father in Haran, while yet they were far 
 away from the promised land, will give the touch 
 of personal sympathy. For the older children is 
 the story of the sensation that must have been 
 created, when, after long, prosperous years of so- 
 journ in Haran, and the far journey with flocks 
 and herds and bondservants (" the souls they had 
 gotten in Haran "), the great caravan of travellers 
 arrived in Canaan. The older children may be 
 sent to histories and encyclopaedias for information 
 of the civilization of the Canaanites in that time, 
 living in cities surrounded by comforts and con- 
 stantly engaged in war, enriching themselves at 
 the expense of their neighbors, yet entering into 
 friendly relations with Abraham, letting him wan- 
 der freely through the whole country, and never 
 making raids upon his flocks and herds, although, 
 especially after his return from Egypt with great 
 added wealth, they must have offered a very real 
 temptation. 
 
 The Egyptian episode 1 contains nothing which 
 may not be told a little child, in the simple way 
 i Gen. xii. 10-xiii. 1. 
 
A Patriarch Xtory 151 
 
 in which it is told in the Bible ; and it has a 
 personal interest because it was in Egypt that 
 Sarah found her maid Hagar, and brought her 
 back with her to Canaan. The sheep and oxen 
 and bondservants and asses with which the Pha- 
 raoh enriched Abraham will serve to make the 
 older children realize the respect and honor which 
 Abraham seemed able everywhere to command. 
 For these older children, rather than the little 
 ones, except in briefest outline, is the quarrel 
 between the herdmen of Abraham and those of 
 his nephew Lot, with its opportunities for de- 
 veloping the character of pastoral life; and the 
 generosity of Abraham in giving Lot the choice 
 of the land, with all the consequences which 
 ensued, is an admirable story feature. Here 
 should come a study of the physical geography 
 of the country. I have already spoken of the al- 
 most indispensable value to the mother of Profes- 
 sor George Adam Smith's " Historical Geography 
 of the Holy Land," as a help in preparing herself 
 to tell the Bible stories, and also for enlarging 
 the ideas and making concrete the interest of the 
 older children. To this she should add, as an in- 
 valuable item of nursery furniture, a good relief 
 map of the Bible lands, or at least of Palestine. 
 Even the younger children will enjoy it, and to 
 the older ones it will prove a great enlighten 
 
152 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 ment. 1 Children of ten and twelve will follow 
 upon the relief map with unfailing delight the 
 journey ings of Abraham and his family, the wan- 
 derings of Hagar and Ishmael, and will discern 
 the wide panoramas extended before the view of 
 Abraham from his lofty home in Hebron, 2 and the 
 higher hilltops to which Jehovah led him. And 
 during this process many of the deeper meanings 
 of the story will unfold themselves. 
 
 The great war narrated in the fourteenth chap- 
 ter, in which Lot was taken captive, and Abraham 
 with his retainers by a forced march and a sudden 
 assault released the captives, is a thrilling tale, 
 even for the younger children, and still more so 
 for those of the history-studying age. But for 
 the older boys and girls who are going more seri- 
 ously into the story of the ancient world, and are 
 taking up the study of literature, this chapter is a 
 mine of unexpected suggestion. The difference 
 of its style from all that precedes and follows is 
 very striking. It is evidently a passage from a 
 very ancient, perhaps contemporary work, prob- 
 ably a history of Western Asia, taken from its 
 context by our writer because it contains the 
 name of Abraham. Scholars are by no means 
 
 1 1 may mention here, also, the excellent maps in a Bibla 
 Geography, lately published. 
 
 8 More than three thousand feet above the sea level. 
 
A Patriarch Story 153 
 
 through with their attempts to define precisely 
 the character of this document. Many of the 
 names were evidently unknown to the writer who 
 incorporated it in the Genesis story, and it appears 
 evident that he made some attempt to modernize 
 them in order to make them intelligible. Neither 
 history nor legend, apart from this chapter, tells 
 us anything about precisely such an alliance and 
 such a rebellion as this chapter narrates, in which 
 the capture of the non-combatant Lot was only an 
 incident; but it is now certain that two of the 
 peoples here probably named were at this period 
 subject to Elam, and the names of these persons 
 and places have been found on bricks unearthed in 
 ancient Babylonia and brought to the British Mu- 
 seum. At least one of the persons here named, 
 Chedorlaomer (more correctly, Kudur-Lagomer), 
 called on these bricks " the father of Palestine," is 
 well known to history. The fresh additions to 
 our knowledge of that ancient time, continually 
 being brought to light by archaeological research, 
 are making increasingly probable some such an 
 occurrence as is here narrated. There are matters 
 of detail here that can hardly be possible. How 
 could even the most able company of three hun- 
 dred and eighteen retainers unpractised in war, 
 however well trained, and even with the aid of 
 their gallant Amorite confederates, rescue from a 
 
154 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 great victorious army not only the persons but the 
 goods of a captured family ? But the improbabil- 
 ity of the details as here narrated does not in the 
 least affect the interest, or indeed the truth, of the 
 story. The art of writing history was only in its 
 infancy ; even the gifted father of history, Herodo- 
 tus, tells many and many an incident that will 
 not bear close investigation, and the arguments 
 between historians of to-day about events as 
 recent as our Civil War, the contest which has 
 recently arisen over the question whether or not 
 Joan of Arc was actually burned at the stake, 
 show the futility of asking for absolute accuracy 
 in a document almost four thousand years old. 
 The presence of that document here is invaluable, 
 not only because it has thus been preserved 
 through so many millenniums, but as a striking 
 evidence of the literary methods of the writer of 
 Genesis. Moreover, it is very obvious, from the 
 change in literary style, that in narrating the inci- 
 dent of the rescue of Lot, the writer abandons the 
 document and falls back upon the legends which 
 are in general his sources of knowledge. No 
 doubt in the document there was the merest 
 casual mention of Abraham, but the incident is 
 one with which legend would be sure to busy it- 
 self. One of its most interesting features is the 
 picture it gives of Abraham's relations with the 
 
A Patriarch Story 155 
 
 Amorite princes, and of his remarkably high- 
 minded attitude with regard to the spoil. For 
 countless generations spoil was considered as the 
 legitimate property of the spoiler were there 
 not American officers who brought home " loot " 
 from China, only a few years ago? How digni- 
 fied, how highly ethical, how far in advance of his 
 time, was Abraham in this transaction ! And how 
 eminently ethical was he in refraining from any 
 attempt to drag his confederates up to his stand- 
 ard ! The Amorites who went with him had not 
 attained to his ethical heights. Moreover, the 
 quarrel was not theirs, and they deserved to reap 
 some fruits of their friendly alliance. That the 
 conquered people must pay the expenses of war is 
 an acknowledged principle of international ethics 
 to-day. 
 
 The Melchizedek incident l comes in here. It 
 is difficult to find the historical or the religious 
 place among the Canaanites of this priest-king 
 who served the " most high God." But the 
 writer's motive for including this legend here 
 is very evident, and very amazing. In the very 
 midst of a story designed to show that Israel was 
 God's chosen people, and chosen for the special 
 purpose of being the unifying bond of humanity, 
 he introduces an incident to show that Israel had 
 i Gen. xiv. 17-24. 
 
156 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 not the exclusive privilege of knowing the true 
 God ; that all men had the same right ; that God 
 is no respecter of persons ; and, as St. Peter learned 
 with such difficulty two thousand years later, that 
 in every nation he that feareth God and worketh 
 righteousness is accepted of him. 1 
 
 IV 
 
 All this for the older children, the high school 
 or college boys and girls. For children of every 
 age is the lovely story of the visit of the three 
 angels, one of whom proves to be Jehovah Him- 
 self, and the promise of the longed-for son ; fol- 
 lowed by that wonderful walk of Abraham with 
 the Lord, when God made him His confidant, 
 telling him what He was going to do. Here is the 
 place for the relief map, and the children may 
 trace that ravine between the hills by which, from 
 the high hill-top, Abraham saw Sodom in the far 
 valley, while he made his importunate prayer for 
 its salvation. 2 The intercessory prayer and the 
 destruction of Sodom will be lightly touched upon 
 until the children are growing up; for though 
 young children can know their right to pray for 
 others, they can neither understand cannot even 
 think about the nature of intercessory prayer 
 i Acte x. 34. 2 Gen. xviii. 23-33. 
 
A Patriarch Story 157 
 
 or the moral condition of a city in which not ten 
 righteous men can be found ; while the brave ap- 
 peal of Abraham to the Judge of all the earth to 
 " do right " is a subject for the most profoundly 
 thinking mind. But at fifteen or sixteen they can 
 understand that it was what Abraham had done 
 for Sodom, the battle and the rescue (for we are 
 not to think that Lot alone was either taken pris- 
 oner or rescued), which lent warmth to his inter- 
 est and urgency to his prayer, and they can learn 
 from it the religious truth that it is in fact only 
 those for whom we are willing to suffer, for whom 
 we have any right to pray. 
 
 Every child's heart will thrill with response to 
 the joy over the birth of Isaac, 1 and will be deeply 
 moved by the pathos of the banishment of Hagar 
 and Ishmael. 2 As I have already indicated, there 
 is something in the latter story for the older chil- 
 dren. Only those who are well grown can enter 
 into the full significance for the whole world of 
 the birth of the son of promise. 
 
 No event in the life of Abraham so appeals to 
 a little child as that which is commonly, and with 
 deeper truth than appears on the surface, called 
 the sacrifice of Isaac. 3 He can understand none 
 of its far-reaching implications, but to its deeply 
 religious spirit he will beautifully respond. The 
 i Gen. xxi. 1-8. 2 Ib. vss. 9-21. Gen. xxii. 1-19. 
 
158 Telling Bible Storie* 
 
 greatest care should be exercised to give him no 
 erroneous impression; but no mother will make 
 the mistake of discussing with a child the ethical 
 question which in fact is not an ethical ques- 
 tion, but purely historical and literary which 
 this story involves. The time for that comes 
 later, and to it we shall later return. 
 
 The dignified and pathetic account of the death 
 and burial of Sarah l has also its interest for the 
 child who is old enough to know about death, and 
 it contains much that may be later developed, as 
 to the manners and customs of the time and the 
 relations of Abraham with the Canaanitish neigh- 
 bors among whom he had lived so long as a friend. 
 Each of the incidents in Abraham's life is a story 
 by itself, and may be told by itself, independently 
 of any other. 
 
 Somewhat later than the period for studying 
 mythology, though still while the children enjoy 
 their Grimm and Hans Andersen, and when they 
 have come to explore the inexhaustible riches of the 
 " Arabian Nights," 2 comes the time for introducing 
 
 1 Gen. xxiii. 
 
 2 I have elsewhere emphasized the immense importance of 
 the "Arabian Nights" to Western Bible students, for the point 
 of view and the Eastern atmosphere they give. Lane's three 
 illustrated volumes should be in every nursery. There are 
 later renderings of the " Arabian Nights " (Lang's, for instance) 
 perhaps more easy for the children to read, and charming as 
 
A Patriarch Story 159 
 
 them to the wealth of legendary lore which has 
 clustered around the name of Abraham. The 
 mother will find much of it in any good Biblical 
 encyclopaedia, and especially in the Jewish En- 
 cyclopaedia, which is in every public library. 
 These legends bear witness to the fact that the 
 religious influence of the Hebrew people upon the 
 world life that surrounded them was greater than 
 is commonly recognized, and this should be care- 
 fully pointed out as the older children review the 
 story. Tacitus and Strabo mention it, and the 
 great number of " God-fearing " pagans in 
 the New Testament story, the "proselytes of the 
 gate," in Jewish parlance, bears incidental wit- 
 ness to this influence. Indeed, it was the im- 
 mense number of these proselytes at the time 
 of our Lord's advent, found in every walk of 
 life from the imperial family to the common 
 soldiery, which explains from the human point 
 of view the phenomenal success of the apostolic 
 preaching. This the historic and classical studies 
 of the college boys and girls will show. But the 
 younger school children have here to do simply 
 
 specimens of modern literature, but they are far from useful 
 either as to text or illustrations for the purpose now in mind. 
 Lane's illustrations and his notes are a liberal education in 
 Eastern lore and an accurate representation of the Eastern 
 spirit even of to-day. 
 
160 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 with the legends that cluster around the name 
 of Abraham, beginning with his life in Chaldsea. 
 They tell that he was a teacher of improved agri- 
 culture, that he invented the alphabet, that the 
 angels of God taught him Hebrew, not spoken in 
 Chaldsea. They say that he was banished from 
 Ur of the Chaldees for having strenuously 
 preached against idolatry ; and indeed it is not 
 amiss to find in a sentence of banishment God's 
 summons to Terah to depart from ChaldaBa and 
 go to the promised land. Legend says that 
 Abraham was at Babel, and remonstrated against 
 the building of the tower, and that Nimrod, king 
 of Babylon (as well as the authorities of Ur), 
 persecuted him for his zeal in preaching and de- 
 stroying idols, and that he miraculously escaped 
 death. Another legend, embroidering upon the 
 material after the manner of legend, says that he 
 led a horde of insurrectionists out of Babylon into 
 the desert. Arab literature represents him now 
 as a great man of the East, a magus, well read in 
 the stars, and again as a conquering prince sweep- 
 ing all before him. Yet his title in the East was 
 usually " The Friend " ; with all his zeal for true 
 religion he was never regarded as claiming au- 
 thority, and as " The Friend " he is known to this 
 day in local tradition, as we shall presently see. 
 The Jewish book of Jubilees numbers ten trials 
 
A Patriarch Story 161 
 
 of his faith, that of Isaac's sacrifice being theii 
 culmination. 
 
 The next step of progress in the " graded 
 system " of telling the story of Abraham's life is 
 to take the relief map, already familiar to the 
 children, and go carefully over his long journey- 
 ings, from Ur of the Chaldees to Egypt, or at 
 least through the length and breadth of Palestine. 
 The places should be identified where Abraham 
 built his altars and took possession of the land for 
 Jehovah, making it the Holy Land which it has 
 been from that day to this. The fine geographical 
 position of Shechem, in the high valley between 
 Mounts Ebal and Gerizim, should be noticed. It 
 is at the parting place of the waters from which the 
 streams flow away on one side to the Jordan 
 Valley, on the other to that great and wide sea 
 which always made such a strong impression 
 upon the Hebrew mind. The marvellous coloring 
 of the Holy Land might here be mentioned, and 
 if the mother has some of the colored photograv- 
 ures of the country now so easily obtainable, they 
 will help to make this geographical study more 
 vivid, the intense brilliancy of the flowers 
 spreading everywhere like a Turkish carpet, the 
 
162 Telling Bible Storie* 
 
 vivid chocolate of the clay banks, the deep green 
 of the grain fields and grass, the brilliant blue of 
 the overarching sky, bending down on the western 
 horizon to meet the deeper blue of the wide sea 
 where go the ships. 
 
 Near by is the plain of Moreh, under the shade 
 of whose venerable landmark, the "soothsayer's 
 oak," Abraham built his first altar, and so im- 
 pressed the warlike princes of Canaan that they 
 made that alliance of friendship with him that 
 lasted all the long years of his life. Thence the 
 children may trace the way of the valleys by which 
 Abraham and his retainers came to Bethel, and 
 again built an altar. There, after his return from 
 Egypt, Abraham pitched his tent and made his 
 first permanent home in Canaan. It was from the 
 top of the hill east of Bethel that Abraham and 
 Lot viewed that far prospect of the " circle of the 
 Jordan " which seemed to Lot so fair ; and this is 
 the time to identify the " vale of Siddim," where 
 the four kings did battle with five. 
 
 From Bethel they may trace the ancient high- 
 way which led in Abraham's time, and leads still, 
 southward to lofty Hebron, surrounded with fruit- 
 ful valleys, where Abraham spent much of his life, 
 and where, on the brow of the hill Beni-Nami, 
 that rises above it to the eastward, he stood before 
 the Lord and prayed for Sodom. Southward that 
 
A Patriarch Story 163 
 
 ancient road leads over great desert ridges to 
 Beersheba, a vantage point for graziers and for trav- 
 ellers from that day to this. It was beside the 
 wells of Beersheba that Abraham made a covenant 
 with the desert chieftain Abimelech, king of Gerar, 
 a Bedouin chief like those of to-day, and as likely 
 as they to harass and plunder him, but for that 
 gift of friendship which Abraham possessed in 
 so rare a degree. Southward from Beersheba 
 the " dry and parched land " of " the South," the 
 Negeb, spreads out to the border of Egypt : the 
 Negeb where Hagar wandered and where genera- 
 tions later David roamed with his brave outlaw 
 band, and where to this day the Bedouin descend- 
 ants of Ishmael are the dread of travellers. 
 
 It was in Hebron that Abraham mostly lived. 
 Its very name to-day, El Khalil, "The Friend," 
 perpetuates his memory, not only because he " was 
 called the friend of God," but also, we may believe, 
 for that marvellous power of friendship which 
 through a long life kept him at peace with the 
 Canaanites among whom he dwelt. It was in the 
 plains of Mamre, near Hebron, now marked by 
 the ruins of a great building of huge stones, that 
 Abraham was dwelling when the three heavenly 
 visitants claimed his hospitality. 
 
 One site can be only traditionally identified, 
 the land of Moriah where, in the father's bleeding 
 
164 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 heart, Isaac was as truly offered to God as if his 
 blood had actually been shed upon the altar. 
 Traditionally, it was the mount on which the 
 temple was afterward built. The site was already 
 occupied with a city, Salem, where dwelt the 
 Canaanitish priest king, Melchizedek ; and it is 
 conceivable that the words, the place, in the 
 story, which have a very definite significance as 
 of the usual place, indicate a shrine sacred in 
 the usage of the people of the city. This, however, 
 is hardly probable, and the more that explorers 
 learn of the early history of Jerusalem, the more 
 improbable it appears that this could have been 
 the site. Another tradition points to Mount 
 Gerizim, near Shechem, where Abraham built his 
 first altar, and this seems more probable. The 
 children may retrace the journey of the sad-hearted 
 father and of the wondering son, who is making 
 his first journey from home, along the old highway 
 from Beersheba to Hebron, and thence to Bethel, 
 and so up the height beyond where the streams 
 part on their several ways to Jordan and the sea, 
 to the summit of the hill that was afterward to be 
 the mount of blessing. 1 
 
 1 Deut. xxTii. 12. 
 
A Patriarch Story 165 
 
 VI 
 
 The children must have come to thoughtful 
 years before they can profitably consider, except 
 most incidentally, the ethical feature of Abra- 
 ham's story, and then the question of the sacrifice 
 of Isaac will probably be the most insistent. I 
 have already said that this problem is rather his- 
 torical and literary than ethical. It will be neces- 
 sary to take into consideration the religious ideas 
 of the time, and the character of Abraham's re- 
 ligious experience. In Chaldyea he had certainly 
 been familiar with the practice of the sacrifice of 
 the first-born son, The religion of Canaan not- 
 withstanding the legendary presence of the priest 
 king, Melchizedek was much more debased 
 than that of Chaldaea, yet apparently did not 
 include this practice, or Isaac would surely have 
 suspected his father's purpose from the absence of 
 a lamb for the sacrifice. It is quite thinkable, if 
 the admission be not imperative, that long years 
 of lonely service of the invisible God may have 
 confused Abraham's ideas, though without shak- 
 ing his heroic faith. We do not ourselves admit 
 that God could have tempted Abraham, though 
 we have already seen that the ethical sense of this 
 writer would not forbid him to think so. But 
 
166 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 the instinct lying at the root of this legend is a 
 true and a most religious instinct. Abraham rec- 
 ognized that Isaac belonged to God more than to 
 his father. It is psychologically entirely possible 
 that he felt an imperative need of proving to 
 himself that he held this greatly longed-for son in 
 subordination to the will and service of God. In 
 Abraham's heart and purpose Isaac was as truly 
 offered to God as though the hand had not been 
 stayed that held the knife ; and this is the pro- 
 foundly moral and religious significance of the 
 story. And we may observe that it tells against, 
 not for, the practice of human sacrifice. We have 
 only to point young people to the later history of 
 Israel, when this strange temptation took posses- 
 sion of them simultaneously with an appalling 
 lowering of their moral standards, to recognize 
 the profound ethical protest of this story, and the 
 abundant justification of its presence here. 
 
 There are other moral issues, simpler in char- 
 acter, in which Abraham undoubtedly failed. 
 His treatment of Hagar can only be condoned by 
 the customs of the time and the domestic compli- 
 cations arising from Sarah's not unnatural jeal- 
 ousy. His duplicity in Egypt is a grave fault 
 from his own standpoint of faith in God. Yet 
 again we must remember the necessary part of 
 the moral ideas of the time in which the legend 
 
A Patriarch Story 167 
 
 was forming which makes the basis of this story. 
 Evidently the writer sees no harm in Abraham's 
 duplicity, and the fact simply shows that the 
 enlightened conscience of 800 B.C. was far less en- 
 lightened than the Christian conscience of 1900 A.D. 
 Could it be otherwise ? The religious signifi- 
 cance of the entire Abraham story is very pro- 
 found. God was the regulating principle of his 
 life, and this it was which made him great. In his 
 deliberate choice of a wandering life, when he 
 might have passed a life of ease and honor in 
 Chaldsea, he was a type of Him who for our sakes 
 became poor. We think of Abraham's life as a 
 heroic life, but surely in his own day it was not 
 accounted so. He had not even the distinction of 
 being the sole man who knew the true God, for 
 we have seen that this is the significance of the 
 Melchizedek incident. His faith was almost in- 
 conceivable, even now, and it never shone brighter 
 than when, in the face of apparent impossibility, 
 he uttered the words of triumphant conviction, 
 " My son, God will provide himself a lamb." His 
 preeminence among men was due to the faith that 
 made him the friend of God, and by it he was 
 exalted and made strong in the conviction that 
 it was his destiny to be made a blessing to all 
 the families of the earth. His communion with 
 God was well-nigh unparalleled. In his long 
 
168 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 journeyings under the night sky of Chaldsea he 
 had learned to talk with him as with a friend, 
 and the many subsequent appearances of God to 
 him are as psychologically explicable as the 
 visions of Isaiah and Ezekiel, and of John in 
 Patmos. They are not to be reckoned among 
 the miracle stories of the Bible ; they are in per- 
 fect harmony with the whole course of Abraham's 
 life, which was one of almost uninterrupted com- 
 munion with God. 
 
 The self-exile of Abraham from Chaldaea was 
 the beginning of missions. He was a forerunner 
 of Duff and Carey and Livingstone, yes, and of 
 Franklin and Nansen and Peary, seeking to give 
 the unknown world a share in their own blessings. 
 To the life history of mankind it has even larger 
 significance. It is analogous to the expulsion of 
 Adam from Eden, of Cain from the parental home, 
 and to the isolation of Noah by the flood ; it was 
 a new chance for mankind. Knowing God as 
 Abraham did, he saw that there was a great future 
 for man. He saw himself and his race not as sin- 
 gled out from other men for special favors, but as 
 types of all mankind, and partakers in a special 
 mission of blessing. His migration was the begin- 
 ning of an ideal holy nation, of the kingdom of 
 God. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 OTHER PATRIARCH STORIES 
 
 Genesis xxi. 1-8 ; xxii. 1-19 ; xxiv. ; xxvi. 12-33 
 
 IT is not necessary to consider in detail the 
 graded method of telling the stories of Isaac, 
 Jacob, and Joseph. These stories are told with 
 wonderful simplicity, and as they stand in the 
 Bible they unfold themselves to children of dif- 
 ferent ages. A few words may be said as to the 
 significance of each. The purpose of the story of 
 Isaac is other than that of Abraham. It must be 
 evident, even to a superficial reader, and chil- 
 dren are not superficial readers, that Isaac is not 
 formed on as grandly heroic lines as Abraham, 
 although he is certainly not the pale reflection of 
 his father and his son that many writers affirm 
 him to be. His part in the sacrifice story is 
 always overshadowed by that of Abraham ; yet 
 surely Isaac's consent to be a sacrifice not only re- 
 quired no little heroism, but also an acute religious 
 consciousness. And that he did consent is cer- 
 
170 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 tain, since otherwise he could hardly have been 
 laid upon the altar. His self-immolation was as 
 perfect and as heroic as that of Iphigenia of which 
 children who study mythology will be reminded, 
 or of the ancient Phoenician story, of which the 
 boys and girls in the literature classes may have 
 heard. That the event was different in Isaac's 
 case and in theirs does not affect the analogy. 
 The story is highly typical. Isaac represents 
 humanity, devoted to death yet not slain, redeemed 
 by a power outside of himself. Greek and Phoeni- 
 cian myth clearly show that the universal con- 
 science is awake to this condition of humanity. 
 That it can find no outcome except the death of 
 the victim marks the contrast between the com- 
 mon operations of the human mind and the Isaac 
 story. 
 
 The outcome of Isaac's voluntary yielding of 
 himself to death affected the character of all his 
 subsequent life, and the key of his life story, as of 
 the purpose of the writer, is found in the marginal 
 reading of the verse which completes the narrative, 
 Jehovah-jireh, Jehovah will provide. The 
 teaching of a perpetual guiding providence is the 
 teaching of the life of Isaac, a new idea as it is 
 here taught, showing providence to be not that 
 special interposition of a divine being, of which 
 epic poetry is so fond, but the sanctification of 
 
Other Patriarch Stories 171 
 
 daily life by the continued overshadowing of God's 
 protecting care. Henceforth this idea of provi- 
 dence runs through all the Bible story. 
 
 The loves of the heroes are an integral part of 
 the epics of the ancients, and in this respect, too, 
 the Isaac narrative resembles them. The larger 
 part of his story is devoted to that most exquisite 
 of idyls, the courtship of Rebekah, well-nigh un- 
 paralleled in all literature. Oriental it is, indeed ; 
 the lover hardly appears at all ; and by this fact 
 it is so much the more true. It will be an en- 
 chanting exercise for the children who study 
 geography to trace the path of the trusted slave 
 Eliezer as he leads his caravan, laden with gifts 
 for the unknown bride, from southern Beersheba, 
 where Isaac mainly lived, over mountain ridge 
 and fruitful plain, by lakeside and riverside and 
 across the desert to far-off Haran, where Isaac's 
 grandfather Terah had died. The close of the 
 journey is an exquisite picture. The group of 
 camels kneeling by the well, the man bent forward 
 in the Eastern attitude of prayer, the girl coming 
 over the rolling upland with her pitcher on her 
 shoulder it is the poetry of all the ages, yet true 
 to daily life as we find it to-day in any Eastern 
 village. And the idyllic beauty of the picture is 
 penetrated through and through with that master 
 thought, Jehovah-jireh, the constant providence 
 
172 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 of God, guiding the very footsteps of the servant, 
 and bringing to his side, with no effort of his 
 own, his master's destined bride. How true it 
 is to the epics of every people, with their constant 
 interposition of the gods in the affairs of men ; 
 how sublimely lifted above them with its nobler 
 apprehension of the meaning of divine guidance! 
 What a lesson at once in literature and in religion 
 for the older children ! 
 
 These older children were introduced to the 
 composite character of the book of Genesis in the 
 story of the flood. A more advanced lesson 
 offers itself in three episodes in the lives of 
 Abraham and Isaac : the Egyptian episode of 
 Chapter xii, that of Abraham and Abimelech at 
 Gerar in Chapter xx, and that of Isaac and Abime- 
 lech in Chapter xxvi. I submit that no young 
 person who has been taught to know the Bible 
 as the children here contemplated have been 
 taught, whose minds have been biassed by no pre- 
 conceived notion of what the Bible must be or 
 what inspiration must be, but who have learned 
 by their own knowledge of the Bible stories that 
 inspiration is what the Bible t, no such young 
 person, I insist, can read these three incidents 
 without instinctively perceiving that they are 
 varying legendary accounts of the same event. 
 Granting that there may have been two Abime- 
 
Other Patriarch Stories 173 
 
 lechs, father and son, in friendly alliance with 
 the Hebrew father and son, granting that no 
 conjecture is incredible by which a distinction 
 may be established between these stories : the 
 inconceivable fact remains, that Abraham should 
 have twice made* the same inept and useless blun- 
 der, or that Isaac should by accident have stum- 
 bled upon the identical futility. The presence 
 here of three varying accounts of the same event 
 offers no difficulty to those who have the literary 
 standpoint of these children. These are simply 
 varying legends which have grown up from some 
 one incident, piously preserved by the writer of 
 the book, either because he mistakingly deemed 
 them all narratives of fact, or because, according 
 to his custom, he was not concerned about fact, 
 but deemed their use to be peculiarly well adapted 
 to meet some ethical need of the people for whom 
 he wrote. He was not in the least concerned, 
 and neither are our children, to discover whether 
 the nucleus of the legend should be traced to 
 Abraham or to Isaac. The critics alone are con- 
 cerned with this question, and they properly, for 
 it has large implications. 
 
174 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 II 
 
 Genesis xxvii. xxxv., xlvi. 17, 2834; xlvii. 
 7-10, 27-xlviii. 22 ; xlix. 1, 221. 14 
 
 The story of Jacob belongs unmistakably in 
 that class with which the children who are study- 
 ing Latin or Greek or English literature have 
 learned to know as epic. There are many epical 
 features in the stories of Abraham and Isaac, but 
 that of Jacob is all epic. It is, however, far more 
 like the Greek epic than any other. Jacob has 
 been called the Hebrew Ulysses because of his 
 far wanderings, and the analogies are sufficiently 
 close to reveal themselves to the boy or girl who 
 looks for them, though in religious quality they 
 are as far apart as heaven from earth. The story 
 of Jacob embodies the truth of an overwatching 
 Providence which emerged in that of Isaac, but 
 it carries the idea a long step farther. From the 
 time when Jacob leaves his father's house to pass 
 through that experience of separation which, since 
 Adam and Eve left Eden, has been shown to be 
 necessary for the development of higher character, 
 to the death-bed scene in Egypt where he blesses 
 his twelve sons, every line reveals the marvellous 
 truth of personal communion between man and 
 God. Every incident speaks of God's personal 
 
Other Patriarch Stories 175 
 
 care of Jacob : the ladder set up beside his stony 
 pillow, reaching from heaven to earth, the angelic 
 band sent to guard him when he was to meet his 
 brother Esau, the mysterious person who wrestled 
 with him through the long night before that meet- 
 ing. Even down to old age this protecting care 
 overshadowed him, and when, after years of mourn- 
 ing, the son whom he had lost sent for him to 
 share the ease and plenty of Egypt, God spake 
 to him in the visions of the night, promising to 
 go with him to that unknown land. The epical 
 touch in this last promise may well be pointed 
 out, "Joseph shall lay his hand upon thine 
 eyes " should close his father's eyes in death. 
 Homer and Virgil often have this ; the Greeks 
 and Romans considering the closing of dead eyes 
 as the last act of affection. 
 
 This new sense of the presence of God in daily 
 life is the meaning of the whole story: of Jacob's 
 intriguing with his mother to secure his father's 
 blessing, his far wandering to the ancient seat of 
 his father's house, his communing with heaven 
 and angels in a dream under the overarching sky, 
 his beautiful love story, his rapidly growing pros- 
 perity, his flight from Padan-Aram with his flocks 
 and herds and children, his fears of his brother 
 Esau, his conflict with God. Such conflicts are 
 very frequent in epic story. The high school 
 
176 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 children know that Homer's gods are continu- 
 ally fighting with men. But the contrast between 
 those conflicts and that of Jacob needs not to be 
 pointed out ; it pervades the whole story. That 
 mysterious struggle shows not so much Jacob's 
 courage as his power of faith, but most emphati- 
 cally of all God's willingness to bless. Jacob be- 
 came God's warrior Israel not by wresting the 
 blessing from God, but by at last submitting and 
 being willing to receive it. It is in the very spirit 
 of epic that Jacob is made a man of superhuman 
 strength able by himself to roll away the stone 
 from the well mouth, without waiting for the 
 assembled band of shepherds, as well as to endure 
 the night-long wrestling with the angel. 
 
 The unloveliness of Jacob's character is usually 
 emphasized ; it has become rather the fashion to 
 point to Esau's virtues, such as they were, by way 
 of contrast. Let us not make this mistake with 
 the children. Esau was sensual and selfish ; his 
 noble traits were mainly those of a noble animal. 
 There is nothing grand in holding cheap a future 
 good as compared with immediate gratification. 
 Truly did the apostolic writer call him " profane," 
 for to " despise " the birthright that carried with 
 it the privilege of service is essential irreligion. 
 Jacob was a man of ideals which he sought to 
 realize by methods not ideally good, just as many 
 
Other Patriarch Storie* 177 
 
 men of ideals do to-day. The unloveliness of 
 Jacob's youthful character was largely redeemed 
 by a controlling purpose which it is a mistake to 
 call selfish. The desire for the birthright was a 
 noble desire, for the birthright carried with it no 
 added property nor preeminence, except in that 
 highest honor, the opportunity for service. It 
 involved the priesthood of the family, and that 
 same function of blessing others which Abraham 
 so coveted as to forsake home and father's house 
 to gain it. The noblest feature in Jacob's char- 
 acter was his intense power of loving, leading 
 him, as this Godlike gift always should, but does 
 not always, to heroic and long-sustained self- 
 restraint. This gift of loving is evident not only 
 in the story of his courtship, but in many other 
 incidents of his life, and is, indeed, in a large 
 sense, its explanation. 
 
 Although the children have but lately followed 
 upon the relief map the journey of Eliezer to 
 Haran, that of Jacob over the same ground will 
 still afford interest ; while the return journey, 
 which does not cover the same ground, has many 
 points of interest. They will also wish to trace 
 his later journey to Egypt, in the wagons which 
 his son sent for him and his, and his silent return, 
 travelling sumptuously now, with a long train of 
 mourners, to be buried with his fathers in Mach- 
 
178 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 pelah. The four hundred miles that lay between 
 Beersheba and Haran must have stretched out 
 interminably before the young Jacob as he set 
 forth, not like Eliezer, travelling with camels and 
 laden with gifts, but alone and on foot, his sole 
 possession his father's blessing, that " blessing of 
 Abraham " which meant so much to him. The 
 night halt at Bethel affords opportunity for a 
 little bit of topography. Though Bethel was a 
 town, Jacob did not enter it, but sought for " the 
 place " of the altar his forefather had erected, near 
 the huge ladderlike rocks which, cutting off the 
 horizon, may well have been the material sugges- 
 tion of his dream. It is a reminder of the local 
 ideas of God which, as has already been pointed 
 out, for generations seemed to be instinctive, that 
 after seeing in his dream the invisible bridge that 
 connects God and man, the ladder down which 
 angels came to him, Jacob should utter an excla- 
 mation of surprise at finding Jehovah there, whom 
 he thought he had left behind at his father's 
 house. It will be well to send the children to an 
 encyclopedia to look up the custom of anointing a 
 pillar in token of God's presence. The custom 
 still prevails in some parts of the East, and such 
 monumental stones as those at Stonehenge in 
 England and Carnac in Brittany show that it was 
 a world- wide custom, and responded to a real spir- 
 
Other Patriarch Stories 179 
 
 itual impulse the same which makes us not only 
 dedicate cathedrals but " christen " ships and for- 
 mally set apart public buildings. 
 
 It was the first victory over a grasping nature, 
 which he did not conquer for many a year, when 
 Jacob promised to give a tenth of his property to 
 God, not by way of bargaining with him, as has too 
 often been said, but as a spontaneous expression of 
 gratitude and also of faith. At that moment the 
 future was very dark. Esau had threatened to 
 kill him whenever he might return, and in such 
 things Esau was a man of his word. But Jacob 
 fully expected that God would be with him and 
 that he would come again to his father's house in 
 peace. And he was right. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Genesis xxxvii, xxxix-xlv, xlviii. 13-26 ; 1. 15-26 
 
 The story of Joseph is beloved by children of 
 every age. It ends well, and that is highly satis- 
 factory. It makes especial appeal to persons of 
 immature spiritual experience, because it vindi- 
 cates the ways of God with men. On the surface, 
 in its intensely human character and extreme 
 naturalness, it seems more purely a child's story 
 than any other, yet in its profound implications 
 
180 Telling Bible Storie* 
 
 it is almost more than any other adapted to the 
 developing religious experience of the boy and 
 girl in their teens. There are very dark shadows, 
 but they only enhance the brightness of the pic- 
 ture. Through much tribulation Joseph wins 
 his way to triumphant success, and it becomes 
 evident that his vice-regal splendor is due to the 
 discipline of the dry cistern and the dungeon 
 cell. 
 
 Joseph comes very near to the children, he is 
 such a human boy. A little bit of a prig, as 
 other good boys are apt to be when once they 
 have earned their reputation, a dreamer without 
 any more judgment than other dreamers about 
 keeping his dreams to himself, quite appreciating 
 himself as such boys do, indulged and a little 
 spoiled by his father, telling tales on his older 
 brothers, and so exasperating them that they 
 " could not say 4 Peace ' " the usual salutation 
 when they met him. The children will not be 
 surprised that his brothers did not care to have 
 him with them. They don't like that sort of 
 boy very much, although they recognize his 
 goodness. They quite appreciate the feelings 
 of the brothers when they saw him coming 
 across the plain wearing his " coat such as princes 
 wear," the sign that his father meant him to in- 
 herit the birthright and take his place at the 
 
Other Patriarch Stories 181 
 
 head of the family as the oldest son. The atro- 
 cious act which follows, however, quickly dispels 
 their sympathy. 
 
 It is needless to point out how charming the 
 very youngest children will find this story when 
 briefly and somewhat dramatically told. To 
 those of eight or nine it may be read straight 
 through, like any other story, with a few brief 
 omissions or paraphrases, and little or no explana- 
 tion ; it will explain itself. For children next in 
 age it has a literary value quite beyond any nar- 
 rative that has preceded it, and a moral value 
 much more closely adapted to their years. For 
 it is an exquisite and very noble piece of litera- 
 ture, highly dramatic in its vivid presentation, 
 and superb in diction, especially in the oratorical 
 passages. The address of Judah should form an 
 important part of the repertory of the boy who 
 has come to the time of "speaking pieces" in 
 school, and it will thrill him through and through 
 with its noble eloquence. A year or two later, 
 when the children are reading the "Arabian 
 Nights," the analogies of those stories will be 
 very helpful. They will be familiar then with 
 the practice of putting inconvenient persons into 
 a pit or dry cistern, and they will perfectly well 
 understand its conformation, narrow at the top 
 and greatly widening beneath, to form the scene 
 
182 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 of many episodes in Eastern story. They are 
 also well acquainted with that august court offi- 
 cial, the Grand Wezeer, and can quite picture 
 Joseph's functions when placed " over the house " 
 of the Pharaoh. They are also quite at home in 
 such sudden reversals of fortune as Joseph's ele- 
 vation from the prison cell to that exalted post. 
 
 Familiarity thus gained with the setting and 
 atmosphere of the narrative, it will be easy a year 
 or two later to review it in considerable detail, 
 the relief map now taking its part in the story. 
 It begins at Hebron, because Jacob had lately 
 come from his home in Bethel (or perhaps in 
 Shechem, for he lived at times in either place) to 
 attend the death-bed of his father Isaac, and with 
 Esau to bury him in the cave of Machpelah, which 
 Abraham had bought for a family burying-ground 
 when Sarah died. It was in the journey thither, 
 near Ramah, that Joseph's beautiful mother 
 Rachel died, leaving him with the baby brother 
 Benjamin, whom he always so tenderly loved. 
 Joseph's dreams show that his father was a farmer, 
 as well as a shepherd and grazier, for one of them 
 was of binding sheaves in a field. 
 
 The children will trace Joseph's long walk 
 from "the vale of Hebron" to Shechem and to 
 Dothan, where his brethren were feeding their 
 flocks. And they may trace that ancient and 
 
Other Patriarch Stories 183 
 
 most historic of highways by which the Midian- 
 ites came with their caravans on their way from 
 Gilead to Egypt. For centuries armies had 
 marched over that road, armies of Egypt and 
 Assyria, of Hittite and Canaan ite ; for centuries 
 caravans had borne between these countries the 
 myrrh and spicery of Gilead, and the linen 
 and embroideries of Egypt, of which Ezekiel 
 speaks. That ancient highway is still traversed 
 to-day by tradesmen and travellers, as it winds 
 along the green pastures of Gilead, crosses the 
 fords of the Jordan below the Sea of Galilee, trav- 
 erses the fruitful plain of Jezreel, and so over 
 the foot-hills to the sea, where it follows its mar- 
 gin to Egypt. Let the children find the land of 
 Goshen, too. It is no longer a puzzling task, 
 since its locality was discovered twenty years ago, 
 after having been unknown for centuries. It is 
 a peculiarly fruitful country, and a railroad now 
 crosses the fields where the sons of Jacob fed 
 their flocks. Then let them trace "the river," 
 which in telling this story the mother should 
 always call the Nile, since it is so in the origi- 
 nal, and to the children who study geography it 
 makes the meaning more real. 
 
 The cold-blooded heartlessness of the brothers 
 in sitting down to eat after casting Joseph into 
 the pit is a part of the story which awakens the 
 
184 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 sympathies of every child. Long years after, 
 " the anguish of Joseph's soul when he besought 
 us and we would not hear," returned to torment 
 the brothers when they found themselves detained 
 " in ward " in Egypt, on an accusation which they 
 could not understand and which, in true oriental 
 fashion, no one undertook to justify. The chil- 
 dren will deem their distress no more than they 
 deserved ; they will understand that there was no 
 revenge in Joseph's heart when he thus tested 
 them. The whole story shows how it wrung his 
 soul to "speak roughly unto them" and accuse 
 them of being spies. Joseph knew by this time 
 that God had a purpose in his affliction, although 
 the sorrows of the past years must still have been 
 very vivid in his memory. The psalmist no doubt 
 preserved a true tradition, when centuries later he 
 wrote, in a passage which should be pointed out 
 to the young people who are studying literature : 
 
 He sent before them a man, 
 Sold for a slave was Joseph, 
 They afflicted with fetters his feet, 
 The iron entered into his soul. 
 (Ps. civ. 17, 18. The translation is Edersheim's.) 
 
 IV 
 
 When the children are studying ancient history 
 there is almost no limit to the possible develop- 
 
Other Patriarch Stories 185 
 
 ment of the story. Who were the Hyksos kings, 
 and why, though every shepherd, being dirty, 
 bearded, and unshaven, " was an abomination " to 
 the scrupulously clean and beardless Egyptians, 
 the king was yet glad to welcome this clan of 
 hardy Asiatics and settle them upon the frontier 
 of his country; the high civilization of Egypt, 
 suggested by the necessity for careful dress before 
 entering the king's presence, the functions of the 
 magicians and the wise men, whose ritual has 
 lately been discovered; the brilliant learning of 
 Heliopolis, into whose highest circle Joseph mar- 
 ried the Oxford, the Athens of Egypt, On, " City 
 of the Sun," " Source of the Springs of the Sun"; 
 the symbolism of Pharaoh's dream the sacred 
 river, the literal fountain of life to Egypt, and the 
 cow, symbol of Isis; the illustrations which the 
 monuments afford of many details mentioned in 
 the story storing grain, noting the contents of 
 granaries, embalming, funerals, and mourning, 
 all these things, readily accessible in any library, 
 will fill out the story to the imagination of the 
 grammar school children. 
 
 At a still later period they may be set to find 
 the explanation of some things that they have 
 already observed, indicating the presence of two 
 narratives in this story: the part of Reuben and 
 the Midianites, and of Judah and the Ishmaelites 
 
186 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 in the selling or stealing of Joseph. (Joseph him- 
 self tells Pharaoh that he was stolen, and Reuben 
 evidently thinks so, though in making himself 
 known to his brethren Joseph says he is " Joseph, 
 whom ye sold into Egypt.") It will be interesting 
 for them to trace the consistency of each narrative 
 through the story, and it will afford a glimpse 
 into the literary methods of the author of one of 
 the most interesting and artistic tales in literature. 
 That it is a tale and not a history is evident : how 
 could ten corn sacks carry food for all Jacob's 
 clan, especially when ten animals and as many 
 men were fed from them during the journey? As 
 a story this is perfectly right ; these animals and 
 sacks stand for the large caravan which, histori- 
 cally, must have gone to Egypt after food, but 
 which would have encumbered the tale to the 
 point not only of missing the dramatic effect, but 
 of obscuring the religious meaning. This the 
 young people who have been trained in the study 
 of literature will readily perceive. 
 
 They will perceive, too, the profoundly religious 
 character of the story. Joseph is the conspicuous 
 illustration of brotherhood, as the other patriarchs 
 of fatherhood. Not only his affection for the little 
 motherless brother who was especially his own, 
 but also his true spirit of brotherhood for all the 
 others, pervades the whole story. In him, 
 
Other Patriarch Stories 187 
 
 the religious experiences of his father and grand- 
 fathers bore their legitimate fruit ; temptation 
 brought out in him a moral greatness and strength 
 of piety unsurpassed if equalled by any of them. 
 He was indeed an epitome of all their virtues, a 
 singularly well-rounded character. The Pharaoh 
 recognized that he was a man in whom dwelt the 
 spirit of God. The tragic elements of his life 
 never for an hour overpowered him, but simply 
 gave him that quality which Matthew Arnold 
 called distinction, and which may almost always 
 be observed in persons of superior piety, however 
 humble their station. 
 
 One moral fact, traceable from the beginning 
 of the book of Genesis, shines out conspicuous in 
 the story of Joseph, the part that separation had 
 to play in the development of these men of old. 
 Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph 
 all except Isaac were called to this discipline, 
 and Jacob indeed twice, since his migration to 
 Egypt was a separation from the land of 
 promiseo From the day of that migration, for 
 generations the sons of Israel were separated 
 from the promised land. As the German De- 
 litzsch has finely said, the twelve sons of Jacob 
 were the seed corn of Israel, transplanted in 
 Egypt for fuller development. Joseph was " sent 
 before" to prepare the ground for that trans- 
 
188 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 planting, and in that separation he, too, developed 
 his noblest traits. 
 
 The God consciousness of Joseph was wonder- 
 ful, equalling and even surpassing that of his father 
 Jacob. Though he had been thirteen years absent 
 from the influence of home, when the summons 
 came from the Pharaoh, he had not lost his sense of 
 God's constant care. He had been willing to in- 
 terpret the dreams of the butler and the baker, be- 
 cause he was still "true to the dreams of his youth," 
 and still believed them to have been a message 
 from God, though as yet so far from being fulfilled. 
 And when Pharaoh referred to the evidence he had 
 given of ability to interpret dreams, how quickly 
 came his answer : " Ah, not I ! Q-od will answer 
 the peace of Pharaoh." His unalterable confidence 
 in God gave ground for his reassurance of his 
 brothers : their wrong to him had been overruled 
 by God for good. Thus he had been enabled to 
 be the nursing father of that nation in whom all 
 peoples of the world have been blessed. 
 
 The supreme significance of the story is this : 
 that its happy outcome is due not to the fact that 
 Joseph was spared the discipline of sorrow, like 
 Enoch, or protected from it, like Noah, but that 
 through its discipline sorrow itself was transformed 
 into joy. Joseph was a man made perfect through 
 suffering. 
 
Other Patriarch Stories 189 
 
 Dr. Matheson makes a beautiful comparison, 
 which the children who are musical will appre- 
 ciate, of the life of Joseph with one of Chopin's 
 preludes. Each has three periods. The free and 
 unrestrained melody of the first corresponds with 
 Joseph's years of freedom. Then comes the second 
 movement, tangled and rent like the middle period 
 of Joseph's life. But at last " the melody comes 
 into the open once more, the tangles vanish, the 
 impediments are removed, and notes of the first 
 part reappear in a new connection and with a fresh 
 power." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 HERO TALES 
 
 THE general culture of the intelligent mother 
 teaches her precisely where, in what literary order, 
 to place the patriarch stories of the last two chap- 
 ters. She is no more blinded to their character by 
 the fact that they are not clothed in poetic form 
 than she is blinded as to Walt Whitman's poetry 
 or some of Matthew Arnold's, because it neither 
 rhymes nor scans. The patriarch stories belong 
 in the literary class called epic, that is, the class 
 which is distinguished from the drama by narrative 
 form and from history by creative treatment. 
 History discusses facts without treating them 
 creatively, but the creative treatment of the 
 patriarch stories is their outstanding character. 
 They are based, as we have seen, upon legend, as 
 epic always is, even such epic stories of our later 
 writers as " Evangeline " and " Hiawatha." They 
 appeal, as poetry does and history does not, to the 
 emotions and the conscience, and they are so told as 
 to make peculiar summons to the imagination, call- 
 
 190 
 
Hero Tales 191 
 
 ing up the scene as in a picture before the hearer 
 or reader,, 
 
 It may be wise, just here, to dwell for a moment 
 upon the important religious function of poetry. 
 Cheyne has reminded us, and every one's experience 
 shows, that " good as the truth of history may be, 
 the truth of poetry may for purposes of edification 
 be even better." How many of us get our best 
 preparation for prayer by reading hymns and other 
 religious poetry ? How many of us get our most 
 vivid apprehensions of truth through the medium 
 of poetry? 
 
 The patriarch stories, though told in prose, have 
 the essential characteristics of precisely that kind 
 of poetry which we call epic. Their writer, like 
 other epic writers, does not explain the significance 
 of what he writes. Nothing is more striking in the 
 " Iliad " or the " Odyssey " than the externality of 
 the story, the utter absence of introspection and 
 meditation, and the same externality pervades all 
 these patriarch stories, notwithstanding their pro- 
 found spiritual significance. The significance is 
 due to the unique religious genius of the writer, 
 that is, in the highest sense of the word, to his 
 divine inspiration. It is this which has enabled 
 him to give to his epic stories a unique religious 
 value. 
 
 And yet these stories are not different from 
 
192 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 other epic in the mere fact that they are religious i 
 they differ from others simply by the quality of 
 their religion. For epic is nothing other than that 
 form of history which, whether real or invented, 
 lies at the basis of all religion. The study of the 
 religious history of every people, in whatever age, 
 always brings us back to epic, to the " Iliad," 
 " Kalewala," " Niebelungen," " Zend-Avesta," 
 " Vedas." The story of Prometheus, which some 
 of the older children will study in the marvellous 
 words of ^Eschylus, and of which they long ago 
 learned the outline in their little mythology book, 
 lies at the very basis of the Greek religion. And 
 that -^Eschylus tells the story in dramatic form, 
 and not in the poetic form of Homer's stories in 
 the " Iliad," suggests that epic may also be clothed 
 in prose, as in the Old Testament. 
 
 The Hebrew epic is like the epics of Greece and 
 Scandinavia, India and Allemania, in lying at the 
 foundation of religion: it differs from them in 
 being spiritual, in pouring a spiritual meaning 
 into the life of man with God; in its power to 
 look forward as well as back, and foresee in the 
 legends of the past the beginnings of an ideal 
 holy nation, the kingdom of God. 
 
 A great Biblical scholar, Wellhausen, has said 
 that " even when we do not understand these 
 legends, they lose nothing of their charm, fox 
 
Hero Tales 193 
 
 they breathe a sweet poetic fragrance, and in 
 them heaven and earth are magically blended into 
 one." But the mother may "understand these 
 legends." She may even make her children 
 understand them, if instead of regarding them 
 from the historic point of view she considers them 
 as epic, and studies them as she would study an 
 oriental poem. 
 
 For it is always to be remembered that the Old 
 Testament epic is oriental, and in that respect 
 differs from the epics of any European people. 
 Realizing this it will be easier to perceive the 
 very important fact that the forms of speech 
 which we find in it are not Biblical, but oriental. 
 That is, they are not sacred forms of utterance, 
 reserved for sacred books, but the everyday mode 
 of expression in their own time and place. In 
 fact, they are not even ancient, like the language 
 in which some modern writers try to clothe their 
 historical novels ; they are the everyday mode of 
 expression of the Shemitic folk at the present time. 
 Any missionary to Western Asia or any Egyptian 
 explorer will tell us so. Sir Samuel Baker, in his 
 book on the " Tributaries of the Nile," shows that 
 the Arabs of the Soudan use Old Testament lan- 
 guage to-day. If there is a famine or a pestilence, 
 they say that " the Lord has sent a grievous fam- 
 ine," or " a sore murrain upon the land." To the 
 
194 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 Arab of to-day a dream is the voice of God as it 
 was to Jacob and to St. Paul, and he still says and 
 believes, "I have received commandment of the 
 Lord in a dream" to do thus and so. All the 
 figures of speech of those people to-day are Bibli- 
 cal, and if an Arab were to write a history of the 
 present time, Baker says, it would not only be 
 couched in Biblical language, but the modes of 
 thought would be Biblical. A sojourn among 
 these people shows most strikingly how true the 
 Bible stories are. 
 
 Now there is no class of literature which so fires 
 the mind of the developing child as epic does. An 
 intelligent boy of eight will be thrilled through 
 and through by passages from the " Iliad," or the 
 " Niebelungen Lied," or Macaulay's " Lays of 
 Ancient Rome," which, though modern, and fall- 
 ing far short of the ancient epics, are still epic 
 poems. The experiences of the mother who has 
 well told the patriarch stories shows that the 
 child feels precisely the same sort of thrill when 
 he hears about Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and 
 Joseph, that those epic poems give him. 
 
 But these are by no means the only epic stories 
 in the Old Testament. A large part of the book 
 of Joshua is epic, and there is one book that of 
 Judges which is just a splendid collection of 
 epic or hero tales, as thrilling as Homer, set by 
 
Hero Tales 195 
 
 some pious writer in a framework of didactic his- 
 tory, corresponding with the framework of gene- 
 alogy in which the Genesis stories are set. It will 
 be a good Sunday afternoon exercise for the gram- 
 mar and high school children, as interesting as any 
 literary game, and why should it not be treated 
 as a game ? to divide the book of Judges into 
 its original chapters, and discover the author's 
 religious purpose in the didactic history which 
 introduces most of these chapters. A similar 
 " Sunday game " would be to distinguish the epic 
 story from the other parts of the book of Joshua. 
 It may be well at this point to explain to the chil- 
 dren that a better translation of the word Judges 
 is Chiefs. They will perfectly well recognize that 
 these old epic heroes were judges in no sense of 
 the word. 
 
 n 
 
 Judges xiii. xvi. 
 
 An inquiry not long ago instituted among 
 Sunday-school boys brought to light the fact that 
 Daniel, David, and Samson were, of all the charac- 
 ters in the Bible, their favorite heroes. The 
 Daniel story does not belong among hero tales, 
 and the story of David falls more properly among 
 the romantic tales of the next chapter. David as 
 
196 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 well as Samson, however, had many characteristics 
 of the Greek Herakles, and alert-minded school 
 children will find it interesting to trace the like- 
 ness between them, and to discern the very great 
 differences, which are entirely religious and 
 moral. Not that either Samson or David is to be 
 taken as an example of morality. But right here, 
 in telling the Samson story, the mother should 
 explain to the children who have come to the age 
 for explanation that the development of morality 
 and of the conscience is a gradual process, going 
 on in history. The older children will have 
 learned enough of Greek history to perceive that 
 a good conscience which the Greeks valued as 
 much as we do was by no means the same in 
 " CEdipus," for example, that it is in themselves. 
 Saul, who was afterward Paul, verily thought 
 that it was not only right but a duty to persecute 
 the disciples of Jesus. Conscience is the voice of 
 God ; but as a baby does not at first even hear its 
 mother's voice, and for a long time does not under- 
 stand what it says, and learns its meaning only by 
 degrees, so it is true that high and sensitive moral 
 standards are the result of long inheritance and 
 training. 
 
 Therefore though Samson cannot be in any re- 
 spect a moral example to children of to-day, there 
 is much religious significance in his story. How- 
 
Hero Tales 197 
 
 ever, it is true, and the children will perceive it 
 from the beginning, that there is by no means the 
 same spiritual significance in Judges that we find 
 in Genesis. This is due to the author. The 
 Judges writer did not work over the old legends 
 as the Genesis writer did : he did not saturate 
 them with religious meaning: he simply sur- 
 rounded them with it, by his didactic framework. 
 This is an interesting point for the children who 
 are studying literature, and would make an excel- 
 lent subject for an essay. The little children will 
 delight in nearly every incident of the Samson 
 story : the visit of the angel before his birth, his 
 victory over the lion, his carrying away the heavy 
 gates, his loss of strength when his hair was cut ; 
 his self-sacrificing death in the heathen temple. 
 From first to last it is that story of victorious 
 strength in which every child heart delights. In 
 form the story preserves many characteristics of 
 folk-lore almost unchanged. The wheedling by 
 Delilah is precisely as in many an old fairy tale. 
 The popular tales of many countries embody beliefs 
 about hair that remind one of Samson. Mis- 
 sionaries to our Western Indians tell of the diffi- 
 culty they meet in inducing parents to let them 
 cut their children's tangled hair. They feel it 
 a disgrace that a boy's hair should be cut before 
 he becomes a man, and a woman with short hair 
 
 
198 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 would feel ashamed indeed. The ancients be- 
 lieved that they might deposit their soul in their 
 hair for safety ; others with nearer analogy to the 
 Samson story thought that their strength resided 
 in their hair and would be lost if that were cut 
 off. The somewhat general fallacy of mothers 
 that children's strength " goes to the hair " when 
 this is particularly luxuriant, may be a relic of 
 some old legend. It may be observed that the 
 meaning of Samson's name, " the sunny " suggests 
 some of the numerous sun myths, and there are 
 certain of these which suggest the Samson story. 
 Nevertheless Samson is distinctly not a sun myth. 
 
 In absence of moral quality, Samson more nearly 
 than any other Biblical hero resembles the heroes 
 of pagan epic, and as we have seen he is in many 
 respects especially like Herakles. The twelve 
 labors of Herakles are nearly paralleled by the 
 seven exploits of Samson, especially the slaying 
 of the lion and the episode of the foxes and the 
 firebrands, which has many resemblances to the 
 killing of the Hydra. There was a later custom 
 in Rome which was very like the fox incident. 
 At the festival of Ceres a fox hunt was held in 
 the circus in which burning torches were tied to 
 the foxes' tails. The children may look up in the 
 library the origin of this custom. 
 
 Notwithstanding these analogies there is a wide 
 
Hero Tales 199 
 
 difference between Samson and Herakles. With 
 all his untutored spontaneity Samson is never un- 
 couth or vulgar as Herakles often is. He is a 
 brave spirit in the midst of much disappointment 
 and trial, " a native merriness encircles him " ; he 
 is fond of riddles and puns and practical jokes. 
 Yet all through his story the older children will 
 feel the influence of his early training by "a 
 mother who had talked with angels," and will 
 recognize that that influence had its bearing on 
 the tragedy of his life, which so solemnly fore- 
 shadows Him who just because He would save 
 others could not save Himself. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Judges iv, v. 
 
 The story of Barak's victory is a splendid bit 
 of epic, which will delight the younger children, 
 and abundantly reward the study of those who 
 are older. The relief map will show that as 
 Samson's story is mainly laid on the smiling 
 slopes of those western foothills which are very 
 like the braes of Scotland, so Barak's adventures 
 are mainly in the far north. The historic signifi- 
 cance of the war with Sisera was great at that 
 period, when, as the book of Judges shows, the 
 
200 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 twelve tribes had as yet no national feeling, bu^ 
 each lived for itself, somewhat like our thirteen 
 colonies after the Revolution and before the adop- 
 tion of the Constitution. Evidently the prophetess 
 Deborah, like our Washington, was penetrated 
 with the ideal of a united people and a united 
 Fatherland. Her splendid ode, worthy the study 
 of the advanced student of literature, is gener- 
 ally believed to be the oldest extant specimen of 
 Hebrew poetry ; yet what noble lyrical and dra- 
 matic qualities it shows, impetuous rapidity, 
 vivid suggestions, picturesque brevity, complete- 
 ness. There are passages in it from which 
 Macaulay was not sorry to draw inspiration for 
 his " Horatius " ; there is a passage in which, 
 even in English, we hear the clatter of the 
 horses' hoofs, such as the schoolboy hears in his 
 " quadrupedante," and which Burke, Napier, 
 Heine, Scott, have not excelled. There is im- 
 mense dramatic suggestion in the mother of 
 Sisera looking from her window; but it sug- 
 gests most to those who, as children, have learned 
 from the " Arabian Nights " the important part 
 that looking out of the lattice plays in the life 
 of Eastern women. The mother may here direct 
 the children's attention to the ballad of Sir 
 Patrick Spens, and to Logan's poem, " The Braes 
 of Yarrow," in this connection. The touch of 
 
Hero Tales 201 
 
 oriental life in the picture of the fugitive general 
 coming to the tent of Jael is very graphic, and, 
 notwithstanding the doubtful morality of the 
 incident, less doubtful when one considers the 
 moral standards of the time and place, there is 
 no hero tale in the Old Testament that more 
 vividly presents the truth that the people Israel 
 felt that their individual lives and their national 
 life had their integral part in the plan of God. 
 
 IV 
 
 Exodus xvii. 813 ; Joshua i xi, xxiii, xxiv. 
 
 Never in any literature was there a more splen- 
 did hero than Joshua. We see him first in the 
 book of Exodus as a youthful warrior, fresh from 
 Egyptian slavery, yet with spirit uncowed by 
 slavery, fighting the battle of the Lord against 
 Amelek. Joshua is the first soldier of Hebrew 
 history, and it is a very significant fact that 
 according to Hebrew tradition he was the typical 
 bosom friend ; his loyal " service " of Moses the 
 first example of pure and dear friendship. His 
 character stands out as clear as that of Hector or 
 Achilles or Miles Standish ; simple, straightfor- 
 ward, undaunted, " very courageous," " not afraid 
 or dismayed," never checked by the apparently 
 
202 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 impossible, not more baffled by the fears than by 
 the sins of Israel, not a talker nor a dreamer, but 
 a fighter. In all this we see the old epic hero. 
 And yet there was this difference : in all his 
 exploits he was ever led by the heavenly vision. 
 The captain of the Lord's host had appeared to 
 him with a drawn sword in his hand, and that 
 glittering sword he followed, in the long, mysteri- 
 ous march about the walls of Jericho, up the steep 
 valley to Ai and Michinash, across the narrow 
 plateau to Bethhoron and the marvellous rout 
 of the Philistines in the valley of Ajalon, over 
 mountain and plain to Merom, and through long 
 years of stout warfare till at last it rested beside 
 the sanctuary at Shechem. 
 
 The story of Joshua affords a splendid opportu- 
 nity for the children to become thoroughly well 
 acquainted with the topography of Palestine, of 
 which they have already learned much, and it will 
 be their serious loss if, with the book of Joshua in 
 hand and the relief map before them, the mother 
 does not take this opportunity to give them that 
 familiarity with the country, both comprehensive 
 and detailed, which will serve to give concrete 
 reality to all their Bible reading, and sooner or 
 later to solve many historic problems which for 
 want of such familiarity have been found puzzling. 
 In all the epic tales of Israel the battle-fields are 
 
Hero Tales 203 
 
 accurately described just as they are in Homer. 
 The guide-book for the vale of Elah, for Mich- 
 mash, Jezreel, Jeshimon, that devastation of the 
 south country, is to-day the stories of David and 
 Goliath, of Jonathan and the Philistine host, of 
 Gideon's victory, and Saul's pursuit of David. 
 But most accurately of all is the country de- 
 scribed in the book of Joshua : not, as we might 
 perhaps have supposed, in those chapters which 
 describe the partition of the land among the 
 twelve tribes ; these are extremely confused ; but 
 in those chapters which narrate the truly epic 
 story of Joshua, the first ten chapters and the 
 last two, with other bits among which the land 
 records have been interwoven. 
 
 The epic character of the Joshua narrative is 
 strikingly brought out in many of its incidents ; 
 that of the disaster at Ai is particularly so, show- 
 ing all the more strikingly against the advanced 
 almost modern teaching of the demoralizing 
 effect of plunder and booty upon an army. The 
 epic character shows again when, no more deterred 
 by repulse than Agamemnon's forces before Troy, 
 Joshua brought to bear his strategic ability, an 
 ambush, a mock defeat, an overwhelming victory ; 
 and the Eastern key to the Judean plateau was 
 his. 
 
 The next incident, the visit of the wily Gibeon- 
 
204 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 ites and the artless absence of suspicion with 
 which Joshua fell a victim to their stratagem and 
 made an alliance with them, believing them to be 
 a distant people, is in the very spirit of the old 
 epic, and forms a most artistic introduction to the 
 thrilling situation that follows, when the five 
 neighboring Amoritish chiefs, inspired with alarm 
 by the conquest of Jericho and Ai, and the evident 
 terror of Gibeon, made common cause against that 
 town, perceiving that the first step must be to 
 destroy the traitorous city. Gibeon at once made 
 an urgent appeal to its ally, Joshua. The map 
 will show that it was by a forced march that 
 Joshua appeared on the morning after the urgent 
 message came. The battle that follows is little 
 less than Homeric. In the early morning the 
 sleeping hosts of besiegers and besieged were 
 awakened by a terrific shout of Joshua and his 
 men. Up from their tents beside the spring they 
 started, the five kings of Amor and their hosts, 
 and fled, closely pursued up the steep ascent to 
 Bethhoron the Upper that lies at the head of the 
 pass. " All day long the noise of battle rolled " 
 up and down the valley. Dead bodies of the A mo- 
 rites line the narrow path over the ridge and are 
 strewn along the steep descent to the lower Beth- 
 horon. Up from the Western sea comes a black 
 cloud moving rapidly. Thunder mutters, the 
 
Hero Tales 205 
 
 cloud is rent by lightning, then the storm bursts, 
 and with hail and thunderbolt the Lord himself 
 comes to the succor of his captain. And as the 
 sun breaks through the black thunder cloud, and 
 the watery moon appears a thin crescent over the 
 southern hills, showing the piled-up dead and the 
 scattered band of fugitives tearing down the lower 
 pass, Joshua makes that impassioned appeal for a 
 longer day that this epic writer found enshrined 
 in the folk-lore of an earlier time : 
 
 Be thou still, O Sun, upon Gibeon, 
 
 And thou, Moon, upon the valley of Ajalon I 
 
 More in the spirit of Scandinavian epic is the 
 grim story of the slaughter of the five kings ; but 
 it is epic none the less. The strategic importance 
 of the victories of Ai and Gibeon will be appreci- 
 ated by the children who are " in " history, and 
 who know their relief map. By it the Southern 
 Canaanites were cut off from those in the north, 
 and the great victory of Barak afterward made pos- 
 sible. " Divide and conquer " might have been 
 Joshua's motto, and it was his policy, as well as 
 Caesar's. 
 
 In precise analogy with the long addresses of 
 tjie epic heroes is the farewell address of Joshua. 
 The scene is the very setting of a hero tale. It is 
 the classic spot where Abraham erected his first 
 
206 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 altar, the " parcel of ground " which Jacob bought 
 of the sons of Amor and bequeathed to his beloved 
 Joseph, and the burial-place of that beloved son. 
 On either side uprose the mounts of blessing and 
 cursing, Ebal and Gerizim. In their solemn pres- 
 ence Joshua rehearsed all that hero history which 
 they had received from lip to lip for half a score 
 of generations : how their fathers had dwelt on 
 the other side of the flood (the Euphrates) and 
 served other gods ; how Abraham had broken 
 with these idolatries and followed the One God, 
 though the mysterious leading drew him to exile 
 in a strange land ; how his descendants had gone 
 down to Egypt, had been rescued from Egyp- 
 tian bondage, miraculously guided and protected 
 through the long wilderness journey, and had 
 conquered Palestine, all through the power of 
 Jehovah, the One God of Abraham. Now they 
 had come into the inheritance promised to Abra- 
 ham's seed, kept in trust for them by God through 
 these hundreds of years. It is all epic, but it is 
 Hebrew epic, since its purpose and its result were 
 to inspire the great audience to renew their oath 
 of allegiance to the God of their fathers. 
 
Hero Tales 207 
 
 The limits of this chapter forbid a more detailed 
 review of the splendid epic story of Israel. In 
 the language of the writer to the Hebrews, "the 
 time would fail me " to tell the story of Gideon 
 and Othniel and Ehud, of Abimelech and Jephthah 
 and Micah, and of that most epical episode, the 
 Benjamite war. A mere word may be said as to 
 the special interest of the story of Micah from the 
 irrepressible humor which pervades it, more artless 
 and spontaneous than in other Old Testament 
 story. Its historic significance in unravelling the 
 tangled web of Israel's history, immediately after 
 the conquest, is far greater than has generally 
 been perceived. And it is rich in suggestions of 
 the customs and religious ideas of Israel in that 
 early time the taboo (the " curse " laid by 
 Micah's mother upon the stolen silver), the 
 methods of " inquiring of God," the priestly office, 
 and many more. The same may be said of the 
 stories of Gideon, Abimelech, Jephthah, and of 
 the Benjamite war, in some of which, also, the 
 humor approaches to that of the Micah story. In 
 some of these the religious sentiment is less clear 
 than in others ; yet the impression which they 
 cannot but make upon the youngest child is a 
 
208 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 genuinely religious one, while to the older chil- 
 dren, acquainted with the epics of other peoples, 
 the contrast between the religious ideas of Israel 
 and of other peoples must be very striking. All 
 epics show an underlying consciousness of the 
 relationship of man with the divine. The Greeks 
 believed that men were sons of the gods ; so did 
 the Hindus and the Scandinavians. The He- 
 brews believed that man was the son of God, but 
 the conception of the relationship was otherwise 
 different than the difference in the conceptions of 
 deity. It was the method of the sonship that 
 made all the difference. To peoples at large, it 
 was the method of human relationship ; to Israel 
 it was the method of the inbreathed soul. And 
 in the case of Israel this relationship was con- 
 ceived of not as an end in itself for the man or 
 the nation : Israel was the chosen of God th?,t he 
 might be a blessing to the world. No other epic 
 writer ever had such a thought. 
 
 VI 
 
 The children who know the "Arabian Nights" 
 in Lane's translation will be very familiar with the 
 habit of " dropping into poetry," indulged in by 
 all their heroes from the Khaleef to the fisherman 
 
Hero Tales 209 
 
 and the donkey boy. The like habit prevails 
 among the Persians, the Mongols, and nearly all 
 Eastern peoples, and it is by no means a mere lit- 
 erary feature of the stories. Naturally, the early 
 Israelites had the same custom, and the songs and 
 snatches of poetry in the Old Testament are there 
 in conformity to general custom. The children, 
 accustomed to this literary method, will not be 
 surprised to find Hannah and Miriam bursting 
 into song in moments of intense feeling, and men 
 less gifted than they expressing themselves in like 
 manner. Nor will they be surprised to learn that 
 echoes of other poems are found in the Song of 
 Moses and the Magnificat of Mary, the mother of 
 the Lord. This is the custom of Eastern peoples, 
 whose memories are saturated with the poetic lore 
 of their country, which forms the chief element in 
 education and the staple of their intellectual food. 
 They will not be surprised when scraps of poetry 
 are mingled with ordinary description or conver- 
 sation ; this is the manner of the East. If these 
 scraps of quotation were always printed in poetic 
 form, as a large number of them are not, even in 
 the Revised Version (and none of them in the 
 Authorized), this illustration of the mental pro- 
 cesses of Israel would be still more evident. The 
 historian of Joshua puts upon his lips a fragment 
 of an ancient ode of victory when he conquers the 
 
210 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 kings at Bethhoron. 1 Samuel remonstrates with 
 his sons in a rhymed proverb, and the prophet 
 Amos warns Israel with another. The Israelitish 
 people triumph over Sihon and Og in some of 
 those " sarcastic verses " which the Moshelim 
 taught them. War songs, travel odes, dirges 
 there are fragments of them ail through the book, 
 quotations from the book of the Wars of the Lord 
 (that is, of Israel), from the book of the Valiant 
 (Jasher), and from the book of Dirges in which 
 Jeremiah's lament over Josiah was preserved. 
 To recognize these passages as precisely what 
 they are is to be safeguarded against false inter- 
 pretations in many instances. 
 
 VII 
 
 The children will hardly have reached the age 
 of twelve or fourteen years without more than 
 once observing what has already been pointed out, 
 that numbers are used in the Old Testament not 
 so much for giving precise information, as in a 
 symbolical way. When they make that division 
 of Judges into its natural chapters which has 
 already been suggested, they will perceive that 
 nearly all the events occupied periods of forty or 
 
 1 And there are commentators to this day who insist upon 
 reading it as historical description. 
 
Hero Tales 211 
 
 twenty or eighty years. They had already ob- 
 served the frequent recurrence of the number 
 seven, and perhaps of the number three. It will 
 be a pleasant literary exercise for them about this 
 time or soon after to look into these numbers, 
 and try to ascertain precisely what they signify. 
 With regard to the number forty, which is so 
 general and apparently so definite a period, they 
 will soon come to perceive that it stands not so 
 much for precisely so many years as for (in round 
 numbers) a generation, such as we usually con- 
 sider thirty, or thirty-three years to be. No such 
 vital statistics were kept in those days as govern- 
 ments now find necessary. There was no way, 
 except tradition, for the writers to discover the 
 age of any one, or, until the historic period, when 
 the recording of annals began, the date of any 
 event. In general, they could gather that a king 
 reigned or a chief protected the people for about 
 the average lifetime of an adult, or was cut off 
 before his time, or a certain condition outlasted 
 the time of any one then living ; but nothing 
 more definite than that ; and it saved discrepan- 
 cies and exaggerations, to make the period a gen- 
 eration or half a generation, or two generations. 
 Then nobody made a mistake in repeating the 
 story to his children or neighbors, while yet 
 they had no books to keep things in permanent 
 
212 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 form. The use of the number forty gradually 
 extended to other periods than years, and for the 
 same reason. One of the flood accounts says that 
 it rained for forty days, and that after the rain 
 ceased Noah waited forty days before sending out 
 the raven. 
 
 As for three and seven, they have been deemed 
 "sacred numbers" among all primitive peoples. 
 Seven and ten (which is seven plus three) appear 
 constantly in Hindu myth and Egyptian legend. 
 They appear in every country. We hear of the 
 seven wonders of the world, seven sleepers, seven- 
 leagued boots, the seven wise men of Greece, the 
 seven champions of Christendom. There were 
 " seven great saints " in the principal periods of 
 Hindu history. In like manner seven appears 
 very persistently in the antediluvian story, as well 
 as later. There are seven generations of Cain- 
 ites. Sevenfold vengeance was to be taken on the 
 slayer of Cain, seventy times sevenfold on him 
 who should harm his descendant Lamech. It is 
 interesting to note that the other Lamech, the 
 descendant of Seth, lived seven hundred and 
 seventy-seven years. Enoch, the brightest star 
 in the antediluvian galaxy, was the seventh from 
 Adam. Seven appears constantly in the flood 
 story, the creatures saved by sevens, seven days' 
 respite before the flood, the ark resting on Ararat 
 
Hero Tales 213 
 
 in the seventh month, seven-day intervals between 
 the sending out of the birds. We also learn that 
 seventy souls went with Jacob to Egypt, although 
 a count of the names makes it necessary to include 
 Joseph and his family who were already there, 
 and no mention is made of the many servants and 
 retainers who must have gone with them. This 
 again proves that numerical accuracy was not the 
 thing aimed at. A little reflection on the in- 
 stances mentioned shows that what was sought 
 was the idea of sufficiency, completeness. Seven 
 was " the perfect number," and any multiple of it 
 expressed completeness in a superlative degree. 
 That seventy souls went to Egypt signifies that 
 the number was complete, not one left behind. 
 So when Simon Peter asked the Lord how often 
 he should forgive his brother, he thought that 
 " until seven times " expressed the utmost that 
 could possibly be demanded, and our Saviour's 
 answer, " till seventy times seven," lifted the idea 
 into the region of absolute perfection. 1 
 
 Three was above all others the perfect number 
 
 1 So when Elijah was discouraged by the crushing out of 
 Jehovah worship by Ahab, God told him that there were still 
 seven thousand Jehovah worshippers (1 Kings xix. 18), a 
 perfect number. Ahab's army after his repentance was seven 
 thousand men, " even all the children of Israel " (Ib. xx. 15), 
 a representative and perfect number, sufficient for God's 
 purposes. 
 
214 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 Nearly every nation, however polytheistic, has 
 a trinity of its chief gods, and the triangle and 
 the trefoil, used in Christian churches to in- 
 dicate the idea of trinity, are found in heathen 
 temples all over the world. Three appears in 
 folk-lore of all countries : three sisters, three 
 wishes, three tests of every conceivable sort, 
 three knights in armor. The three angels who 
 came to Abraham are in the same category, 
 though raised above it, as we have so often seen 
 that Israelitish folk-lore is raised above that of 
 other peoples. The number three appears in 
 genealogies in a significant way. 
 
 Enoch, we have seen, was the seventh from 
 Adam, and Noah was the tenth, the third after 
 Enoch. Noah, the tenth from Adam, had three 
 sons among whom the world was divided. Terah 
 was the tenth from Noah, and he also had three 
 sons of whom Abraham was one. Levi, the 
 father of the priesthood of Israel, had also three 
 sons among whose descendants the priestly func- 
 tions were divided during the wilderness march, 
 which, we remember, was of forty years. Mani- 
 festly these things were not accident, so far as 
 the writers were concerned. They were features 
 in a carefully devised plan. If all the gen- 
 ealogical lists had been preserved without error 
 or mutilation, a thing impossible, it would 
 
Hero Tales 215 
 
 doubtless be found that this numerical system 
 was carried out through the whole Old Testament 
 story. And even now, with all the puzzles aris- 
 ing from the errors of recopying through thou- 
 sands of years, the genealogical chapters of the 
 various books afford an interesting and pictu- 
 resque field of study for the older children. Of 
 course the little ones have no concern in it. 
 
 The number ten appears to be particularly 
 appropriate to genealogy. The Chaldseans had 
 ten prehistoric kings who together reigned four 
 hundred and thirty-two thousand years, their lives 
 far outlasting those of the Biblical antediluvians. 
 Arab, Chinese, Hindu, and German legends each 
 tell of ten mythical ancestors. The Egyptians 
 had three times ten early kings. The biblical 
 account is allied to all these, but with one very 
 striking difference : none of the other peoples 
 had an Enoch. 
 
 That the number ten in the Old Testament 
 chronology is important simply as forming the 
 framework of the story is evident because in the 
 first chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel the entire 
 history, from Abraham to Christ, is divided into 
 three periods of twice seven generations. A 
 comparison with the Old Testament shows that a 
 number of names have been dropped out in the 
 interest of the scheme. 
 
216 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 This gives a clue to the whole subject, and it 
 corresponds with what we have discovered about 
 the number forty. The question with all writers 
 in the period when books were scarce, and few 
 could afford to possess them or knew how to 
 read them, was to aid the memory of the people, 
 whose only means of giving or communicating 
 knowledge was by word of mouth. The precise 
 number of years or persons or days mattered lit- 
 tle : a fixed number was important, that the story 
 might not be tampered with that in the case 
 of lists no new name might be inserted without 
 detection. This is also the reason for the fre- 
 quent repetitions of folk-lore, and for the preva- 
 lence of the numbers three and seven. Every 
 child can recall numberless instances of such 
 repetition. They were both aids to memory and 
 safeguards against change. 
 
 We shall presently find an illustration of this 
 method in the Old Testament. Let the children 
 become familiar with these facts in this connec- 
 tion. They will be so many lights to illumine 
 problems which others have found puzzling. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 ROMANCE STORIES 
 
 DEAN SANDERS of Yale Theological Seminary 
 lately said that the Old Testament histories are 
 of the John Fiske type rather than the McMas- 
 ter type. Professor Fiske's purpose was always 
 something far higher than the statement of facts, 
 the ascertaining of the historic truth of the events 
 which he narrates. That is Mr. McMaster's 
 ideal, and he lives up to it. We can rely on his 
 painstaking accuracy. We know that he has 
 thoroughly sifted all the evidence, has been per- 
 spicacious as to the significance of the original 
 documents, has tested, collated, summed up, the 
 results of investigation, and has arrived as nearly 
 as possible at the exact truth. Professor Fiske's 
 idea in writing was quite different. It was always 
 to enable his readers to see the significance of any 
 event or period of our history, the contribution it 
 made to the development of the great principles 
 for instance, of liberty upon which our govern- 
 ment is built. There is no one, I imagine, who 
 
 217 
 
218 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 would rank Fiske's histories lower than McMas- 
 ter's as to trustworthiness, though his ideal is so 
 different. No one would dream of saying that 
 McMaster gives him a more accurate view of the 
 past of this country than Fiske. And as to its 
 future, every reader, however little of a philosopher, 
 must feel that Fiske is by far the truer prophet. 
 In fact, Mr. McMaster has nothing to do with 
 prophecy: he does not undertake to forecast the 
 future, and one must read into his books all he is 
 to get out of them for guidance in future conduct 
 as a citizen. Whereas we may almost class Fiske's 
 work as prophetic history, so clearly does it set 
 before the reader the inevitable tendency and out- 
 come of the past. 
 
 It is very clear that the Old Testament histories 
 are far more of the Fiske than of the McMaster 
 type. They are not half so much concerned to 
 make their readers thoroughly well informed as to 
 the historic events of a given period as to show 
 the place of that period and its personages in the 
 development of the great plan of God. All the 
 so-called historic books are illustrations of this 
 method, and particularly so the book of Judges, 
 some of whose stories we have studied. That 
 book affords an admirable illustration of the fact 
 that there is more than one way of writing history. 
 To discover that some of the historic books are 
 
Romance Storie* 219 
 
 properly to be classed with epic, and some with 
 prophecy, is no more to deny their trustworthiness 
 than their inspiration. In fact, the Jews them- 
 selves do not class any of the Old Testament 
 Scriptures with history. They rank the books of 
 Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings with prophecy, 
 although, properly enough, not in the same class 
 with the great prophetic books. 
 
 It is extremely important to bear these facts in 
 mind in telling Bible stories to children of various 
 ages. Young children do not ask for literal ac- 
 curacy; that is not a matter that enters their 
 minds, though they may often ask if a story is 
 true, for their little souls reach up for truth as a 
 flower reaches up to the sunlight. But it is sadly 
 possible for a mother so to teach her child that 
 truth is the same as literal fact, that his faith in 
 the Bible as the inspired message from God will 
 be shaken by his own thoughtful reading of it as 
 he grows older, even though he never hear a word 
 of what is called modern criticism. 
 
 The Samuel stories are admirable illustrations 
 of what we may call the Fiske method of writing 
 history the prophetic method. Though there is 
 much epic material in the life of Samuel, the older 
 children will feel, though they may not be able to 
 explain, the difference between the Samuel and 
 the Joshua stories, for example. Yet if these 
 
220 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 stories are not properly speaking epic, neither 
 are they biography, nor yet a history of Samuel's 
 time, for they leave great periods in his life un- 
 touched, and neither biography nor history may 
 do that. More than once the writer passes over 
 twenty years or more without a word, though we 
 may easily perceive that they were very important 
 years in Samuel's and his country's history. The 
 chapters about Samuel are just a succession of 
 Bible stories, bound together by a controlling pur- 
 pose into a wonderful historic sermon with a deep 
 religious meaning. 
 
 This method of dealing with facts as lessons is 
 not confined to the Old Testament ; it is charac- 
 teristic of all oriental works of history. Neither 
 an Arabian nor a Chinese historian thinks of 
 writing a logical history, bringing out all the facts 
 in their order and connection. Any missionary 
 learned in the classics of China will tell us that 
 the purpose of Chinese history is simply to make 
 certain impressions, to deal with the past as les- 
 sons ; and so it is with other oriental historians. 
 The writers of the Bible, who also were orientals, 
 succeed with this method to a marvellous degree, 
 and this is why interest in the Bible is so univer- 
 sal and so permanent. The persons and incidents 
 of which it treats are in their way universal. The 
 figures are the work of an artist rather than a 
 
Romance Stories 221 
 
 historian, and therefore they are revelation. A 
 revelation from God, Dr. Matheson tells us, is not 
 merely a statement of what man once did, but 
 of what men may always do. "It is the special 
 announcement of that which is not special, of the 
 universal order of God's works and ways, to man." 
 Yet this revelation is made through the story 
 of an individual because in fact that which is per- 
 manent in history is not the characteristics of a 
 race, but the traits of an individual. The typical 
 man is the man who best realizes himself. 
 
 II 
 
 In none of the Bible stories is this " fine sense 
 of divine purposefulness," this realization by an 
 individual that his life is a part of the plan of 
 God, more perfectly shown than in those of which 
 Samuel is the hero. Nor is there any story in the 
 Bible more perfectly adapted to the very little 
 child than some parts of Samuel's story. But as 
 no one is so foolish as to undertake to teach a little 
 child about the prophetic character of Bible his- 
 tory, or how it reveals a divine purpose, it is evi- 
 dent that not every incident of Samuel's story, 
 nor his history as a whole, is particularly adapted 
 to the very young child. In this it differs from 
 those "morning stories," and those patriarch stories 
 
222 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 which we have studied. It belongs in a different 
 literary class. As we have seen, the stories in the 
 first eleven chapters of Genesis are of the class 
 which in other literatures is mythology, ancient 
 folk tales in which the people of earlier times 
 attempted to explain the mysteries of nature ; 
 and having been redeemed from that class in 
 order to be made the vehicle of religious truth, 
 they are precisely and marvellously adapted to 
 the very little child. Every one of them can be 
 so told as to open to a child precisely the truth 
 they actually embody. The patriarch stories be- 
 long in the class called legend; more definitely, 
 as we have seen, they are in the class of the old 
 Icelandic or Scandinavian Sagas, designed to pre- 
 serve all that could be gathered up of popular 
 ideas as to the origin of the Israelitish nation. 
 But the writer had a far larger purpose than ani- 
 mates our folk-lore societies, for example : he not 
 only, like them, carefully collected all that he 
 could find in the memories of the people (or in 
 earlier writings), but he made these folk legends 
 the concrete presentation of great abstract truths. 
 The hero tales, being epic, are simply an advanced 
 method of accomplishing the dual purpose. Epic, 
 as we have seen, always lies at the basis of every 
 religion. But in the epic stories of the Bible the 
 religious implications became more personal, more 
 
Romance Stories 223 
 
 practical and definite than in those of the two 
 earlier classes. All these Old Testament stories 
 differ from other oriental literatures of their class, 
 not by greater historic accuracy, which indeed 
 may be theirs, and which is only a question of 
 less or more, but by the spiritual truths of which 
 they have been made a medium. 
 
 Ill 
 
 With Samuel we come to another class of stories. 
 They have some epical features, but they are evi- 
 dently not epics. They belong in a class which 
 in the development of literature comes later than 
 epic, much later than myth. They are like the 
 old Middle Age romances and tales of chivalry, 
 such as King Arthur and Roland, and those which 
 are most splendidly told by the old Spanish 
 romancers. The Old Testament romances differ 
 from these tales of chivalry, precisely as the 
 earlier stories differ from mythology and legend, 
 by the spiritual truths of which they have been 
 made the vehicle. 
 
 As these stories belong in a different class from 
 the Bible stories which precede them, so they 
 demand a different treatment from the others. 
 The mother will at once perceive that the most 
 obvious teachings of the stories of Samuel and 
 
224 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 David and Elijah, the purpose for which they 
 have been preserved, are not universal but 
 national. Using the false divisions of the present 
 day, they have to do not so much with religion 
 as with politics. The Hebrews made no such 
 division, nor shall we when we gain a true con- 
 ception of both religion and politics. 
 
 Evidently these truths, however much we may 
 simplify them, do not awaken in the mind of the 
 little child the same response which the earlier 
 stories do, although there are parts of them in 
 which they will find interest and delight. And 
 when we come to the story of Joash, which is 
 true history, we find that though it is full of 
 interest for the boy of ten or twelve, there is 
 very little in it for the child of three or four. 
 The fundamental difference between the mother's 
 treatment of these stories and of the earlier ones 
 lies in this : the entire outline of the latter can 
 be told to the youngest child and adapted to his 
 advancing processes of education. The romance 
 stories, on the contrary, must be adapted to the 
 various periods in the child's intellectual growth, 
 not by development but by selection, telling him 
 at first only such incidents as he can appreciate, 
 and adding to the story as he grows older. 
 
Romance Storie* 225 
 
 IV 
 
 1 Samuel i; ii. 11, 12, 18, 19; iii. 
 
 There can be no lovelier story for the little 
 child than the first and third chapters of 1 Samuel 
 with some verses of the second chapter. I should 
 also include the fourth chapter, notwithstanding 
 its tragic end, at least by the time he is four years 
 old ; for it is necessary to round out the story 
 necessary, that is, to justify it morally to the 
 child. The prophecy to little Samuel of the pun- 
 ishment of Eli's sons is not alien to the heart of 
 a child. On the contrary, he will highly approve 
 of it, and the tragedy itself contains no grewsome 
 details, but is on a high level of pathos and 
 dignity. 
 
 At a very early age, six or seven, at latest, it 
 will be possible to make much of the local customs 
 which crop up all through the story. Especially 
 is it good to make more of the yearly feast than 
 we are in the habit of doing. The idyllic charac- 
 ter of these joyous vintage festivals, which were 
 so important in the life of all ancient peoples, 
 makes strong appeal to the little child, and puts 
 it in the right condition of sympathy for under- 
 standing Old Testament history. The mother 
 whose mind is colored by what she learned in 
 
226 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 childhood of the Mosaic laws and the customs de- 
 scribed in the Pentateuch will need to be careful 
 here to put nothing into the story that does not 
 belong there. Let her observe that nothing is 
 here said of sacrifice or atonement, or of any of 
 that Old Testament ritual in which we have been 
 taught by the Epistle to the Hebrews to find 
 types of the Christian dispensation. This was 
 simply a joyful feast, like our Thanksgiving, with 
 precisely the religious character which Thanks- 
 giving was designed to have. The sacrifice 
 there probably was one was simply giving God 
 a part, and the first part, of the joyful Thanks- 
 giving feast ; for no festival can be truly happy in 
 which He has not a share. We do the same with 
 our Thanksgiving festival when we send good 
 things to the poorer neighbors whom we know, or 
 boxes to be distributed among the poor in great 
 cities whom we do not know, before gathering 
 around our own table to enjoy our Thanksgiving 
 dinner, which should be as truly a feast before the 
 Lord as any in Old Testament story. 
 
 Every little child will be sympathetic with 
 Hannah's longing for motherhood. Does not he 
 know that his mother could not be happy with- 
 out her little child ? And what else could she do 
 but pray God to give her one ? The child will 
 respond, too, both to the pang and the joy of 
 
Romance Stories 227 
 
 giving little Samuel to God, and no more beau- 
 tiful opportunity will ever occur than this story 
 of little Samuel, lent to the Lord as long as he 
 should live, by the mother who had longed for him 
 so and had received him from God in answer to 
 her prayer, to instil into his mind the truth of the 
 joy of God's service. So he will early learn to 
 feel that the highest of all privileges is to serve 
 God, and that the mother's truest happiness in 
 her child is to have him spend his life in serving 
 God. 
 
 The mother will not have told the story as she 
 ought to have done unless the child feels lonely 
 with little Samuel, whose mother has gone away 
 and left him, and then grows glad again, because 
 Eli is very kind to Samuel, as good and kind as 
 grandpa, and Samuel is glad to serve God in His 
 temple with kind old Eli. Eli's naughty sons 
 must come in here, or else the words of God to 
 Samuel will be without meaning. The contrast 
 between serving God because you love Him, as 
 old Eli and little Samuel did, and serving Him 
 without love, only for the sake of what you can 
 get, may early be made striking enough to justify 
 to a little child the revelation to Samuel; its 
 character, I mean, not the fact of it, which needs 
 no justification to a child. The surroundings 
 should be made real, for young children think in 
 
228 Telling BiUe Storie* 
 
 pictures. The mother may well prepare herself 
 for telling this story by some careful reading of 
 the " Encyclopaedia," or of a chapter in Stanley's 
 "History of the Jewish Church," or some more 
 modern book on the subject such as she will 
 find in any public library. The mother who has 
 learned in Sunday-school all about the taber- 
 nacle in the wilderness, has perhaps never 
 observed that in this story we have nothing to 
 do with a tabernacle. The word is not once 
 used ; it was not a tent but a temple in which 
 little Samuel lived, a building with doors, which 
 it was his duty to open every morning, beside 
 which Eli had his seat by day. In this temple 
 Eli and little Samuel slept at night, and into it 
 Hannah might go to pray and to sing her song of 
 thanksgiving. Of course this picture is not at all 
 like that of the tabernacle described in Numbers. 
 Into the tabernacle no woman or child might 
 enter, and into the Holy of Holies, where the ark 
 was, only the high priest might go, and he only 
 once in a year. But the Revised Version shows 
 (though the Authorized Version does not) that 
 the Hebrew of this story expressly says that 
 Samuel slept where the ark of God was. How 
 there came to be such a change in customs would 
 be an important question if these books in the Old 
 Testament were books of history. But as they 
 
Momance Stories 229 
 
 are not, the question does not concern us, in con- 
 nection with the children's Bible stories, and it 
 will never disturb the children to whom the Bible 
 stories have been properly told. If the older 
 children, when they have acquired sufficient edu- 
 cation, care to investigate the very interesting 
 literary question involved, it will do them good. 
 It will not in the least affect their religion. 
 
 This, however, is aside from our present busi- 
 ness. Our reason for wanting to make the child 
 see the picture is that he may the more vividly 
 feel the marvellous truth of which it is the setting, 
 God in communion with a little child. For 
 this is a truth of vital importance, a truth so won- 
 derful that if we do not receive it " as little chil- 
 dren " we cannot receive it at all ; and he can best 
 apprehend it to whom it comes in the earliest 
 years of life God speaking to a little boy and 
 making him his co-worker ! And this little boy 
 was no miracle : this is what the mother is privi- 
 leged and commissioned to teach her children. 
 Samuel was just what every child should be, what 
 every child may be, one in whose heart God will 
 love to speak, and whose help God is glad to have. 
 
 The story usually ends with the announcement 
 which God made to Samuel, but artistic con- 
 sistency requires that it should justify this com- 
 munication by the story of the battle with the 
 
230 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 Philistines, the capture of the ark, the slaughter 
 of Eli's sons, and the death of Eli himself. Every 
 child delights in the story of battle ; he is quick 
 to approve the justice of the punishment of the 
 bad young men ; while the dramatic picture of the 
 aged priest, sitting by the temple door in his blind- 
 ness, tremblingly eager for tidings, struck to the 
 heart by the loud wail of the villagers, crushed to 
 death when the herald announces to him the defeat 
 of Israel's army, the slaughter of his sons and the 
 capture of the ark the child will see it and hear 
 it all, and will need no pointing of a moral to make 
 him feel in his innermost heart how wrong-doing 
 brings calamity to one's friends and one's nation. 
 He will be ready now for the last w^ords of the 
 story, that the child who is ready to hear God 
 speak grows up to be known as one to whom God 
 always speaks. 
 
 V 
 
 1 Samuel iv. xii. 
 
 All this is a lovely and inspiring story for the 
 little child, and there is not much more in it for 
 the growing boy. But in the story of Samuel's 
 later life he will find immense interest and inspira- 
 tion, for it is a tale of romantic heroism or of 
 heroic romance. Here was a people whom God 
 
Romance Stories 231 
 
 intended to make a blessing to the whole world, 
 given over to an enemy who had harassed and 
 spoiled them for many years. The purpose of 
 blessing had been forgotten by them, and God 
 Himself well-nigh forgotten. And here was a 
 boy to whom He had spoken, a boy dedicated from 
 his birth to the service of God, and gladly spend- 
 ing his boyhood in serving Him in His temple a 
 little temple page, a choir child, a helper at the 
 altar. Now, having grown a little older, when 
 his beloved protector and master died, he suddenly 
 perceived that he was called to a larger service 
 than that of the temple ; that it was for him to 
 free Israel from her enemies and bring her back 
 to the worship of God. How splendid the appeal 
 to the ardent heart of the listening boy! How 
 every incident in this romantic story will bring 
 out more clearly the high type of patriotism 
 which the story of Samuel holds up to the 
 American boy ! And when was the lesson more 
 urgently needed? It is the lesson of patriotism 
 that is also religion, the true service of God. 
 And it is here taught in that most impressive 
 of all forms to a growing child, the form of a 
 romantic tale. 
 
 As Dr. Matheson sums up Samuel's life, "He 
 was to live long, do much, suffer many things. 
 He was to purify public worship, to root out 
 
232 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 idolatry, to judge the tribes of Israel, to humble 
 the pride of the Philistine, to be the maker and 
 unmaker of kings." And he was able to do all 
 this not because he was an extraordinary boy, but 
 because he was a normal boy what every boy 
 may be, one to whom God speaks. The story 
 tells the growing boy that a religious childhood 
 is the secret of a life of usefulness, that a child- 
 hood spent in the mystical temple of God the 
 secret of his presence prepares the man for the 
 most practical life. 
 
 VI 
 
 1 Samuel xvi. 1.13 ; xvii. 1 ; xxvi. 25 
 
 For the child of five or six there is one more 
 story of Samuel's later life. It is a part of the 
 story of David, a simple story, idyllic and full of 
 meaning. It tells of the prophet Samuel's visit to 
 Bethlehem, his passing in review the stalwart sons 
 of Jesse, his sending for the youngest boy David 
 from the mountain pastures where he keeps his 
 sheep. And when the youth comes in, fresh and 
 ruddy from the free air of the uplands, wondering 
 why he is sent for, awed at sight of the venerable 
 prophet, amazed at the pouring of the oil upon his 
 head as a sign that God has chosen him to special 
 service, the child's love for the shepherd boy be- 
 
Romance Stories 233 
 
 comes a part of his life. For the child of seven or 
 eight is the story of the slaying of Goliath, the 
 giant champion, with its deeply religious spirit, 
 the zealous loyalty for God, whose armies the 
 unbeliever has defied, the unquestioning trust in 
 God which leads David to dare all upon his skill 
 with his familiar weapon, the sling and stone. No 
 doubt he has often amused himself with it, often 
 engaged in contests of skill with his young com- 
 panions, sometimes even saved himself and his 
 flock with it, from the peril of wild beasts. The 
 deep religious meaning of David's conquest over 
 the giant will not pass out of the boy's mind as 
 in later years he delights in the chivalric romance 
 of David's later life. 
 
 The episode of the slaying of the giant, how- 
 ever, affords an opportunity for that method of 
 more particular study to which the older boys 
 and girls are accustomed. It may be used to 
 introduce them, with more detail than the earlier 
 stories allowed, to the topography of Palestine, 
 the Fifth Gospel, as Dr. Thompson truly called 
 it. Some day when the children have come to 
 be nine and eleven years old, and know by heart 
 the story of David and Goliath, let them bring 
 their Bibles to the table on which the relief map 
 has been laid, while the mother shows them pre- 
 cisely how it came to pass that this decision of 
 
234 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 the quarrel by single combat, so common in days 
 of chivalry, took place between the Philistines 
 and the Israelites. Let her show them how the 
 Philistines dwelt in the maritime plain, and the 
 Israelites on the high tableland, with its over- 
 shadowing hills. Let them find the vale of Elah, 
 up which the Philistine army swarmed with their 
 archers and spearmen and their war chariots. Let 
 them trace their progress till they reach the three- 
 cornered plain of Shocoh, shut in on all sides by 
 hills. Upon one of these hills the army of Israel 
 was intrenched among the bushes ; and the chil- 
 dren will see that the Philistines must have taken 
 up their position on the opposite hill with their 
 war chariots on the little plain below. It will be 
 easy for them, studying this ground, to under- 
 stand why there was no battle. For from the 
 heights above came down two brooks and flowed 
 along the foot of each of the hills on which the 
 two armies were intrenched, uniting at the western 
 corner of Shocoh to flow away down the valley of 
 Elah. Either army, therefore, before attacking 
 the other, must ford a brook, cross the plain, 
 exposed to the darts and arrows, of the enemy, 
 not to speak of the attack of the chariots ; then 
 cross another brook and climb a hill, while the 
 enemy safe above could shower their missiles 
 upon them from behind the trees without risk 
 
Romance Stories 235 
 
 to themselves. 1 This clearly explains the deter- 
 mination of the Philistines to bring the Israelites 
 into the open plain ; for Israel had no chariots, 
 and the chariots of the Philistines could do noth- 
 ing on the hills. And so day by day the giant 
 champion strode across the plain, hurling defiance 
 at them and their God, in the hope of goading 
 them to such exasperation that they would rush 
 down from their intrenchment to be mown down 
 by the sharp scythes of the chariots. He never 
 dreamed that his boastful challenge to single com- 
 bat would be taken up. 
 
 But not far away, on the hills above, toward 
 Bethlehem, there is a shepherd boy seated in the 
 midst of his flock, under the silvery olive trees. 
 Now he is singing to his rude guitar, and anon 
 springing up to practise with the sling that is the 
 protection of his flock from the lion and the bear. 
 His father sends for him to carry a message and a 
 gift to his older brothers in the army, and so over 
 the fields and down the hillside he comes, and 
 brave in his unquestioning faith in God, takes up 
 the giant's challenge, and becomes the champion 
 and the liberator of his people. 
 
 Such a lesson in topography will make the 
 
 1 At the present day there is water in these brooks only after 
 the winter rains and snows. The gradual disappearance of the 
 forests has dried up most of the streams of Palestine. 
 
236 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 whole Bible more real, and awaken in the children 
 a zest and an intelligent appreciation which will 
 give them a new idea of the joy of study. They 
 are old enough now, or soon will be, for the rest 
 of the story of David's life, and the mother who 
 has taught them thus far by Bible stories will 
 not find it necessary to slur over the fact which, 
 if their minds are as alert as they should be, they 
 will soon discover for themselves, that this story 
 is another of those instances where the inspired 
 author has made up his narrative from two old 
 legends. 
 
 No story in all the Bible is so perfect a tale 
 of romance as this. The turn that the victory 
 over the giant gives to young David's fortunes is 
 most romantic : the favor of the king, the love of 
 the king's son Jonathan, and the beginning of a 
 friendship that all history reveres as passing the 
 love of women ; the love of the king's daughter 
 Michal, and David's marriage with her as the 
 reward of deeds of prowess ; the generalship of 
 the king's army, the enthusiastic admiration of 
 the populace, the secretly growing jealousy of the 
 king leading to attempts at David's life, his re- 
 peated escapes and finally his abandonment of the 
 court, and his last parting with his friend, a 
 scene almost unmatched for pathos and poetry. 
 Then comes the wild outlaw life, David and his 
 
Romance Stories 237 
 
 band of hardy young followers roaming amidst 
 the rifts and rocks of Jeshimon, the Negeb 
 deserts, as brave and gallant as Robin Hood and 
 his archers in Sherwood forest, now protecting 
 the rich farmers and drovers of the oases from 
 the depredations of robber bands that haunted the 
 desert, now nobly sparing the life of the king 
 who is roaming these wilds seeking David's life. 
 
 VII 
 
 2 Samuel ii. x; xxiii. 839; xv; xviii. 
 
 The story of the consolidation of David's king- 
 dom after the death of Saul and Jonathan, his 
 many wars and brilliant victories, his twice thirty 
 worthies and their splendid deeds, reads more 
 than ever like the old romances of chivalry. And 
 what episode in ancient romance so deeply stirs 
 the imagination, as the rebellion of Absalom, that 
 best-beloved son of the aged king ? What scene 
 is more romantic than that when the royal war- 
 rior, who has many a time ridden forth to victory, 
 passes out from the gate of Jerusalem with 
 shrouded head and unsandalled feet, taking his 
 sad way to " the Farm-House," where his faithful 
 thirty and their followers meet him, and accom- 
 pany him across the deep flowing Kidron and 
 
238 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 over the Mount of Olives, to his sorrowful exile 
 beyond Jordan ? And what lament of all litera- 
 ture stirs the fountain of our tears like that 
 with which he meets the news of victory : " O 
 my son Absalom ! my son, my son Absalom ! 
 Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my 
 son, my son ! " 
 
 The children have followed all these events 
 upon the relief map. One incident in this life of 
 adventure and success it has made particularly 
 interesting. It is the story which so nearly re- 
 sembles the romance of Robin Hood which they 
 have read and reread with such delight, the 
 story how the Robin Hood of Israel won his Maid 
 Marian. 1 The scene of it is that rocky desert of 
 the south where Hagar once wandered, and to 
 which, after he had become King Saul's friend, 
 and then had incurred the king's jealous sus- 
 picion, David took refuge with his gallant six 
 hundred. The time is the spring sheep-shearing, 
 always celebrated by a great feast. Tell the 
 children how the flocks came streaming in from 
 all directions led by their shepherds, picture the 
 gathering together of stores of food, the festal 
 preparations superintended by a young woman of 
 good understanding and beautiful countenance, 
 the farmer's wife Abigail. Show them now the 
 USam. xxv. P-42. 
 
Romance Stories 239 
 
 company of youths of free and martial bearing 
 coming up from .the desert they are David's 
 companions bringing greetings from their chief, 
 and the request that on this festal occasion the 
 farmer will remember how they have protected 
 his flocks and will send them, according to custom, 
 a share of the good things. Read them Nabal's 
 rough reply which proved him not only a churl 
 but a fool, for he could ill afford to offend neigh- 
 bors who were so useful and so dauntless. Picture 
 the wrath of David on receiving the curt and in- 
 sulting message ; then show them the six hundred 
 men advancing across the desert with their long, 
 swinging stride. They reach one of the deep 
 valley clefts that add to the difficulties of this 
 region, and as they are going down the cliff path 
 on one side they see a strange procession coming 
 down on the other a little company of men with 
 pack asses, and behind them a woman who rides 
 with an air of command. The children are not 
 too young to appreciate the dignified, appropriate, 
 and winning words which Abigail addressed to 
 David when the two companies met, the loyalty 
 of the wife, the fearlessness of the woman, who, 
 though in danger, is mistress of the situation, able 
 to remind the freebooting chieftain how unworthy 
 of him it would be to avenge himself with his own 
 hand. It will not be hard for them to appreciate 
 
240 Telling Bible titories 
 
 the discretion and tact of a woman entirely mis- 
 tress of herself and perspicacious as to the charac- 
 ter of him to whom her plea was addressed, in her 
 promise that when at last better days should have 
 dawned David's soul bound in the bundle of 
 life with Jehovah, and the souls of his enemies 
 slung out by God as from the hollow of a sling, 
 as he had once slung a stone on the battle-field of 
 Shocoh, he would not then be sorry that he had 
 not shed blood causeless. They will understand 
 that such a plea from such a woman would win 
 the heart of David, that he would give up his 
 purpose of revenge and retire to the wilderness. 
 And it will seem perfectly natural to them that 
 when ten days later Nabal died and the beautiful 
 Abigail was left unprotected on that frontier farm, 
 exposed to marauding robber bands, David should 
 send for her and she should consent to be his wife. 
 It is just the kind of love story, all chivalry and no 
 sentiment, which the growing children can enjoy, 
 while the religious tone implied and explicit in Abi- 
 gail's noble speech and David's self-control raises 
 it to the high level of the best tales of chivalry. 
 
 Not always is the chief of a guerilla band, how- 
 ever valiant and chivalrous, competent to lead 
 great armies and conduct warfare on a large 
 scale. David had been a bold, brave, and ever 
 successful guerilla leader in the days of his out- 
 
Romance Stories 241 
 
 lawry, but he had also the large grasp of situations 
 and the genius for command which made of him 
 a great general. And so the story of his life has 
 its further interest for the older children who 
 have learned to study history; and no study of any 
 life, save the matchless life which is at once the 
 model and the hope of man, is more worthy of the 
 study of boys of fifteen and upward. Not that 
 David was a perfect man. Let not the children 
 be misled by the ancient meaning of a word, to 
 suppose that because he was " a man after God's 
 own heart," therefore he was in every respect well 
 pleasing to God. The word heart here means 
 purpose, as it still does when one answers to a 
 request, "with all my heart." David was a man 
 of strong character, wonderfully attractive, brave, 
 generous, and lovable, a warrior and organizer 
 " after God's own heart," to forward his purpose, 
 to bring Israel to the position he had designed for 
 her ; and for this work David's marvellous faculty 
 of leadership admirably fitted him. But he was a 
 man of many and grave faults, bloodthirsty, cruel, 
 unscrupulous to attain his ends, and often selfishly 
 indifferent to consequences. Many of his trials 
 he brought upon himself. His faults were largely 
 the faults of his time and his position, and com- 
 pared with other Eastern monarchs, compared 
 with many heroes of Eastern chivalry, even 
 
Telling Bible Storiet 
 
 David stands on a high plane. It will do no boy 
 harm, it ought to do him great good, to study 
 David's character just as it is presented in the 
 Bible, with all its faults and all its crimes. 
 
 David was a man of wondrous charm, able to 
 inspire boundless affection. Saul loved him at 
 first sight, and only fierce and not ill-founded 
 jealousy overcame his love. Jonathan loved him 
 as few friends love : to his warriors he was " the 
 lamp of Israel," his three mighty men adored 
 him, and were ready to pour out their lives for 
 his sake as he poured out before God the water 
 from the well of Bethlehem which one of them 
 had risked his life to procure. More even than 
 his bravery, his patriotism, his personal charm, it 
 was his genuinely religious character that gave 
 his people that impression of him which lived in 
 the nation's memory. He never fought for glory 
 nor for selfish ends; his were the wars of the 
 Lord, his kingdom was exalted for Israel's sake. 
 He always worked in harmony with the prophets ; 
 that God-consciousness which marks the Hebrew 
 saints was his to a remarkable degree. He was 
 magnanimous to his enemies, especially to Saul. 
 What more thrilling episode do we find in ro- 
 mance than that wild night walk of David and his 
 cousin Abishai across the wilderness of Ziph 1 to 
 1 1 Sam. xxvi. 
 
Romance Stories 243 
 
 prove to Saul, asleep in his tent, that though in 
 David's power he was safe? Capable of deep and 
 genuine repentance, he had that faith in God 
 which kept him from despair after heinous sin. 
 For all these reasons, a study of his life and char- 
 acter may be made as valuable as interesting to 
 boys in their youth. Samuel and David, though 
 so different in other respects, were alike in this ; 
 both were called to God's service in early youth, 
 and both owed the usefulness of their later life to 
 the simplicity and fidelity with which they obeyed 
 the call. 
 
 VIII 
 
 1 Kings xvii. xix. ; 2 Kings i. ii. 15 
 
 Elijah was a man of another sort, yet much of 
 the wild romance of chivalry clings to him. His 
 story contains much for the little children ; it is 
 a true folk tale, not only in feeling, but in form. 
 The mother who reads the story of Elijah with 
 open mind, with the memories of childhood incar- 
 nated in her children, will see that the inspired 
 writer of this story, with true genius, incorporated 
 into his narrative almost without change a genuine 
 folk tale, which had been handed down by word 
 of mouth for several generations. The perspicac- 
 ity, the inspiration, of this late author, who wiote, 
 
244 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 it will be observed, during the captivity, which 
 event the book of Kings narrates, is nowhere more 
 strikingly shown than in his choosing the materials 
 for the greater part of the Elijah story, not from 
 the annals of the kingdom, to which he so often 
 refers in other parts of his book, but from the lips 
 of the people. For it will be remembered that 
 from first to last Elijah was in opposition, the 
 "enemy," as King Ahab said, of the established 
 order, which was idolatrous and iniquitous. 
 Without a shadow of doubt his story was garbled 
 in the royal annals, after the custom of Eastern 
 annalists. The writer of the book of Kings recog- 
 nized this, and went for his material to the homes 
 of the people, perfectly sure that however much 
 the story might have been idealized in passing 
 down from lip to lip through two hundred years, 
 it had still by that very process been kept essen- 
 tially true. The chapter that tells the story of 
 Elijah's translation has the very form of the oldest 
 folk-lore with its repetitions. Three times Elijah 
 tells Elisha, " Tarry here, I pray thee, for Jehovah 
 hath sent me to Bethel to Jericho to Jordan." 
 Three times Elisha answers, " As Jehovah liveth 
 and as thy soul liveth I will not leave thee." 
 Twice the sons of the prophets say to Elisha, 
 " Knowest thou that Jehovah will take away 
 thy master from thy head to-day ? " And twice 
 
Romance Stories 245 
 
 he answers, "Yea, I also know it, hold ye your 
 peace." A story couched in this form is espe- 
 cially delightful to the little child, and there is a 
 very cogent reason why this chapter, and the story 
 of Elijah's raising the widow's son, and other won- 
 der stories of his life, should be told to the children 
 while they are young. I have already alluded to 
 it, the importance of making children familiar with 
 miracle stories before they go to school, and study 
 those truths of science which seem to say that 
 miracles are impossible, only because the real pur- 
 port and significance of miracles is not recognized 
 by text-book or teacher. 
 
 For the older children this true romance tale is 
 full of historic and religious as well as of literary 
 interest. Elijah was a heroic servant of God, of 
 the rugged, stern, enthusiastic type of the Scottish 
 Covenanters and the French Camisards. He was 
 impassioned with the thought of the glory of 
 God ; he knew no hindrance in his effort to estab- 
 lish the reign of Jehovah. He had the moral ups 
 and downs of the enthusiast, dauntless courage 
 alternated with fits of deep depression ; but in his 
 deepest discouragement, when even faith failed 
 him, the same consuming ardor burned within 
 him. Like Him to whom he appeared on the 
 Mount of Transfiguration, the zeal of the Lord's 
 house was devouring him. He knew the secret 
 
246 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 of communion with God as few knew it before 
 Christ. " Cold mountains and the midnight air " 
 knew " the fervor of his prayer," as they knew 
 that of the Saviour of men. 
 
 Elijah was a man of the open air, and this is 
 one of the best of stories to give children the 
 nature consciousness of the Bible. This " prophet 
 of the uncultured steppe " was in strange contrast 
 with the luxury of Ahab's court, where he was so 
 well known. He came from the wild deserts of 
 the east, not the rocky desolation of the Negeb 
 with which the children are well acquainted, and 
 his whole story reveals his strong love for moun- 
 tains : Horeb, and that Carmel where by prefer- 
 ence he lived, with its bold headland jutting out 
 into the limitless sea, and its wide sweep of splen- 
 did inland prospect the river Kishon where 
 Sisera's host perished, the " circle of Galilee " 
 with its blue lake, Tabor and far-distant, snow- 
 capped Hermon, and nearer the great plain of 
 Esdraelon, with Mount Megiddo where King Jo- 
 siah was slain, that battle-field of the nations 
 which the seer of the Apocalypse saw as Arma- 
 geddon, Har-Megiddo, the last battle-field of the 
 world. The relief map will do good service in 
 the growing children's study of this story. 
 
 For the older boys and girls is the study of that 
 heroic struggle against Baal worship which was 
 
Romance Stories 247 
 
 the ruling passion of Elijah's life, and his pro- 
 found discovery of the nature of communion with 
 God. More clearly than any who had preceded 
 him he perceived the moral nature of God, and it 
 was this perception of the necessity of righteous- 
 ness and justice as the condition of the divine 
 blessing, which made him such a power in the 
 nation. His relations with the court, his contest 
 with the priests of Baal, the various exiles by 
 which alone his life was saved, his long, lonely 
 flight to the desert of Horeb where hundreds of 
 years before God had walked among his people in 
 cloud and fire, his tremendous experiences upon 
 the rock where dauntlessly he braved tempest and 
 whirlwind and fire in the daring desire to behold 
 God, the revelation that came to him in the still 
 small voice ; his share, through the medium of 
 his disciple, Elisha, in overturning the reigning 
 dynasty, gone rotten with effeminacy and Baal 
 worship and the dominance of an unscrupulous 
 woman, and raising up a new dynasty with a re- 
 former zealous for Jehovah at its head ; his part 
 in policies beyond the kingdom, in Syria where 
 the general Hazael was intriguing against his 
 king ; and finally the fiery blaze of his intense 
 life which no opposition could extinguish, not 
 quenched but embraced in the glow of the fiery 
 chariot what romantic story of all literature 
 
248 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 can surpass this ? I am sorry for the young peo- 
 ple, and sorry for the mother, who cannot find 
 material for many a thrilling Sunday afternoon in 
 studying together, in all the illumination of their 
 literary and historic knowledge, the story of this 
 great reformer of Israel. 
 
 IX 
 
 2 Kings xi. 116 
 
 With the story of the little king Joash we leave 
 the realm of romance and enter upon sober his- 
 tory. It is an admirable introduction, for it is as 
 dramatic and as stimulating to the imagination 
 as a play of Shakespeare. The little children will 
 love the story of the baby king, hidden by his big 
 sister in the very temple, while his wicked grand- 
 mother was killing all the other princes that she 
 might be queen herself ; and how he lived hidden 
 with his nurse in the temple until he was seven 
 years old, and how at the end of that time his 
 sister's husband, the high priest, dethroned his 
 grandmother and made him king. The growing 
 children will find much to add to this story and 
 much to fill its outline, and will make the delight- 
 ful discovery that the relief map solves some dif- 
 ficulties in the early part of the narrative. The 
 
Romance Stories 249 
 
 grown children will be interested in studying, not 
 only the dramatic possibilities of which the great 
 French poet Racine made such splendid use in his 
 noble tragedy, " Athalie," but also the interesting 
 political history which involved the kingdom of 
 Judah with the drastic reforms of Jehu in Israel. 
 The religious element is not so clear in this, or in 
 any of the historic stories, as in the romance tales 
 which precede them ; yet the teaching of an over- 
 ruling providence, and the sense of the high place 
 of the kingdom of Judah, in the plan of God, are 
 strikingly clear in this history of the reign of 
 Joash. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 PURPOSE STORIES 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD says that the literature of 
 every people grows from folk-lore to philosophy, 
 from the imaginative and concrete to the scientific 
 and abstract. The mother who has been telling 
 her children Bible stories after the graded system 
 suggested and partly outlined in these chapters 
 needs not to be told, for experience with her chil- 
 dren has taught her, that although it is quite con- 
 ceivable that God could have given to the world 
 a Bible, a volume of inspired Scriptures, of an 
 entirely different character, not following the 
 analogy of other literatures, standing from the 
 first upon the plane of the scientific and the ab- 
 stract as to historic accuracy and theological 
 truth, it would have been useless, for no primitive 
 or half -cultured people could have understood it, 
 any more than could the children of to-day. 
 
 Thus far we have studied the story lore of the 
 Old Testament in its sequence as it stands in the 
 Bible, and have found its development accurately 
 
 250 
 
Purpose Stories 251 
 
 corresponding with the historic development of 
 literature everywhere. Its earliest stories are 
 based upon myth, its patriarch stories upon le- 
 gend. Later the legendary stories take the more 
 elaborate character of epic, and they are followed 
 by romance shading off into history. The next 
 step in the order of literary as of intellectual de- 
 velopment is philosophy, and the analogy thus far 
 followed would lead us to look for philosophical 
 literature in the Old Testament. In fact, it con- 
 tains much, not only in what is commonly called 
 the Wisdom literature (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and 
 Job), but conspicuously and most uniquely in the 
 prophetic writings, which stand alone in literature 
 as a form of philosophy. Singularly enough, how- 
 ever, these two classes do not exhaust the philo- 
 sophical literature of the Old Testament ; it appears 
 again in that very modern form, the purpose story. 
 Certain philosophers of Israel found a way to 
 bring their high thoughts to the comprehension 
 of the people in precisely the form which makes 
 them comprehensible to the young people of to- 
 day. 
 
 Though a good deal has of late been said 
 against the purpose story as a form of art, it is 
 certainly, when effectively written, an excellent 
 means of accomplishing its end. The late Mr. 
 Shorthouse, justifying his use of the method in 
 
252 Telling Bible Storie* 
 
 "John Inglesant," said that if James Hinton had 
 written his marvellous philosophical study of 
 " The Mystery of Pain " in the form of a novel, 
 it would have brought illumination to hundreds 
 for every one which his matchless little book has 
 reached. The purpose stories of the Old Testa- 
 ment are effectively written. It would be difficult 
 to find any others which more perfectly meet their 
 writer's purpose. They are Ruth, Jonah, Esther, 
 and the story part of Job ; and although three of 
 these are commonly ranked with history and the 
 fourth with prophecy, yet for practical purposes 
 every mother has included them in the story lore 
 of the Old Testament. And the mothers are 
 right. 
 
 The purpose story may be founded upon his- 
 toric incidents, as " John Inglesant " is, or, like 
 Mrs. Ward's " Robert Elsmere " and Charles Dud- 
 ley Warner's " Golden House," it may not. The 
 author may treat history with absolute freedom, 
 bending facts to suit the purpose of the story, as 
 Mr. Shorthouse does in " John Inglesant," or he 
 may endeavor to remain faithful to history, like 
 Dickens in his "Tale of Two Cities." But his- 
 toric incident in either case is a mere convenience, 
 to be used so far as it serves the author's philo- 
 sophic purpose, and no farther. 
 
 I have mentioned only four Old Testament pur- 
 
Purpose Stories 253 
 
 pose stories, but in fact there is a great wealth of 
 problem or purpose story in the Old Testament, 
 and it is used, like all its story lore, with one 
 supreme purpose, which commands the immediate 
 and more restricted purpose of each ; namely, to 
 develop religious truth, especially to bring man- 
 kind by degrees to a correct notion of God. The 
 body of Old Testament story literature, taken as a 
 whole, shows that the intellectual and moral prog- 
 ress of Israel was conditioned in the enlargement 
 of their thought of God, from the purely local 
 deity whose interest and power are restricted to 
 the descendants of Abraham, to the God of heaven 
 and earth, who takes an interest in all humanity, 
 and even in the dumb creatures, and who rules 
 over the heavenly hosts. 
 
 It will not appear singular to the mother who 
 has been telling Bible stories along the lines indi- 
 cated in the preceding chapters, that this enlarging 
 conception of God is presented in a series of stories 
 whose religious teachings are less fundamental, 
 less universal, than those which preceded them. 
 This has been the rule from the beginning. The 
 most comprehensive truths of all, truths of the 
 origin of the universe and of man's relations to 
 God and to his fellow-man, were revealed not in 
 history, as would indeed be impossible, but in 
 these earliest stories which are not history at all, 
 
254 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 but the religious treatment of ancient myth ; 
 stories every detail of which, unlike those that 
 come later, speaks as compellingly to the little 
 child as to the learned sage, being in fact better 
 adapted to win the assent of the artless faith of 
 the child than of the trained intelligence of the 
 man. In these instances, as in many others, the 
 little child leads, and sage and scholar best fit 
 themselves to apprehend sublimest truth by be- 
 coming " as a little child. " As the stories advance 
 from folk-lore to saga, hero tale, romance, history, 
 the truths they teach become less universal, more 
 restricted in scope. And this rule would lead us 
 to expect that the four purpose stories I have 
 named will be found embodying truths still more 
 restricted in significance than those that have 
 gone before. They were truths of immense prac- 
 tical importance ; at the time when they were 
 taught to Israel in this story form the nation 
 urgently needed these lessons ; and as we study 
 them we shall see that they must have had an 
 important influence upon the conduct as well as 
 the character of the Hebrew people. Even now, 
 though their interest is chiefly historical and liter- 
 ary, their teachings are of importance to the chil- 
 dren to whom they may be told. 
 
 Our slight study of the evolution of the story 
 literature of the Old Testament has made very 
 
Purpose Stories 255 
 
 clear that the literary form in which truth may 
 be embodied in no wise affects the force of the 
 truth. It is, therefore, of no importance whether 
 these problem stories are history or not. All of 
 them probably have a historic basis, but the pur- 
 pose of their writers was not to tell history. A 
 very little reflection makes it clear that whether 
 or not these four stories belong in one literary 
 class, none of them belongs in the same class with 
 the history of the kings of Israel and Judah, 
 which we find in the book of Kings, or the history 
 of the return from exile in Ezra. They belong, 
 as I have suggested, in the class which may be 
 comprehensively called philosophy. That is, the 
 truths they embody are truths of life and practice, 
 ethical truths which other nations for instance, 
 Greeks and Germans would treat abstractly, 
 but which the genius of the Hebrew mind and of- 
 the Hebrew language alike urged the Hebrews to 
 treat concretely. 
 
 These stories are, in fact, not more different 
 from any form of Western literature than they 
 are from any other form of Old Testament litera- 
 ture that we have thus far studied. They belong 
 to a very common form of Eastern literature, how- 
 ever. The Jews call it Haggada, which means 
 doctrinal or practical teaching based on parable 
 or legend. There are various kinds of Haggada 
 
256 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 besides those illustrated in Ruth, Jonah, Esther, 
 and Job ; they belong to what the Jews call Mid- 
 rash, that is, the didactic treatment of sacred writ- 
 ings with embellishments for purposes of popular 
 instruction, moral or practical. The method of 
 telling Bible stories which I have been describing 
 may be called a sort of Midrash. Very much of 
 the theological controversy of the ages and of the 
 present day is due to the fact which theologians 
 might have learned from any Jewish rabbi, or 
 from a study of rabbinical literature ; but quite 
 as effectively by critical study of the Old Testa- 
 ment ; this fact, namely, that much of the Old Tes- 
 tament is Midrash. The Chronicles are manifestly 
 Midrash, as may be seen by comparing them with 
 Kings and Samuel, for the writer very obviously 
 has a doctrinal or didactic purpose. Some of his 
 writings are founded on earlier Midrashim. He 
 expressly says that two of the eighteen authorities 
 which he quotes are Midrash. The Authorized 
 Version says " story," the margin says " com- 
 mentary," which is more nearly correct ; the 
 Hebrew says "Midrash." 
 
 Midrash is a late development of Hebrew litera- 
 ture, later than any of the forms which we have 
 thus far studied. The books of Chronicles were 
 written in the fourth century before Christ, as 
 some of their lists of names show, and there is 
 
Purpose Stories 257 
 
 very little Midrash in the Bible, of which the 
 dates can be clearly ascertained, which is much 
 earlier than this. After this date there is an 
 immense deal of Midrash in Hebrew literature. 
 Some of it, like the stories of Susanna and Tobit, 
 is in the Apocrypha; much more of it is in the 
 rabbinical writings, but some of it is in the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 All this is important to the mother and the 
 teacher, for the way they tell Bible stories natu- 
 rally depends upon how they understand them. 
 And it is of importance to the older children who 
 already, through the graded method of story-tell- 
 ing, have become interested in the development 
 of Hebrew literature. I venture to hope that the 
 time will soon come when the study of Biblical 
 literature from this point of view will take its place 
 in the college curriculum alongside that of Greek 
 and Latin literature as an exercise of immense 
 humanizing value. That thorough restatement 
 of Christian doctrine which will be one of the 
 large tasks of a coming generation will be more 
 efficient, and its results more readily accepted by 
 the public, if this study has previously had a part 
 in forming the mentality of that period. 
 
 There is no more reason why the Haggadic 
 treatment of a historic incident should not be in 
 the Bible than why a poem should not be there,. 
 
258 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 or a parable ; but the intelligent mother or teacher 
 does not interpret poem or parable or Haggada 
 as she interprets history. 
 
 II 
 
 Ruth ii.--v. 
 
 Though the story of Ruth stands in our Eng- 
 lish Bible between Judges and Samuel, and treats 
 of the same period as the first and the early 
 chapters of the second, the turbulent "days 
 when the Judges ruled," - it is impossible for any 
 intelligent reader to put Ruth in the same literary 
 category as Judges or Samuel. Judges is a col- 
 lection of hero tales ; 1 Samuel is like a medi- 
 aeval romance of chivalry, and Ruth is certainly 
 neither. It is a pure pastoral, but there are other 
 and more important points of difference than this. 
 Ruth is by no means entirely objective, like the 
 other two books. It shows reflection, subjectivity, 
 and subjectivity comes late in literature. More- 
 over, its author's evident delight in folk-lore was 
 chiefly due to a historic interest ; he desired to 
 preserve a memory of old customs, the levirate 
 marriage, the plucking off of the shoe, the impor- 
 tant functions of the elders sitting in the gate, 
 the primitive ways of wooing, and interest in 
 
Purpose Stories 259 
 
 folk-lore and ancient customs from this viewpoint 
 develops late in the history of any people. All 
 these things tend to show that Ruth is a sort 
 of Haggada ; that an old legend, keeping alive 
 an incident in the time of the Judges, perhaps 
 preserved in writing, perhaps handed down orally, 
 was chosen* by this writer as the vehicle for a 
 teaching which in his time was of great impor- 
 tance. We may defer asking what that teaching 
 was, and at what time in the nation's history it 
 was important, until we come to Jonah, for that 
 book teaches an analogous truth, needed at the 
 same period. These things are not for the younger 
 children, though for the older children at the 
 present day they have much of value. For the 
 younger children Ruth is just a lovely story. Its 
 idyllic character is delightful, its nature con- 
 sciousness is exquisite. In construction it is thor- 
 oughly artistic. The important fact, important 
 from more than one point of view, that this alien 
 girl is the ancestress of David, best beloved of all 
 Israel's kings, is kept back until the very end. 
 It is the very perfection of story-telling. The 
 subject is as beautiful as it is unusual ; it is the 
 infrequent theme of the mutual love and loyalty 
 of two women. In what literature in the world, 
 except that of Israel, would such a subject have 
 been treated at that period? And having been 
 
260 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 thus treated in Israel, it was impossible that coarse 
 jokes about the mother-in-law, such as even at 
 this late day disgrace our own newspaper litera- 
 ture, should ever have found a place in the He- 
 brew mind. In no other work known to early 
 literature has this relationship been treated with 
 such dignity and pathos. 
 
 Ruth is hardly for the tiny children, but it will 
 not be difficult to make it very real to children 
 of eight or nine, and the relief map will help in 
 giving it a background. From the Bethlehem 
 home, the house of bread high on the uplands 
 of Mount Judah, Elimelech and his family were 
 driven by famine. They took refuge in the fruit- 
 ful tableland of Moab, just across the Dead Sea. 
 The children will make for themselves the picture 
 of the little caravan turning their faces from the 
 high Bethlehem moor to the purple hills of Moab, 
 travelling eastward by the road that goes steeply 
 down to Jericho in the deep cleft of Jordan, and 
 across the fords of the river to those foreign hills. 
 Tell them how the two sons married happily 
 in that foreign land, and how, in the country in 
 which they had sought refuge from famine, that 
 enemy, death, from which there is no refuge, 
 found them in their happiness. Tell them how : 
 the father and the two sons being dead, Naomi 
 and the two young Moabitish daughters-in-law 
 
Purpose Stories 261 
 
 were left alone : how Naomi resolved to return to 
 her old home, and how Ruth decided to go with 
 her. It will do the children no harm to explain 
 to them the true reason for her decision. Indeed, 
 this will be perhaps the most appropriate oppor- 
 tunity to open to their minds the religious ideas 
 of those early days, which a year or two later they 
 will find in some of the stories with which they are 
 already familiar. Ruth's motive in going home 
 with Naomi was simply that she loved her. It 
 was piety, not toward God, but toward Naomi 
 which prompted her beautiful words, " Thy God 
 my God." It was in the nature of religious belief 
 in Israel as elsewhere at the time, that going from 
 Moab to live with Naomi in Judah Ruth should 
 leave behind her the god Chemosh, whom she had 
 been brought up to worship, and worship Jehovah. 
 The God of the land would be her God, just as 
 Naomi's people would be her people. For we can- 
 not expect that the men and women of that time 
 could have known as much about God as we know 
 about Him, now that the Lord Jesus has come to 
 reveal Him to the world. 
 
 It will be easy to awaken the sympathy of the 
 children with the loneliness of the Moabite girl in 
 Bethlehem. A poet has told us how " she stood 
 in tears amid the alien corn," and though there 
 are no tears in the Bible story, only brave self- 
 
262 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 forgetfulness and unselfish love, it will not be 
 amiss some day to read the poem, after they have 
 become familiar with the story. Their young 
 imaginations will vividly picture the brave, home- 
 sick girl as she followed the reapers on the hill- 
 side fields of Boaz, looking away from time to 
 time across the deep cleft of the Dead Sea to the 
 purple mountains of her old Moab home. They 
 must often have seemed to beckon her to leave 
 the woman to whom she was bound only by the 
 memory of her dead young husband ; to leave the 
 narrow poverty and the arduous toil which only 
 love made necessary ; and the children will all 
 the more appreciate how very brave and very lov- 
 ing Ruth must have been, since she resisted the 
 call of her native mountains. Ballad and tale 
 have already made them familiar with the pecul- 
 iar love of a mountain-bred people, like the Swiss 
 and the Highlanders, for their mountains, and 
 of the homesickness, sometimes even unto death, 
 from which they suffer in a foreign land. Ruth 
 endured just this, in the very sight of her moun- 
 tains, for love of her mother-in-law, Naomi. 
 
 The mother hardly needs help in telling the 
 rest of the lovely story the gleaning with the 
 maidens in the powerful kinsman's field, the sheaf 
 brought home to her mother-in-law, the joyous 
 harvest-home festival, the happy marriage of Ruth 
 
Purpose Stories 263 
 
 that followed, and the birth of the little baby to 
 gladden the old grandmother's heart. These are 
 incidents in the story which may safely be read or 
 told to them precisely as they stand. They will 
 take them simply, as, alas ! the commentators have 
 not always done, and will not find the difficulty 
 experienced by these learned men in understand- 
 ing it a matter of course that Naomi should take 
 advantage of a local custom to bring home to the 
 prominent citizen for whom Ruth worked, and 
 who was her kinsman, the fact of the young 
 widow's unprotected condition in those wild days 
 when the Judges ruled. 
 
 The story, penetrated through and through 
 with the noblest form of filial love, is simply a 
 lovely story for the younger children. There is 
 more in it for the older children, as we shall 
 presently see. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Jonah i. iv. 
 
 The story of Jonah is a purpose story with pre- 
 cisely the same significance as that of Ruth, and it 
 would be difficult to conceive of the same lesson 
 being taught in two more widely different ways. 
 Ruth is a sweet and lovely pastoral, appealing to 
 the reflective rather than to the constructive imagi 
 
264 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 nation. Jonah is a wonder tale, from first to last a 
 story of marvels, precisely of the kind we read in 
 Eastern story lore, even to the insertion of a bit of 
 poetry, just as occurs in like cases in the " Arabian 
 Nights." In fact, not only have various Eastern 
 peoples, such as the Assyrians and Persians, folk 
 tales in which animals have a share in the repent- 
 ance of the people, like those in Nineveh, there is 
 a Roman folk tale which closely resembles the 
 voyage part of the story. 
 
 Jonah is one of the most delightful of wonder 
 tales for the very little child, and also of tremen- 
 dous interest to the growing boy. The mother 
 can hardly err in making much of the storm at 
 sea, even if she have no yachting experience 
 to the point of preparing herself for the story-tell- 
 ing by studying the description of St. Paul's ship- 
 wreck in Conybeare and Howson's " Life of St. 
 Paul," or some classic description of a storm in the 
 Eastern Mediterranean. For the boy who will de- 
 light in the story then told, and all that follows, 
 as well as for the older children, there is the pro- 
 found meaning of it all. Both Jonah and Ruth 
 teach the important, but at that time almost un- 
 dreamed-of, truth, that Israel does not monopolize 
 the interest of God. In these stories we find the 
 first foreshadowings of the truth of universal 
 brotherhood, which is taking concrete form to- 
 
Purpose Stories 265 
 
 day in trades-unions and civic leagues, in " better- 
 ment work," and in hospitality to immigrants, and 
 is still forgotten in our treatment of the Chinese, 
 and too often in our relations with the colored 
 folk. 
 
 Nothing can be less didactic than the way in 
 which the lesson is taught in Ruth, simply by 
 the beautiful character and conduct of an alien 
 girl, and by holding her up, implicitly, as the 
 ideal Israelitish maiden. Jonah, on the contrary, 
 is above all things didactic. From first to last 
 the story is a moral lesson, enforcing the truth 
 that God does care for others besides the chosen 
 race. But what a marvellous form this almost 
 fiercely didactic teaching takes on ! The adven- 
 tures of Sindbad the sailor are tame beside this 
 story of the prophet who tried to run away from 
 God. And the surprising thing about it is that 
 it more nearly belongs with Sindbad the sailor, as 
 to literary class, than with those other prophets, 
 like Isaiah and Zechariah, who also make use of 
 parable, or, like Hosea, who tells a life story with 
 prophetic purpose. This book is certainly not 
 within the scope of the prophetic literature, 
 although, as was briefly indicated in our first chap- 
 ter, the latter also contains a wealth of story lore. 
 It will not be amiss here to remind the mother, as 
 an important fact to be held in consciousness, that 
 
266 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 whatever else she may think of Jonah, it is clearly 
 not in the literary class with prophets like Isaiah 
 and Hosea. 
 
 Now there are two kinds of literature which 
 this story suggests, or would suggest if it were 
 not in the Bible. One is folk-lore, pure and sim- 
 ple, and the other is myth. The old myth of the 
 dragon that swallowed the sun every evening and 
 cast him up every morning has appeared more 
 than once in our Bible story-telling. This myth 
 is one of the oldest and most widely extended of 
 all that are known to us. Some of the prophets 
 make use of it, though the translators, not appre- 
 hending the force of the allusion, have generally 
 left it so obscure as to be hardly recognizable. 
 But it is not only in myth that we find the story 
 of the restoration to life of people or animals after 
 having been swallowed. Nursery lore is full of 
 it. The mother has often told her delighted chil- 
 dren the stories of the wolf and the seven young 
 kids, of the three little pigs, and of little Red 
 Ridinghood and her grandmother, kids and pigs 
 and Red Ridinghood and grandmother, all restored 
 to life after the wolf or the fox has devoured them. 
 The Hindus tell of Sakhdeva being swallowed by 
 a fish and cast up again, precisely as in the case of 
 Jonah, and nearly every nation has a similar folk 
 tale. All these stories are in fact one. They are 
 
Purpose Stories 267 
 
 all the outgrowth of the attempt of the primitive 
 mind to understand a great mystery, the subduing 
 of day by night, the overcoming of the sun in his 
 full strength by the storm cloud, and the final 
 victory of the sun in the returning day. The 
 immense difference between these myths and folk 
 tales and Jonah is this : that in Jonah the old 
 wonder is brought to bear upon a mystery not of 
 nature but of grace, and the old myth is made to 
 teach a religious truth, teaching it by one of the 
 most exquisite of stories, which hardly any litera- 
 ture can parallel. 
 
 Now when the mother tells this story to the 
 children, let her not try to improve on the method 
 of the writer. Let her not say that all this really 
 happened, and try to fit its various statements into 
 the historic or the geographic facts. The relief 
 map has no place in the story of Jonah. It is im- 
 possible to make it tally with facts either of history 
 or geography, and this writer never expected that 
 any mother would try to do so. He supposed her 
 to be gifted with imagination, and he no more 
 dreamed that she or any one would try to prove 
 his veracity by discovering a fish with a gullet 
 large enough to permit the passage of a man, or a 
 man gifted with respiratory organs which would 
 permit him to live three days in the interior of a 
 sea monster, than he expected people to believe 
 
268 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 that the beasts in Nineveh put on sackcloth and 
 cried mightily to God at the preaching of Jonah. 1 
 Every intelligent person, every youngest child, 
 knows that they neither did nor could, and that 
 eighth verse of the third chapter is enough, if 
 there had been no great fish and no swallowing of 
 Jonah and casting him up, to show every mother 
 accustomed to story-telling, whose mind is not 
 helplessly bound in the trammels of a mistaken 
 theory of inspiration, that this story is a pure 
 work of the imagination, as beautiful as " Pilgrim's 
 Progress," and as true, 
 
 IV 
 
 Before asking what larger use the mother may 
 make of this story with the older children, let me 
 try to answer some questions that may arise in 
 her mind. Yes, the prophet Jonah is a real char- 
 acter ; and this is one of the reasons why this 
 book is not prophecy. Jonah lived in the time of 
 the second Jeroboam, who was a most brilliant and 
 prosperous monarch, the Solomon of the northern 
 
 1 It is a fact, however, and one that has its profound bearing 
 on the essential truth of this story, that more than once in 
 Eastern history, and at least once during the reign of the 
 present Sultan of Turkey, and by his command, domestic cattle 
 have been clothed in sackcloth and left unfed during a national 
 fast. 
 
Purpose Stories 269 
 
 kingdom. The brief reference to Jonah in the 
 fourteenth chapter of 2 Kings indicates that he 
 was a politician-prophet, as Elisha was in an ear- 
 lier period, for the splendid work of Jeroboam II 
 in raising up his nation from the abject condi- 
 tion into which it had fallen under Jehoahaz, to 
 the large prestige and power which it enjoyed 
 during his reign, was evidently greatly due to the 
 prophetic influence of Jonah. 1 But of all this 
 there is not a word in the book of Jonah ; not a 
 syllable in it could have helped Jonah's prophetic 
 work ; and if this were the place for developing 
 the historic question, it would be seen that it 
 would have been detrimental to it. 
 
 One familiar with the development of Hebrew 
 literature as the Bible shows it, as the foregoing 
 pages have in some degree indicated it, cannot but 
 perceive that this book is of far later date than 
 Jeroboam II, and that it is pure Midrash, the 
 imaginative use of an old legend attributed to a 
 real character, and thus used for the purpose of 
 popular instruction. When the prophet was alive 
 nothing could have been less pertinent to the time 
 
 1 2 Kings xiv. 25. He restored the border of Israel from the 
 entering in of Hamath unto the Sea of the Arabah, according to 
 the word of Jehovah, the God of Israel, which he spake by 
 the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai the prophet, 
 who was of Gath-hepher. 
 
270 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 and the necessities of the case than the teaching 
 of universal brotherhood. The business of the na- 
 tion at that time was to build itself strong and 
 compact, a separate people in the midst of the 
 nations, to preserve a purer idea of God than any 
 of them had attained to. Israel at that time had 
 no more, come to the lesson of universal sympathy 
 and religious responsibility than our ten-year-old 
 boys have come to international law. The time 
 when the lesson was in order is very evident to 
 those who are well read in the Biblical history of 
 Israel. The ninth and tenth chapters of Ezra, 
 and the thirteenth of Nehemiah, show the exces- 
 sive and arrogant exclusiveness of the Jews after 
 their return from exile. A reading of these chap- 
 ters makes very clear that the stories of Ruth and 
 of Jonah were written by two men of larger minds 
 and inspired by wider sympathies than other Is- 
 raelites of their day possessed, widely differing in 
 genius, but alike clear in apprehension of the true 
 mission of Israel to be a blessing to all nations. 
 Both wrote to teach the same great truth, that 
 God cares for Moabites and Ninevites, and thus 
 for all peoples, as well as for Israel. One who 
 reads in the tenth chapter of Ezra of the cruelly 
 drastic measures taken by that leader to keep 
 Israel a separate people by separating the men of 
 Israel from their alien wives, must be impressed 
 
Purpose Stories 271 
 
 by the fine artistic character as well as moral 
 power of the author of the book of Ruth. It is 
 impossible that there should not have been in 
 the community as indeed the narrative shows 
 some men of generous soul who were revolted by 
 the unflinching sternness of the zealous and bigoted 
 Ezra. Evidently one of them, a man of inspired 
 genius, possibly one who had been called by Ezra 
 to put away a beloved alien wife, recalling a his- 
 toric incident in the royal house of Israel, wrote 
 the beautiful story in which a Moabitish damsel 
 no more a Jewess than those weeping " women 
 of the land " who with their children were being 
 so inexorably " put away " displayed the loveli- 
 est of virtues and attained to the high honor of 
 being an ancestress of David's royal line. Not 
 until this very time would the idea of combating 
 the national exclusiveness have been likely to 
 occur to any Jewish philosopher. And assuredly 
 it was a philosopher, and a man of letters, not a 
 priest nor an annalist, who perceived that this was 
 the best way to combat it. What " Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin " was to the Southern slaves, that in its de- 
 gree was Ruth to the aliens who were living among 
 the returned Israelites. 
 
 Evidently Ruth is based upon a historic inci- 
 dent; was Jonah? Is it too much to say that 
 to connect it, however slightly, with history, is 
 
272 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 absurd ? Not the story of the great fish merely 
 far too much stress Has been laid upon that 
 incident, and it is by no means the only impos- 
 sible incident in the narrative. There is quite as 
 much that is difficult to believe in the story of 
 the gourd as in that of the fish, quite as much in 
 the story of the storm as in either, quite as much 
 in the story of the repentance of the Ninevites as 
 in any of the others, though the difficulties dif- 
 fer in character. But aside from these difficulties 
 there is a historic impossibility. Not only is 
 such a missionary journey as that of Jonah un- 
 heard of in Hebrew history, it could not have 
 been undertaken in the time when Jonah actually 
 lived, about 750 B.C. The political conditions in 
 both countries forbade. The reason for finding 
 Jonah to be a " purpose story " is distinctly not 
 that " miracles do not happen " ; if there were 
 not a miracle in the story, it would still be his- 
 torically impossible. But as a purpose story, a 
 longer parable, what a marvellous work of inspired 
 genius it is, and how wonderfully adapted to meet 
 the spiritual and ethical need of the time ! 
 
 Jonah is a symbol of the Jewish people ; the 
 great sea monster, more properly, as we have 
 seen, the dragon, stands for Babylon. Let the 
 older children read the fifty-first chapter of Jere- 
 miah with Jonah in mind the oracle against 
 
Purpose Stories 273 
 
 Babylon. It is a marvellously woven tissue of 
 metaphor from first to last, but point out to them 
 especially verse 34, " Nebuchadnezzar the king of 
 Babylon hath devoured me ; he hath crushed me, 
 he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swal- 
 lowed me up like a monster (the Hebrew is 
 dragon), he hath filled his maw with my deli- 
 cacies, he hath cast me out." And verse 44, " And 
 I will do judgment upon Bel in Babylon, and I 
 will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath 
 swallowed up." Bel was a god of Babylon, and is 
 constantly connected with the dragon as the very 
 title of one of the Apocryphal books shows. 
 
 The figure of Babylon as a devouring monster, 
 swallowing up Israel, is frequent in the prophets 
 before and during the captivity. The boys and 
 girls will find it in Isaiah and Ezekiel, as well as 
 in Jeremiah. That it was a permanent possession 
 of the Jewish mind is evident from the fact that 
 it reappears in Revelation. It was as natural, as 
 inevitable, that a writer of parable immediately 
 after the return should figure Babylon as a mon- 
 ster that had swallowed up Israel and had been 
 forced to cast him up again, as that Bunyan in 
 his great parable should figure the church of 
 Rome as a superannuated giant, sitting impotent 
 in his cave, biting his fingers at those who 
 passed by. 
 
274 Telling Bible Storie* 
 
 So we might go on to every detail of this won- 
 derful parable, and find it paralleled in the think- 
 ing of Israel in the previous centuries. And why 
 should it not be so ? Why should we, in our ar- 
 rogant individualism, insist that this story was 
 written to teach history to us ? Why not be glad 
 to perceive that it was written to teach an impera- 
 tively needed truth to the Hebrew people ? Israel 
 had forgotten her high vocation, announced to 
 Abraham, " In thee shall all nations of the earth 
 be blessed." Never more zealous for the estab- 
 lishment of the kingdom of God on earth than at 
 this period, she would fain have done it by destroy- 
 ing all the other nations and occupying the whole 
 field. This prophetic writer a prophet, though 
 he wrote in parable saw that her mission was 
 not to destroy but to save, that she must save even 
 at cost of her own life. How clearly, how daz- 
 zlingly, this great truth shines out when we cease 
 to look for the prosaic truth of history, and find 
 the higher truth of poetry ! What pathos there 
 is in it all ! The great German critic, Cornill, 
 said that he could never read Jonah without tears. 
 Let us cease to treat the book as a burlesque, as 
 too many do, even of those who believe inspiration 
 to lie in literal accuracy, and teach our children 
 the solemn meaning of this wonder tale. We 
 Americans, like Israel, often need hard experi- 
 
Purpose Stories 275 
 
 ances before we learn what God wants us to do. 
 Like Israel, we too often refuse to open our eyes 
 to that which is our true vocation, to be mediators 
 of the redemption of the world. 
 
 But this is the most advanced lesson of the book. 
 Purely as a story, Jonah is one of the best stories 
 in the Bible for the tiny ones, the children who 
 are still trailing the clouds of glorious imagination 
 which they brought with them from heaven which 
 is their home. To their vivid imagination it will 
 all be true the embarkation, the storm, the terri- 
 fied prayers of the heathen sailors, the ready self- 
 sacrifice of Jonah, the interposition of God for his 
 rescue, the repentance of the Ninevites, the quickly 
 growing gourd, the petulance of the weary 
 and disappointed prophet, disappointed that his 
 preaching had fulfilled its purpose in making his 
 prophecy futile. Told to the little ones as the 
 beautiful fairy tale that it is, nothing will be more 
 delightful nor more simple than to expand its 
 meaning as the child's mind expands, until he 
 comes to realize the yearning love of God that 
 gathers up in its infinite compassion, not only the 
 most alien of nations, but our brothers the beasts 
 of the field and the forest, as St. Francis beauti- 
 fully recognized them to be. The last words of 
 the book, put in their proper relation to the story, 
 and given their full significance, will do more to 
 
276 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 make a boy gentle to the weak and the ignorant 
 and considerate to people of other hue and race 
 than his own, than all the humane societies and 
 missionary associations that the modern mind has 
 yet devised ; " Should not I have pity on Nineveh 
 that great city, wherein are more than sixscore 
 thousand persons that cannot discern between their 
 right hand and their left hand, and also much 
 cattle?" 
 
 And later will come those deeper, larger, and 
 more personal teachings, to which I have before 
 alluded, the truths of inward experience, and the 
 imperative call of every child of God to the work 
 of missions and the saving of the world. 
 
 Esther i. x. 
 
 It has seemed so important to emphasize the 
 true literary character and the profound spiritual 
 significance of Jonah, that I have left myself space 
 only for a brief allusion to Esther and Job. But 
 for my purpose little more is needed. Not that 
 they are unimportant, but that the meaning of 
 Esther is perfectly simple, and that of Job far too 
 profound for even the children of maturing years. 
 They must have become independent thinkers be- 
 
Purpose Stories 277 
 
 fore they can find in Job any other excellence than 
 its superb excellence as a piece of literature. The 
 prologue and epilogue, however, are a story. 
 When the mother leaves out all of Job but these 
 three chapters, she perceives that widely as in 
 almost every particular it differs from Esther, it 
 belongs in the same literary class, the class to 
 which the " Arabian Nights " belong ; that is, to 
 oriental wonde_r literature. It is because so few 
 of our learned theologians are familiar with this 
 literature, even in the perfectly accessible and 
 altogether charming " Arabian Nights," that some 
 of our most devout religious teachers are gravely 
 discussing at the present day the question whether 
 there is any religious or moral truth in Esther, and 
 whether it was not by some unaccountable mistake 
 that it found a place among sacred Scriptures. 
 
 For it is true that the story shows a fierce, un- 
 relenting, vindictive spirit of revenge, that it does 
 not name the name of God, and that it implicitly 
 commends many acts which are not noble nor even 
 tolerable. These are the moral difficulties of the 
 book, and if we are to read it from our modern and 
 Western point of view, they are far more important 
 than the historical difficulties, though if we insist 
 upon calling the book history, these are absolutely 
 insuperable. The book shows no slightest notion 
 of chronology. It would have been impossible for 
 
278 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 any Achsemenian sovereign to have chosen either 
 a Jewess for a queen or an Amelekite (Haman the 
 Agagite, see 1 Sam. xv. 32) for a prime minister. 
 There never were, in that period of Persian his- 
 tory, nor so far as we know, in any other, such restric- 
 tions as to the queen seeing her husband as Esther 
 had to contend with the very pivot of the story. 
 Nor was there ever such liberty for an uncle to 
 visit his niece in the king's harem. The length 
 of the feast, the length of time allotted to prepare 
 a chosen maiden for introduction to the king, 
 these are simply historical impossibilities. More- 
 over, some of the historic statements are morally 
 impossible; for instance, the issuance of a decree 
 for a general massacre of the Jews eleven months 
 in advance, and the method by which the king gets 
 round the irrefragable law of the Medes and Per- 
 sians, by giving the Jews permission to butcher the 
 Persians for two days. 
 
 It would be possible to take the book almost verse 
 by verse and prove its historic impossibility, but it 
 would be utterly absurd. For the book of Esther 
 is not a history at all, and never offered itself as 
 such : it is Haggada, a purpose story. It is an 
 idyl of patriotism, given to the Jews in that 
 bitter period of their history when patriotism was 
 most sorely tested and most urgently needed, 
 the period of Greek supremacy ; and it probably 
 
Purpose Stories 279 
 
 did more than any book in the Bible to keep 
 patriotism alive in that dreadful time. Let the 
 children who are studying history read the books 
 of Maccabees in the Apocrypha if they would 
 learn what was the influence of the book of 
 Esther. 
 
 Esther is the type of self-sacrifice for a great 
 cause. There is no direct religious teaching ; but 
 read it with the " Arabian Nights " in mind, and 
 alongside of immediate recognition of the char- 
 acter and worth of the book as a picture of 
 oriental customs will awake the perception that 
 unlike all other oriental stories of its class it is 
 penetrated through and through with the con- 
 sciousness of God. Let the mother beware in 
 telling this story to the children how she loses this 
 God consciousness. Loyalty to country, as one 
 element in loyalty to God, is its key-note. 
 
 VI 
 
 Job i., ii., xlii. 717 
 
 Job was doubtless a historical character of the 
 patriarchal age, although a great Hebrew rabbi 
 has said that " Job existed not, nor was created, 
 but is a parable." He simply means, and is right 
 in meaning, that no part of the book of Job is hia- 
 
280 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 tory. Job was not a Jew, but he is made by the 
 author of the book a personification of the Jewish 
 nation in captivity. Reading some parts of Jere- 
 miah, in which he protests against the efforts of 
 Israel to escape from the doom of captivity which 
 God has pronounced upon the nation, it seems 
 very clear why, and when, some ancient legend 
 was made by some inspired man the foundation 
 of this wonderful book. 
 
 It was when it was the nation's duty simply 
 to bear. 
 
 This, however, hardly touches the edge of the 
 purpose of this book. We have to do only with 
 the prologue and epilogue which, as so generally in 
 the "Arabian Nights," enframe the separate story 
 of the thirty-nine inner chapters. The opening 
 chapters are a philosophic treatment of pure folk- 
 lore a purpose story again. They are the 
 attempt to discover the meaning of what in a 
 primitive, simple condition of society must 
 always be a mystery the afflictions of the right- 
 eous. The problem of the poetic chapters which 
 the prologue and epilogue enframe is quite other 
 than this ; but it does not concern the children, 
 nor any but advanced thinkers. The profound 
 thinker and deeply inspired writer who used this 
 ancient folk tale to explain the mystery of the 
 sorrows of the righteous by attributing them to 
 
Purpose Storie* 281 
 
 the scepticism of Satan knew better than to 
 change the time-honored form which by its famil- 
 iarity would make all the more intelligible the far 
 otherwise profound teaching he desired to base 
 upon it. The symbolic numbers and the poetic 
 structure of the four announcements of woe are 
 left just as the writer had many a time heard 
 them told by nurse or mother. But the scenes in 
 heaven are no part of the ancient story ; they 
 are the result of the writer's search for the mean- 
 ing of an actual experience. It is he, therefore, 
 and not the old story-tellers, who introduces the 
 heavenly council. This is a work of the trained 
 imagination, familiar by experience with the judi- 
 cial processes of his country and upon these the 
 " Arabian Nights " will throw perfect light. He 
 pictures the great judicial assembly of the sons of 
 God in such a divan as Eastern monarchs hold. 
 " The Satan " is among them. He appears to 
 be a functionary put by God in charge of this 
 world, and this is the impression given in the 
 Hebrew in a number of earlier passages in the 
 Bible, where the word Satan does not appear in 
 the English as it does here. The Satan comes 
 from "hurrying to and fro upon the earth, and 
 pacing up and down on it." This is in precise 
 accordance with the Eastern conception of "the 
 busy one," as the Arabs call him. In St. Peter' a 
 
282 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 Epistle equal familiarity with this idea gives him 
 the name " the peripatetic." 
 
 From the question put to him by God, "Hast 
 thou considered my servant Job, that there is 
 none like him in the world ? " it appears that in 
 the mind of the people of that time and place it 
 was the Satan's duty to detect the sins and defects 
 of men ; and there is here a word of warning for 
 tale-bearing children : perhaps it was the effect 
 of such an occupation that made him a devil. 
 The pride which God takes in his good servant 
 Job arouses the Satan's passion for detecting 
 faults, and the conscience of many a child will 
 interpret this incident. That this doubting spirit 
 may be convinced of the reality of Job's goodness, 
 God permits the trial of his beloved servant. 
 And here again is a suggestion of the undeserved 
 suffering that a fault-finding, tale-bearing child 
 may be the means of inflicting. 
 
 Evidently there is far more in this prologue 
 than most of us have supposed, and its meaning 
 is perhaps peculiarly difficult for adult persons to 
 apprehend. Yet it is precisely one that will find 
 quick response in the ingenuous mind of a child 
 of ten or eleven. For its marvellous teaching is 
 that the interests of man are the interests of 
 heaven ; that God and all the angels are con- 
 cerned that people shall be good and shall have 
 
Purpose Storie* 283 
 
 the credit of being good ; that the goodness of a 
 good person should be precious to all who know 
 him. Not until the children are much older, and 
 have come to the serious study of ethics, are they 
 capable of sounding the almost unfathomable depths 
 of this beautifully imaginative story. Let us take 
 our shoes from off our feet while we stand on this 
 holy ground, learning from this story that the 
 moral problems which cannot but assail even the 
 angels, " the sons of God," and which they must 
 needs in some way work out, else their goodness 
 is like the goodness of Adam and Eve in Eden, the 
 unreal goodness of the untried, are wrought out 
 for them by the sons of men, and are potent for the 
 angels because of the pure disinterested sympathy 
 of which angels are capable. For the sake of the 
 moral lesson to the angels, to the Satan himself, 
 if he would but have received it, he is permitted 
 to go on testing the man of integrity to the very 
 limit of his mortal powers. What more soul- 
 enlarging, soul-fortifying view of life and its dis- 
 cipline of temptation can a mother give to her 
 older children ? Where in all story lore, where in 
 all literature outside of the Bible, will she find so 
 lofty a sanction for the effort to acquire moral 
 character, for acquiescence in trial, and war to 
 the death against temptation, as this ineffable 
 fellowship with the sons of God? 
 
284 Telling Bible Storie* 
 
 VII 
 
 My task is done. Its reward is mine already 
 if I have given any effective assistance to mothers 
 in the use of Old Testament story lore for the 
 spiritual development of their children, not alone 
 in infancy, but through all their maturing years. 
 I trust that I have succeeded in showing that the 
 themes which lie at the heart of the Bible stories 
 are the great central themes into which all expe- 
 rience, all knowledge, all study of science and phi- 
 losophy, as well as of theology and morals, sooner 
 or later meet. I have here only briefly to reca- 
 pitulate the method by which, as I believe, the 
 mother may reap the richest harvest from her use 
 of the Bible with her children ; that which, in 
 analogy with the educational system of to-day, I 
 have called the graded method of telling Bible 
 stories. 
 
 First, at about three, the story in its simplest 
 possible outline, and as much as may be in the 
 Bible words. Then at about five an elementary 
 unfolding of its spiritual meaning, in answer to 
 the child's importunate " Why ? " This is to be 
 followed at about eight by careful coordination 
 of the story with the child's first elementary 
 knowledge of mythology and history. A year or 
 
Purpose Stories 285 
 
 two later the coordination of these stories with 
 geography and elementary science may be in 
 order, and not very much later, with the child's 
 sense of language as illustrated in poetry and 
 wonder tales. At about twelve or thirteen the 
 alert young mind, expanded from its earliest ac- 
 tivity by ever expanding apprehension of spiritual 
 truth, never having been confused by any contra- 
 diction between its Biblical and its secular acquisi- 
 tions, always having been harmoniously active in 
 its three functions of imagination, emotion, and 
 will, is ready for the theological and ethical inter- 
 pretation of the story, in what may be called the 
 grammar school grade of these interpretations, of 
 which he has already had the elementary grade. 
 His more advanced historical work will enable 
 him to put the stories in their proper place in his- 
 tory, and his studies in the classics and in English 
 literature to appreciate the literary character of 
 the Bible, the place of each story in the history of 
 literature, its oriental diction and forms of speech. 
 There will be no difficulty if this method has 
 been pursued thus far, if neither the child's Bible 
 nor his religion has been kept as a thing apart, 
 unrelated to his school work or his week day life, 
 reserved for Sunday or forgotten entirely there 
 will be no difficulty, when this method has been 
 pursued till his fifteenth or sixteenth year, in 
 
286 Telling Bible Stories 
 
 carrying it farther, and relating it to his higher 
 study of ethics and philosophy, as well as of his- 
 tory and literature, and making it an illumination 
 of both, instead of, as too often sadly happens, a 
 stumbling-block and cause of blind bewilderment. 
 This, then, is the value of the Bible stories for 
 the child : that they give a religious meaning to 
 all the experiences of his early life, and furnish 
 the bond of unity, the centralizing focus of all the 
 processes, intellectual, moral, and spiritual, of his 
 maturing years. " No other book finds me as the 
 Bible does," said Coleridge, and this is superla- 
 tively true of the child of any age. The Bible 
 stories find him as no other stories do. The Old 
 Testament made the Hebrews a peculiar people, 
 by developing in them an unique God conscious- 
 ness. It will do the same for the people of the 
 United States when it is freed from overloading 
 convention and unintelligent interpretation. It 
 will do this for our children, if we give it to 
 them as it is. And what better can we ask for 
 them than an abiding consciousness of the pres- 
 ence of God? 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 SINCE this volume was published letters have come to me 
 from various quarters asking where the Bible story-teller may 
 find those myths and legends of ancient peoples to which 
 allusion has here been made. The following bibliography has 
 been compiled in answer to these requests. It may seem 
 unduly large; it would be unnecessarily large did all public 
 libraries possess an identical equipment. As they do not, a 
 number of titles covering practically the same ground have 
 been given in the hope that when one work is not available 
 another may be found. 
 
 A few titles in the list are offered rather as introduction to 
 the subject, and preparatory to the detection of analogies 
 between biblical and other ancient lores, than as furnishing 
 such analogies. "The Arabian Nights," Keightley's "Fairy 
 Mythology" and Bulfinch's "Age of Fable," for example, 
 although they make no allusion to biblical truth or Bible 
 story, are an almost indispensable preparation for sym- 
 pathetic treatment of that Oriental lore which we find in the 
 Bible. 
 
 GENERAL READING 
 
 THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS. Translated by Lane, 
 with Notes. Edition of 1867. Three volumes, fully illus- 
 trated. 
 
 Unfortunately, this edition is out of print, and can be seen 
 only in the large public libraries. The notes are a liberal 
 education in Eastern manners, customs and modes of thought. 
 287 
 
288 Appendix 
 
 The earlier edition (1847), identical with the later, but want- 
 ing the notes, is more easily found. The three-volume edi- 
 tion should be asked for. The recent two-volume edition with 
 its modern illustrations has not the value of the earlier work, 
 the illustrations of which, being accurate representations of 
 actual scenes, give it an educating value which the other lacks. 
 
 FAIRY MYTHOLOGY. Keightley. Folk-lore from widely 
 extended sources. 
 
 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR. John Ruskin. Symbolic mean- 
 ing of Greek myths. 
 
 MYTHS AND MYTH MAKERS. John Fiske. General, com- 
 parative. 
 
 THE AGE OP FABLE. Bulfmch. Greek, Roman, Eastern 
 and Northern Mythology, Druids. 
 
 THE CHILDHOOD OF RELIGIONS. Appendix. Clodd. 
 Mythological and historic. 
 
 MANUAL OF MYTHOLOGY. A. L. Murray. Gives stories 
 briefly, without comparisons. 
 
 OUTLINES OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF AMONG THE INDO-EURO- 
 PEAN RACES. C. F. Keary. Comparative, general. 
 
 CLASSIC MYTHS SERIES. C. M. Gayley. Historic, chiefly 
 Greek, Roman and Norse. Many selections from English 
 authors who have used these myths. 
 
 JUVENTUS MUNDI. W. E. Gladstone. Comparative. 
 Many myths and legends. 
 
 Two OLD FAITHS. J. M. Mitchel and W. Muir. Hindoo 
 and Mohammedan. Comparative. 
 
 CURIOUS MYTHS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. S. Baring-Gould. 
 
 FAMOUS LEGENDS. Emeline G. Crommelin. Legends of 
 all countries. 
 
 HISTORY OF GREECE. George Grote. Vol. I., Legendary 
 Greece. Especially chapters I, XVI, for a general view of 
 Grecian myths and the attitude of mind toward myth in the 
 early times. 
 
Appendix 289 
 
 THE STORY OF ROLAND. James Baldwin. An illustration 
 of the character of tales of chivalry. 
 
 CURIOSITIES OF INDO-EUROPEAN TRADITIONS AND FOLK- 
 LORE. Walter K. Kelly. 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENCE OF COMPARATIVE MYTH- 
 OLOGY AND FOLK-LORE. George William Cox. General. 
 
 DISCOURSE UPON THE THEOLOGY AND MYTHOLOGY OF THE 
 PAGANS. General. 
 
 FAITHS OF THE WORLD. St. Giles Lectures. Various 
 Authors. General. Religious view points. 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO A SCIENTIFIC SYSTEM OF MYTHOLOGY. 
 Symbolic and comparative. 
 
 RELIGION AND MYTH. James Macdonald. Ethnic. No 
 stories. 
 
 OLD DECCAN DAYS. M. Frere. Hindoo folk-tales. 
 
 LIGHT ON THE OLD TESTAMENT FROM BABEL. A. T. Clay. 
 Compares Babylonian stories with Old Testament stories. 
 Invaluable. 
 
 SPECIAL REFERENCES 
 
 Page 63, line 9. Rain. Tyler, "Researches into the Early 
 History of Mankind," tells, p. 344, of the ideas of some peo- 
 ples that rain is the tears of a god. 
 
 Page 65, line 1. Creation myths of all peoples. Maspero, 
 "Dawn of Civilization," "Egypt and Chaldsea," gives the 
 Phoenician or early Syrian creation myths. See also Maspero, 
 "Struggle of the Nations," pp. 167-169. 
 
 For the Egyptian cosmogony, see Maspero, op tit., pp. 127, 
 128. 
 
 For Norse creation myths, see Bulfinch, "Classical 
 Myths," p. 366 ff., and Murray, "Manual of Mythology," 
 p. 357. 
 
 For Scandinavian cosmogony, see "Faiths of the World," 
 p. 222. 
 
 For Persian cosmogony, see the same, p. 95 ff. 
 
290 Appendix 
 
 For East Indian cosmogonies, see Fiske's "Myths and 
 Myth-makers," p. 17; Murray, op cit., p. 379 ft. 
 
 For Greek creation myths, see Bulfinch, " Classic Myths in 
 English Literature" pp. 37-39, and "Age of Fable," Bul- 
 finch, pp. 1-3, 19-23. 
 
 For the origin of man, " Classic Myths," pp. 42, 43. 
 
 For North American creation myths, Brinton, "Myths of 
 the New World," pp. 195-198. Fiske (op cit.) says that the 
 Bible of the Quiches (Central America), Popol-Vuh, gives a 
 strange combination of monotheistic and polytheistic myths, 
 of creation by a word of a god. "Aztec Myths," ibid., pp. 
 254-257. 
 
 For the creation myth of New Zealand aborigines, see 
 Tylor, "Primitive Culture," pp. 290-293. The Chinese myth 
 is found on p. 294. Various Aryan myths on pp. 295, 296. 
 Mr. Andrew Lang's "Myth, Ritual and Religion" contains a 
 large number of nature and cosmogonic myths from all parts 
 of the world. Brinton, "American Hero Myths," gives the 
 Algonquin creation myth. Baring-Gould, " Legends of Old 
 Testament Characters," brings together a vast number of 
 Moslem, Jewish and Rabbinical legends from the Creation to 
 Isaiah. 
 
 Page 65, line 5. The Assyrian story of creation. There is 
 a wealth of recent material. Clay's book (see above) is the 
 most available. Pp. 55 to 76 contain the gist of all that has 
 been discovered on this subject to the present time. See also 
 "Encyclopedia Britannica," article " Babylonia," p. 189, "Art, 
 Science and Literature." "The Seven Tablets of Creation," 
 edited by L. W. King, Vol. XII of Luzac's "Semitic Text and 
 Translation," gives the Assyrian text on one page and a 
 literal translation on the other. In the introduction, p. Ixxxi ft. 
 treats of the first story and p. xciii ft. of the second. The 
 work is rather learned, but cultivated minds will enjoy its 
 myths and legends. Libraries which have neither of the 
 
Appendix 291 
 
 above works will, perhaps, contain Schrader's "Cuneiform 
 Inscriptions and the Old Testament," a mine of Old Testa- 
 ment illustration, though much has been discovered since it 
 was published. 
 
 Maspero, "Dawn of Civilization," gives the Chaldean 
 creation story, pp. 537-545. For Genesis i, see p. 127. 
 
 Page 79, line 5. Apocryphal book of Wisdom. Wisdom of 
 Solomon, ii, 24, "through envy of the devil came death into 
 the world." Satan is identified with the serpent in Rev. xii, 
 9, xxii, 2, showing the influence of the Apochrypha upon the 
 Jewish mind of that time. Hughes, "Dictionary of Islam," 
 article "Devil," shows the Moslem belief that he was the 
 progenitor of the evil jinn. (See also footnote to article 
 "Demon," in Hughes.) The annotated edition of Lane's 
 "Arabian Nights," Vol. I, chap. 1, note 21, gives a full 
 resume of Eastern beliefs about the jinni. Milton is re- 
 sponsible for the popular identification of the serpent with 
 Satan (see "Paradise Lost," Book I, lines 27-49 and 81-83), 
 although this belief was held in the Church long before 
 Milton's time. See Hastings' "Bible Dictionary," article 
 "Serpent," p. 591, col. 1, paragraph 2. Interesting accounts 
 of serpent worship may be found in Fiske, op cit., pp. 105, 
 106, and Lubbock, "Origin of Civilization," pp. 174-176. 
 The seven-headed serpent appears in one of the Lays of the 
 great Assyrian epic. This, however, rather resembles the 
 dragon of Scripture and the Greek python (Bulfinch, "Age 
 of Fable," p. 26). 
 
 Page 84. Sacred and mythical trees. For Yggdrasil, the 
 Norse world-tree, see Bulfinch, "Classic Myths," p. 367. 
 The sacred tree of the Babylonians, see "Encyclopedia Brit- 
 annica," article "Babylonia," p. 193, col. 1. Schrader's 
 "Cuneiform Inscriptions," Vol. I, p. 28, sec. 9. Lubbock's 
 "Origin of Civilization," pp. 191-196. Sayce, "Religion of 
 the Ancient Babylonians," pp. 241, 242, shows that the cedar 
 
292 Appendix 
 
 was the Tree of Life with these people. (For Eden, see pp. 
 237-239.) This tree is guarded (like the gate of Eden in the 
 biblical story) by a cherub with a flaming sword (of 50 points 
 and 117 heads). 
 
 For the golden apples of the Hesperides, see Hawthorne's 
 "Wonder Book" or "Myths Every Child Should Know" (the 
 same story), p. 3; or Morris, "The Earthly Paradise," Part 
 IV. For the Greek Paradise, Bulfinch, "Age of Fable," 
 p. 3. 
 
 Page 108, lines 4-6. Adam's family the only people on 
 earth. This was, however, the Chaidsean idea when the great 
 epic was written. See Maspero, "Dawn of Civilization," 
 pp. 545, 546. 
 
 Page 110, lines 17-19. God not to be found outside of 
 Canaan. This is the general understanding of the signifi- 
 cance of the passage referred to. But Montefiore*, "Origin 
 and Foundation of the Hebrew Religion," is not sure of it. 
 
 Page 118, lines 8-12. Eternal happiness without dying. 
 Although the tragic death of Hercules is related by many 
 ancient writers, the myth that he went to the abode of the 
 gods without dying was widely held (Bulfinch, "Age of 
 Fable," p. 175). For Romulus, see Ihne's "Early Rome" or 
 Niebuhr's "History of Rome," Vol. I. The story of Gany- 
 mede is in Homer, but was altered in later legend (Bulfinch, 
 "Age of Fable," p. 183). See Harper's "Classical Dic- 
 tionary," and also for Semiramis. Grote's "Greece," Vol. I, 
 gives the Greek myths and explains their value. 
 
 Page 120, line 13. Flood legends. For Babylonian legends, 
 see Clay, pp. 77-88, "Encyclopedia Britannica," article 
 "Babylonia," p. 193, head of col. 2; Maspero, "Dawn of 
 Civilization," pp. 566-571. (The birds which figure here 
 are dove and swallow.) Greek flood myths, see Bulfinch, 
 "Classic Myths," pp. 48, 49, "Age of Fable," pp. 21-26. 
 For Central American myths, see "Faiths of the World," p. 
 
Appendix 293 
 
 257 (the birds are vulture and humming-bird). Brinton, 
 pp. 200, 202, 206-213, gives flood myths of many Indian 
 tribes. Baring-Gould "Legends of the Patriarchs and 
 Prophets," and Bulfinch, "Age of Fable," give various flood 
 legends. 
 
 Page 129, lines 21, 22. Oldest epic ever written. It should 
 perhaps have been said the oldest of which we have as yet 
 knowledge. 
 
 Maspero, "Dawn of Civilization," pp. 572-591, tells the 
 story of Gilgames, the Chaldsean Nimrod, who also in many 
 respects resembles Samson. 
 
 Page 131, line 9. Explanations of the diversity of tongues. 
 See Clay, pp. 89-124; Livingstone's "Missionary Travels in 
 South Africa," p. 528. 
 
 Page 142, line 23. Old Sagas of Scandinavia. See Bul- 
 finch, "Classic Myths," p. 392 ff. for the Saga of the Vol- 
 sungs. 
 
 Page 149, line 21. Legends about Abraham. See "Jewish 
 Encyclopaedia," Vol. I, pp. 85-90, and Baring-Gould, op cit.; 
 Clay, op cit., pp. 145-200; Sayce, "Religion of Ancient 
 Babylon," p. 163. 
 
 Pages 152, 153. Fourteenth chapter of Genesis. Some such 
 occurrence probable. Clay, op cit., pp. 125-143. 
 
 Page 159, lines 1, 2. See under p. 149. 
 
 Page 160, last line. Book of Jubilees, xvii, 17, xix, 5, num- 
 bers ten trials of Abraham's faith. They are attributed not, 
 however, to God, but to Satan. Other Rabbinical books, not 
 accessible to the English reader, also describe them. 
 
 Page 171, line 2. Self-immolation of Isaac. "Encyclo- 
 pedia Britannica," article "Babylonia," p. 193, col. 2. The 
 sacrifice of Isaac was probably Lay I of a great Chaldsean 
 epic. Lubbock, "Origin of Civilization," pp. 242, 243. 
 Maspero, "Struggle of the Nations," p. 160. The ancient 
 Syrian religion (much older than Abraham), required the 
 
294 Appendix 
 
 sacrifice of the first born son. Kronos, the god of Byblos 
 (modern Gebeil) sacrificed his first born son (ibid., note 3). 
 See "Jewish Encyclopedia," Vol. VI, pp. 617, 618. 
 
 Page 170, last line. Special interposition of a divine being. 
 Bulfinch, "Age of Fable," pp. 262-264. 
 
 Page 174, line 8. Jacob called the Hebrew Ulysses. See 
 any translation of Books IX, X, XII, XIII of the "Odyssey" 
 when Ulysses relates the adventures he met on his return 
 from Troy. Bulnnch, "Classic Myths," pp. 313-337; ibid., 
 " Age of Fable," p. 290 ff. 
 
 Page 176, line 1. Homer's gods fighting with men. "Four 
 Old Greek Gods," Jennie Hale, pp. 31, 32, 39, 62, etc; 
 Bulfinch, "Age of Fable," p. 267. 
 
 Page 178, line 24. Anointing a pillar. Sayce, "Religion 
 of Ancient Babylon," p. 408 ff. There is the consecration of a 
 Beth-el in the Babylonian epic of Gisdhubar, op cit., p. 410 
 and note. Anointing stones is frequently mentioned. Syria 
 yet contains many stone pillars, evidently objects of ancient 
 worship. Maspero, "Struggle of the Nations," p. 160. Lub- 
 bock, "Origin of Civilization," pp. 204-212, says nothing 
 about anointing stones, but shows their widespread use in 
 religion. " Ethnology in Folk-Lore," G. L. Gomme, Modern 
 Science Series tells, pp. 27 and 167, about the worship of 
 stones. 
 
 Page 181, line 26. Pit or dry cistern. There is a picture 
 of one in Lane's "Arabian Nights," Fourth Voyage of Es- 
 Sindibad of the Sea (Sindbad the Sailor), Vol. Ill, p. 43, an- 
 notated edition; Vol. II, p. 482, edition of 1847. 
 
 Page 190, line 9. The story of Prometheus. Bulfinch, 
 "Age of Fable," p. 19; Grote, Vol. I; Tylor, "Early History 
 of Mankind," or other works cited. See also the poems by 
 Shelley and Mrs. Browning. 
 
 Page 196, lines 14-16. Good conscience in (Edipus and in 
 ourselves. Compare Riddle's translation of Sophocles' 
 
295 
 
 'CEdipus the King" ((Edipus Tyrannus), lines 1307-1345 
 with the repentance of David, 2 Sam. xii, 1-23. 
 
 Pages 197, 198. Belief about hair. Jewish superstitions 
 on the subject are described in the "Jewish Encyclopaedia," 
 Vol. VI, p. 158. 
 
 Page 198, line 17. Samson like Herakles (Hercules). Bui- 
 finch, "Classic Myths," pp. 133 ff., 234-243; ibid., "Age of 
 Fable," pp. 178-185. "Four Old Greek Gods," p. 73 ff. 
 
 Page 200, line 24. The lattice in the life of Eastern women. 
 See, for example, Lane's "Arabian Nights," "The Story of 
 Azeez and Azeezeh," Vol. I, p. 482, edition of 1865; ("Aziz 
 and Azizah," Vol. I, p. 397, edition of 1847). There is a good 
 picture of the lattice. 
 
 Page 207, line 20. Jephthah. Although the story of 
 Jephthah is not given here, it will be interesting to compare 
 the fate of his daughter with the story of Iphigenia in Bui- 
 finch's "Classic Myths," p. 288, and in "Four Old Greek 
 Gods." A translation of Iphigenia at Aulis and Iphigenia 
 among the Taurians, by Euripides, may profitably be read. 
 
 Page 234, line 1. Wager of battle by single combat. Brace's 
 "Gesta Christi," p. 162. 
 
 Page 237, line 11. The story of David. "Faiths of the 
 World," p. 260. The story of the Aztec king, Neza-hual- 
 coytl of Texcuco, is almost a counterpart of the David story, 
 says the writer. 
 
 Page 272, line 24. Jonah is a symbol. Tylor, " Researches 
 into the Early History of Mankind," finds Jonah to be a resur- 
 rection story, pp. 344-346. The Hebrew view of its true 
 purpose is shown in the " Jewish Encyclopaedia," Vol. VII 
 pp. 229, 230. 
 
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