November 6

Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4.

True education means the training not only of the intellect, but also of the heart. Without religion a man cannot be lifted to a higher moral plane. There can be no true morality without Christian doctrines. For this reason, then, the Church must be active in building Christian schools and colleges.

Also the Sunday-school and the confirmation class spend all their time in the consideration of the Word of God. But it is well to consider whether these institutions do really suffice. It is not astonishing that the religious spirit is on the wane in our country, since thousands of churches rest content with such meager spiritual food as the Sunday-school can furnish their children. And even confirmation classes are not sufficient if the children come to the pastor without the most elementary knowledge of spiritual things; for even if the pastor makes the most earnest efforts, he cannot succeed in teaching the children all that Christ has commanded us in the course of a few months. Religious schools for Christian children must be our watchword if we desire to fulfil our duty and to give our children what they need. Not schools where religion should be taught to the exclusion of all other knowledge, but schools in which religion shall also pervade all other instruction, being the divine force which controls the entire school. In such schools alone may we hope to educate our children as God would

have it, bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. With such school system it will be a rare thing to find a child fifteen years old which does not sufficiently know what to believe, how to live, and how to die in order to be saved. There is no other church which lays so much stress on a thorough Christian education as our Evangelical Lutheran Church does and always did.

Prayer.

Beloved God and Father, bless our parochial schools, prosper all that our pastors and teachers do for them. But above all help every father and mother to realize the great necessity, the sweetness, and the sublime opportunity of their calling that puts God's own children under their care and enables them, lest they lose them, to lead them into the temple of the living God. Help us to lead them to Jesus to be blessed in time and eternity. Amen.

"Now, why should you hinder the Master," Said Peter, "with children like these? You see how from morning till evening He teacheth and healeth disease." Then Christ said, "Forbid not the children, Permit them to come unto Me! Of such is the kingdom of heaven," — And He blessed them and filled them with glee.