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    made the leaves and the grass grow , the fields look beautiful , &c . — Need I apologize for this minuteness ? If it should prove useful to any of those respectable mothers who are endeavouring to give their children early religious knowledge , or to any of those who may hereafter fill that important relation , I am satisfied . Perhaps , before any ideas respecting the Supreme Being are

    introduced into the mind of a child , circumstances may have led the parent to speak to him of the good Jesus . Most persons who have access to books , have opportunities of shewins their children

    pictures of the gospel history ; and though these mav not suit the taste or understanding of those whose minds are cultivated , yet if they

    are tolerably correct , they have a very important effect in giving distinct and vivid conceptions respecting Jesus , and thereby produce an interest in several

    circumstances related in the gospels , which can be made intelligible to a niind scarcely capable of receiving the idea of God . B . ut when a child has been taught the leading truths respecting God , then the chief truths respecting Jesus should be connected with them : for instance , that he was sent by God to tell us that we shall live again , and to teach us what God would have us do , how we may please God and what will displease

    him . If we do not think it necessary to go beyond the plain declarations of Jesus himself with respect to his nature , that he was

    a man , who told us the trutli which he had heard from God , '' little or no difficulty can attend our in . struclioiis with respect to him 3 they may b'j made intelligible and

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    interesting t& those who are too young to , form any very distinct idea respecting the Sup reme Being , and at the same time will tend to aid the recurrence of the thoughts of God , when they have been formed .

    Children , at first ,, probabl y always , conceive of God as having a human form ; but though this can scarcely be prevented , and may not be injurious in the earliest

    periods of their religious culture yet we ought to avoid fixing this idea in * their minds , by any visible representation of the Supreme Being . I have seen such repre . sentations ; and I cannot but

    regard them as calculated to confuse the mind , , and to produce impressions whi £ h will scarcely ever be effaced . The use of them may aid the conceptions in the first

    instance , but they will afterwards have a directly contrary effect . Our aim should be , to proportion our instructions , respecting God , to the understandings of our

    children ; and we should therefore at first , confine ourselves to the most simple and impressive truths ; but it should always be our endeavour , though we cannot communicate the whole truth , to / give nothing but the truth . Children will form

    imperfect and incorrect ideas , which will be to be gradually supplied and corrected afterwards j

    but , if possible , an express declaration on the part of a parent should never be such as must be , or ought to be , rejected , as the understanding becomes more

    matured . . When and how we shall begio to teach our children of GoA > has , I doubt not , been the solicitous inquiry o { many religious parents . " To feel the full force o \

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    275 On Early Religious Education :

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1811, page 276, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2416/page/20/