"Devotional" Not Religious.

Not the least astonishing feature in a text-book of which we are repeatedly told that it is not intended to be the instrument of religious teaching is that lesson after lesson belies this profession in the plainest possible way by its heading. The hymns and prayers with which the Victorian Commissioners supplemented their Scripture lessons have been wisely rejected, but the titles which the Commissioners selected for what they frankly designed to be religious lessons are retained unaltered by editors who deny the essentially religious character of the book. Five of the first six of the Junior Supplementary lessons are entitled as follows:—1. "Religion the first thing: not by the way." 2. "The immortal hope of the Kingdom of God: we are not dust and ashes." 4. "The Kingdom of God can come only through sacrifice: A divine law of life." 5. "Religion is joy, not gloom." 6. "Treachery and cowardice in the Kingdom of God." Other titles in the same section are "Religion and Morals," and "The Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of the Holy Spirit." The marginal analysis of almost every lesson tells the same story. "Narrative," "Duty," and page 5 "Devotion," are the three parts into which the lessons are nominally divided, and under the last heading the most in-mate and sacred outpourings of psalmist, prophet, and apostle are included. Sophisticated minds will certainly not require us to argue whether such sub-lime passages can be anything better than gibberish to children who are not made to know and feel their religious meaning, nor whether those who have aptly prefixed the word "Devotion" to hundreds of these passages can be heard to say that they are not devotional. But the so-called "Narrative" sections tell almost exactly the same tale.