[464] between the objectifying consideration of reality and the symbolic interpretation of reality has not yet appeared. And now it does appear--early in some cases, late in others. Now the critical moment for all religious education^a is at hand. Usually this critical moment is strengthened by another consideration namely by the connection of the religious symbols^b with the moral conventions of the older

generation, and the rebellion of the younger generation against these conventions which now seem to be identical with the realm of the religious symbols. If this situation has arrived--often very early, sometimes very late; perhaps in the average, with the beginning of adolescence--in this period the question arises: what can be done from the point of view of religious education? Here I must ask that already in the very first steps the literalism^c must be prevented from developing and from being fixed, otherwise the critical period has the character of a catastrophe. If we want to avoid CATASTROPHIC reaction, which is connected with much anxiety^d--first of all in the younger human being but also in the parents and other educators--then we should show, in the way in which we tell the stories and use the symbols^e, that there is something in them which should prevent us from drawing them down to the level of the subject-object reality. If this is done--and it CAN be done, as it always could be done, with fairy tales and mythological^f stories--then the catastrophe is

great. If for instance in Sunday School--or in Europe^g, mostly, the schools generally--if the child asks, in the first beginning of his doubt, whether this can be true or not (a miracle story, or something like that) and the teacher says "You must believe!", now then he has ruined everything! And a similar situation is, of course, if the parents answer, "This is a matter of faith^h, and one cannot