[465] ask about it"--this means a turning-away from it. And so I would say: in the moment in which the question of the children arises, the distinction between literalism^a and symbolism must appear in the answer, even if these words cannot be used yet. But every wise man--and I would say this is certainly a matter of very UN-learned people, who have the wisdom to understand the soul of children, the mind of the younger generation--is able, in principle, to give this transition from the

undistinguished identification of the literal and the mythological^b, to a distinction of it. And then of course there may be a third step, in which the meaning^c of these symbols^d is developed in full forms, as the instruction for the introdcution [sic.] into church^e membership, but the decisive step is the second, namely the transition from the non-differentiation to the differentiation between the literal and the symbolic. That's one point I want to give you, and the way in which it can be done is not easy to be shown, but you CAN show it, you CAN tell miracle stories in such a way that the child has it as an element of his imagination, but not believe it could have been photographed, and things like

that. If you use the symbols for the Christ^f, [such] as "Son of God," "Son of Man," "the Word," or any other, the child CAN understand that they point to some quality in the character of this man, in His radiation upon us, and it is not a literal^g myth^h about Godⁱ having a Son beside Him and one good day, sending Him down from "upstairs" to "downstairs," from Heaven to earth. Now all these things can be avoided in a special moment; it is not necessary that then the critical mind, which is usually cynical, from the street and in conversations with cynical people, that THIS