What shall we say, then, of the teacher who tries to train the religious sense of his pupils by supplying them with rations of theological and theologico-historical information?
Whatever else we may mean by the word God, we mean what is infinitely great, and therefore beyond the reach of human thought, and we mean what is "most high," and therefore beyond the reach of the heart's desire.

It follows that for knowledge of God the maximum of intellectual effort is needed, in conjunction with the maximum of emotional insight; and it follows further that the gulf between knowledge of God and information about God is unimaginably wide and deep,--so wide and so deep that out of our very attempts to span or fathom it the doubt at last arises whether the idea of acquiring information about God may not, after all, be the idlest of dreams.
Nevertheless the pastors and masters of our elementary schools are, with few exceptions, engaged, _sancta simplicitate_, in trying to make the children of England religious by cramming them with theological and theologico-historical information,--information as to the nature and attributes of God, as to the inner constitution of his being, as to his relations to Man and the Universe, as to his reported doings in the past.

And in order that the giving, receiving, and retaining of this unverifiable information may be regarded by all concerned as the central feature of the Scripture lesson, to the neglect of all the other aspects of religious education, the spiritual "powers that be" (and also, I am told, some of the Local Education Authorities) have decreed that the schools under their jurisdiction shall be subjected to a yearly examination in "religious knowledge" at the hands of a "Diocesan Inspector," or some other official.
To one who has convinced himself, as I have, that a right attitude towards the thing known is of the essence of knowledge, and that reverence and devotion--to go no further--are of the essence of a right attitude towards God, the idea of holding a formal examination in religious knowledge seems scarcely less ridiculous than the idea of holding a formal examination in unselfishness or brotherly love.
The phrase "to examine in religious knowledge" has no meaning for me.
The verb is out of all relation to its indirect object.

What the Diocesan Inspector attempts to do cannot possibly be done.

The test of religious knowledge is necessarily practical and vital, not formal and mechanical.