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T 
 
 HE MINISTRY OF THE 
 SUNDAY-SCHOOL * 
 
 BY / 
 
 T. HARWOOD PATTISON 
 
 Trofessor in Rochester Theological Seminary 
 
 When men do anything for God, the very least thing, they never 
 know where it will end, nor what amount of work it will do for 
 him. Love's secret, therefore, is to be always doing things for 
 God, and not to mind because they are such very little ones. 
 
 — Frederick William Faber 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Bmetlcan Baptist publication Society 
 
 1902 
 
Copyright 1902 by the 
 American Baptist Publication Society 
 
 Published April, 1902 
 
 jfrom tbe Society's own {press 
 
Go tbe 3Facult£ ano Students 
 
 OF 
 
 IResent's fcarfc College 
 
 LONDON 
 AND OF 
 
 Cbe THartfoto Cbeologtcal Seminars 
 
 HARTFORD, CONN. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This book has grown out of the " Ridley Lec- 
 tures " on " The Minister in Relation to Children 
 and Sunday-schools," delivered at Regent's Park 
 College, London, in the summer of 1900. The 
 same course was given before the students of the 
 Hartford Theological Seminary, Hartford, Conn., 
 and single lectures in the series have been used 
 elsewhere. 
 
 In preparing them for the press I have widened 
 the original scope by adding the lectures which 
 deal with the origin, progress, and future of the 
 modern Sunday-school. The literary form in 
 which they were originally cast when prepared 
 for delivery as lectures has been changed some- 
 what, the better to appeal to the constituency of 
 readers now addressed ; but I have not materially 
 altered the aim to which I was committed by the 
 Ridley foundation, namely, to deal mainly with the 
 minister in his relation to the young people of his 
 congregation. The importance of this aspect of 
 Sunday-school work, and the slight attention which 
 it has so far received, seem to me to justify this dis- 
 tinct and definite purpose in the book, even though 
 
Vlll PREFACE 
 
 it now addresses itself to a wider and more varied au- 
 dience than that for which it was originally intended. 
 
 I wish to express my grateful appreciation of 
 the help which I have received in the preparation 
 of this volume from Dr. H. Clay Trumbull, of 
 Philadelphia, and his son, Mr. C. G. Trumbull ; Dr. 
 C. R. Blackall, editor of periodicals of the Ameri- 
 can Baptist Publication Society; and Rev. Carey 
 Bonner, general secretary of the Sunday-school 
 Union of London. 
 
 The literature of the Sunday-school has now be- 
 come very large, and the marginal references in 
 this volume will show how much I have been in- 
 debted to many writers. Let me make special 
 mention of the works on Robert Raikes, by J. 
 Henry Harris ; W. H. Watson's " History and 
 Work of the Sunday-school Union " ; and Dr. H. 
 Clay Trumbull's admirable Yale lectures on the 
 Sunday-school ; the report of the World's Sunday- 
 school Convention, held in London, in 1889, with 
 much statistical literature of the same kind and of 
 later date ; and also of Dr. S. L. Gulick's excel- 
 lent summaries in " The Growth of the Kingdom 
 of God." Many valuable suggestions of a prac- 
 tical nature will be found in Dr. Edward Judson's 
 little book on " The Institutional Church," and in 
 the "Handbook on Sunday-school Work," by Rev. 
 L. E. Peters. 
 
 January i, 1902. i • -H.. P. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 i 
 
 The Bible and the Child i 
 
 II 
 The Sunday-school in the Eighteenth Century 47 
 
 III 
 The Sunday-school in the Nineteenth Century 75 
 
 IV 
 The Minister and the Young People of the 
 Congregation 105 
 
 V 
 The Minister and the Sunday-school 149 
 
 VI 
 
 The Minister in the Sunday-school 185 
 
 VII 
 The Sunday-school and the Twentieth Century 229 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 
 
The authority of the Bible the first consideration. The 
 Old Testament : Patriarchal times ; the child in the larger 
 family of Israel. The New Testament : Jesus now the 
 prominent figure. Subsequent Ages : Growth of priestly 
 assumption ; the Reformation. The early days of the 
 Sunday-school. Inadequate conception of the child's 
 nature. Misconception as to pastoral obligations. The 
 growth of more healthful views. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 
 
 To the young chaplain who inquired of the 
 Duke of Wellington whether, in the face of the 
 prejudice, superstition, and ignorance of the 
 Hindus, it did not seem to him a hopeless and 
 extravagant enterprise to preach the Christian 
 religion to the people of India, the answer came 
 back without a moment's hesitation : " Look, sir, 
 to your marching orders — ' Preach the gospel to 
 very creature.' " 
 
 This suggests the course for us to pursue in 
 considering the duty of the Christian minister in 
 relation to the young people of his congregation. 
 His work among them, whether in the pulpit, the 
 school, or the home ; whether as preacher, teacher, 
 or friend, must be settled by the instructions and 
 examples which he finds in the Bible. The author 
 of this book is the Father of the child. In no 
 other volume in all literature is there a gallery of 
 children with faces so varied or so interesting. 
 Every type of child may be found there, and the 
 tenderest as well as the ripest life is set in high 
 and inspiring light, and looked at with reference 
 
 3 
 
4 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 not to time alone but also to still wider and more 
 lasting relations. So that when we study what 
 by precept and example the Bible teaches us as to 
 the children, we may expect to find our way direct 
 to the will of God in relation to the church in its 
 treatment of them, and to that will, also, in rela- 
 tion to the minister of his holy religion, who by 
 his life and teaching is the servant of the church 
 and the messenger of the gospel to the youngest 
 lamb of the fold. 
 
 Unquestionably much attention is given in the 
 Bible to the lives of children. The charm which 
 the book has for those who have not as yet 
 caught its deeper notes is due in large measure to 
 this. In contrast with other sacred books of the 
 ages it is full of child life. In its earlier chapters, 
 onward from the voice that calls Cain to account 
 for the death of his brother, we are taught the 
 lesson, afterward to be emphasized by Jesus him- 
 self, that the life of the young is dear to God. 
 The destinies of the world seem to travel down 
 to Egypt with the lad Joseph, and to rock with 
 the infant Moses in his ark of bulrushes on the 
 Nile. The helm of history is for the time in the 
 grasp of the child. And this in its turn suggests 
 that in the sight of God the child is not only dear 
 to his heart, but also precious beyond our human 
 computation. It is from him that we learn that 
 it is 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 5 
 
 Awful to behold 
 A helpless infant newly born, 
 Whose little hands unconscious hold 
 The keys of darkness and of dawn. 
 
 The old schoolmaster who always lifted his cap 
 to his scholars, as to the future masters of the 
 world, was right. Jacob climbing through dubious 
 paths to the height of Peniel ; Joseph learning that 
 it was not his brethren, but God, who sent him 
 down to Egypt ; Moses attaining to a diviner 
 parentage by refusing to be called the son of 
 Pharaoh's daughter ; Samuel waking in the temple 
 to a loftier consecration than any Eli could bestow 
 as he cries, " Speak, Lord, for thy servant hear- 
 eth " ; David taken from the sheepfold to feed 
 and guide the chosen people ; Josiah crowned a 
 child, but not too young to become a reformer as 
 well as a ruler — these are lives which in their 
 earlier developments are prophetic of the mighty 
 power to be wielded through all time by him of 
 whom Isaiah cried centuries before his birth, 
 " Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, 
 and the government shall be upon his shoulders." 1 
 So true is it that alike in the home, the nation, 
 and the whole wide world it is the little child that 
 leads. For we have not learned the teaching of 
 the Bible aright until from other lips than those 
 of Jesus we hear the words which gained a newer 
 
 1 Isa. 9 : 6. 
 
6 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 and deeper meaning as he spoke them : " Except 
 ye be converted and become as little children, ye 
 shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." l 
 
 In considering what the Bible teaches as to the 
 minister in his relation to children, we will turn, 
 in the first place, to the Old Testament. 
 
 When we do so, what impresses us at once, I 
 think, is that the whole history of the human race 
 strikes its roots in the family. Of Abraham, the 
 Lord says : " For I know him that he will com- 
 mand his children and his household after him. " 2 
 Here, in germ, is the principle of family training, 
 out of which I believe all other training must 
 grow. Back of the priest we see the patriarch ; 
 back of the church, the family. Abraham was 
 the head of the household, and, therefore, its 
 minister. You remember how nobly Burns pic- 
 tures this high office in the " Cotter's Saturday 
 Night," when, bending over the big ha' Bible : 
 
 The priestlike father reads the sacred page, 
 
 How Abram was the friend of God on high ; 
 Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage 
 
 With Amalek's ungracious progeny ! 
 Or how the royal bard did groaning lie 
 
 Beneath the stroke of heaven' s avenging ire ; 
 Or Job' s pathetic plaint and wailing cry ; 
 
 Or rapt Isaiah' s wild seraphic fire ; 
 Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. 
 
 1 Matt. 18 :3. 2 Gen. 18 : 19. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 7 
 
 And the patriarchal portrait receives its crowning 
 touch when, 
 
 Kneeling down to heaven' s eternal king, 
 
 The saint, the father, and the husband prays. 
 
 The development of the theocracy can be followed 
 step by step from the call of Abram — " I am the 
 Almighty God, walk before me and be thou per- 
 fect " l — to the prophecy (among the last words 
 of the Old Testament) of the day in which " there 
 shall be upon the bells of the horses holiness 
 unto the Lord," 2 and through it all no national 
 or ecclesiastical changes are suffered to affect 
 this fact of the supreme importance of the family 
 as the foundation of human society. The insist- 
 ence on the duties which the parent owes to the 
 child and the child to the parent hinges on the 
 truth, never lost sight of for one instant, that God 
 is the Father of both the one and the other. In 
 other words, it is the religious aspect of the house- 
 hold that is of paramount importance. 
 
 To this may be traced the obligation under 
 which the parent is laid to train his children. To 
 him, and not to priest or instructor, is it said of 
 the commandments, the statutes, and the judg- 
 ments by which the people were to be guided : 
 " Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy chil- 
 
 ^en. 17:1. 2 Zech. 14:20. 
 
8 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 dren, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in 
 thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, 
 and when thou liest down, and when thou risest 
 up." l The preservation of the national records 
 seemed to hinge upon the maintenance of this un- 
 written history. So Joshua says to the Israelites, 
 when at last Jordan has been crossed and Canaan 
 reached : " When your children shall ask their 
 fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these 
 stones ? Then ye shall let your children know, say- 
 ing, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. For 
 the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan 
 from before you, until ye were passed over," and the 
 spirit of the theocracy breathes in the final words 
 of the passage, "That all the people of the earth 
 might know the hand of the Lord that it is mighty : 
 that ye might fear the Lord your God for ever." 2 
 Thus is fulfilled the psalmist's aspiration in ages 
 long subsequent to this, " Instead of thy fathers 
 shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make 
 princes in all the earth." 3 Although as the years 
 passed on the disposition to do this work of 
 parental instruction by proxy and deputy would 
 inevitably grow, yet such passages as these, and 
 many others like them, would be ready to his hand 
 when the national reformer recalled the Hebrew 
 to his duties and sounded the keynote of revival 
 
 1 Deut. 6:7. 2 Josh. 4:21. 3 Ps. 45:16. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 9 
 
 in the heart of the family : l " Set your hearts 
 unto all the words which I testify among you this 
 day, which ye shall command your children to 
 observe to do, all the words of this law." And 
 for us the insistence upon parental obligation at a 
 time when church and school are such convenient 
 and capable substitutes for it, and when in the 
 vaunt of numbers we are tempted to lose sight of 
 the value of each one, is surely of equal impor- 
 tance. There was profound wisdom as well as 
 shrewd wit in the repartee of Julia Ward Howe 
 when Charles Sumner refused to give her help for 
 a runaway Negro, saying in his lofty way : " I no 
 longer care for the individual ; I am only inter- 
 ested in the race," and she replied : " I am glad 
 that God Almighty has not got quite so far as that 
 yet." We may be well assured that he never will, 
 and that we, for our part, never ought to. 
 
 To this hour the Jew is the most powerful illus- 
 tration of heredity. Find him where you may, he 
 cannot be hid. But this law in its very highest 
 aspect is expressed in the parting resolve of 
 Joshua: "As for me, and my house, we will serve 
 the Lord." We have no right to insist upon the 
 malign and fatal working of this law of heredity in 
 some instances, while laying no stress upon its 
 golden fruitage in others. He who by the opera- 
 
 1 Deut. 32 : 46. 
 
IO THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 tion of a natural law visits the iniquities of the 
 fathers upon the children to the third and fourth 
 generation, also makes promise of unspeakable 
 blessing to us and to our children if we be obe- 
 dient. "The Scriptures," says Horace Bushnell, 
 "have a perpetual habit, if I may so speak, of 
 associating children with the character and destiny 
 of their parents. They do not always regard the 
 individual as an isolated unit, but they often look 
 upon men as they exist in families and races and 
 under organic laws." * 
 
 For here, as elsewhere, example speaks louder 
 than precept. The father is a teacher in every 
 case. His very silence, his prayerlessness, his 
 irreligion, his indifference to the highest claims of 
 the soul, come to form a part of the child's train- 
 ing. And equally he who wears the white flower 
 of a blameless life in the presence of his family is 
 a preacher of righteousness, although his lips are 
 inapt to set forth the truth which is incarnate in 
 his daily conduct. Both alike illustrate Jean 
 Paul's saying that the mother puts the commas 
 and semicolons into the child's life, but the father 
 the colons and the periods. We remember how 
 the twisted strands run, now white and now black, 
 through the royal annals of Judah and Israel : 
 "Azariah did that which was right in the sight of 
 
 1 "Christian Nurture," p. 39. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD I I 
 
 the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah 
 had done," or " Jehoiachin did that which was evil 
 in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his 
 father had done." l We weary of the swing of 
 the pendulum with its monotonous burden until 
 we reflect that it is the pendulum which always 
 and everywhere tells off the history of human 
 lives. 
 
 One more word must be added before we leave 
 this point of the duty of the parent under the 
 theocracy to train his children in religion. The 
 teaching which was prescribed was not so much in 
 the history of the nation as it was in the laws of 
 God. In our admiration of the heroic deeds by 
 which a patriotic ancestry won for us our liberties 
 are we not tempted to overlook the principles, 
 powerful and sometimes perhaps stern, by which 
 their devotion was inspired? To "teach and to 
 do" were duties which went hand in hand in the 
 Mosaic legislation, 2 and both were to be practised, 
 so that " thou and thy son and thy son's son, all 
 the days of thy life," may nourish and increase in 
 the land that floweth with milk and honey. We 
 shall see, by and by, in what this instruction 
 consisted, but I say this much at once because it 
 seems to me of great moment that we should 
 recognize that all religious teaching in home and 
 
 1 2 Kings 15:3; 2 Kings 24 : 9. 2 Deut. 6. 
 
12 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 church and school must be scriptural. The Bible 
 is not only a book of examples, it is also a book 
 of precepts. There is law in its life as well as 
 life in its law. The unfeigned faith in Timothy, 1 
 his inheritance from his grandmother Lois and his 
 mother Eunice, came, we may well believe, from 
 the fact that from a child he had known the Holy 
 Scriptures, which were able to make him wise 
 unto salvation. 
 
 We have been speaking hitherto of the child in 
 the household where the father was in some very 
 important sense priest as well as patriarch. This 
 must have continued even after the Jewish hier- 
 archy grew in stateliness and splendor. The 
 claims of that hierarchy could never supersede the 
 rights and duties of the parent toward his sons 
 and daughters. To them he stood as the per- 
 petual reminder of the relation in which Jehovah 
 stood toward each of his children, for, as we 
 know, that relation was paternal, never priestly. 
 And so by solemn rites the child was early brought 
 into another family, wider, more wonderful than 
 the little circle at home — I mean the family of 
 Israel. The lesser led to the larger, but to each 
 the center was the same. There, in the faith of 
 the devout Hebrew, rose the august and inspiring 
 Presence to whom appeal might be made by every 
 
 ^Tim. 3: 15. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 13 
 
 son of Israel : " Have we not all one father ? hath 
 not one God created us ?" * 
 
 Into this family the Jewish child was brought 
 by a primitive rite which was not peculiar to the 
 Hebrews. As consciousness asserted itself and the 
 world about him appealed to his heart and mind he 
 came to understand to how much this rite admitted 
 him and how widespread and how strong was the 
 influence of his national religion. That religion 
 consisted of two things : " Knowledge of God, which 
 by a series of inferences, one from the other, ulti- 
 mately resolved itself into theology; and service, 
 which again consisted of the proper observance of 
 all that was prescribed by God and of works 
 of charity toward men." 2 
 
 That multitudes initiated into the family and 
 trained in its ceremonial observances and in its 
 moral code failed to take up their sonship was of 
 course true. The personal life, then as now, too 
 often proved that all "are not Israel that are of 
 Israel." But my point is not affected by this fact. 
 What I aim to make clear is the perpetual pres- 
 ence of religion, ritual or moral, during the whole 
 life of the Hebrew, and especially for our present 
 purpose, during his early years. 
 
 It was never out of sight or hearing with him. 
 
 1 Mai. 2 : 10. 
 
 2 Edersheim, "Sketches of Jewish Social Life in the Days of 
 Christ," p. 125. 
 
14 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 Occasionally he would be taken up to Jerusalem 
 to the great festival, borne thither on a tide of 
 expectant or triumphant song and listening to the 
 pulsations of the splendid and imposing national 
 faith at its fountain head. But independent of 
 these special occasions his memory would, from 
 the first, be richly stored with sacred associations. 
 When his own candle was added to the family 
 illumination at the feast of the Dedication ; when 
 he took his part in the good cheer of Purim ; 
 when the home was abandoned for the booth at 
 the feast of Tabernacles, and when with scrupulous 
 care the Passover meal was made ready, he would, 
 perhaps all unconsciously to himself, associate the 
 most gladsome and the most serious moments of 
 his young life with religion. 1 
 
 Still more to our purpose is it to follow him in 
 his hours of schooling in the precepts of the law. 
 By and by parental instruction was supplemented 
 by the teaching of the synagogue school. Here 
 it was that, as Philo says, the Jews learned from 
 their earliest youth to " bear the image of the law 
 in their souls." 2 The vicissitudes of war, civil 
 strife, changes of fortune or of place, banishment 
 itself, any or all of these might separate the Jew 
 from the land of his birth and from the city of his 
 solemnities, but the synagogue school was a per- 
 
 1 Edersheim, "Sketches," etc., p. 108. 
 2 Trumbull, "Yale Lectures on the Sunday-school," pp. 7, 8. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 1 5 
 
 manent institution. Like the pillar in the wilder- 
 ness, it went with him always, alike in the daylight 
 and in the darkness of his fortunes. Instruction 
 in the law came in time to rise above public wor- 
 ship among the features of the synagogue. The 
 exile multiplied these Bible-schools amazingly. l 
 At least eleven different expressions were coined 
 to describe them. Attendance upon them ulti- 
 mately became obligatory. At five years of age 
 the Hebrew Bible was to be begun, and that, let 
 us notice, not with Genesis, but with Leviticus ; 
 not with history, but with law. 2 From the age of 
 six onward through his whole life the Hebrew 
 remained in school. " Entering thus early," says 
 Doctor Trumbull, " the Jewish scholar never came 
 to an age for graduation from that school. He 
 was to continue in it during his earthly life-course 
 and at death he was supposed to pass on into the 
 heavenly Bible-school beyond." 3 
 
 We see, then, that the Sunday-school of to-day 
 is in the direct line of succession from the Bible- 
 school of the Jewish synagogue, and so we can 
 understand the satisfaction with which, a century 
 or more ago, Robert Raikes, the founder of our 
 modern schools, wrote after attending the first 
 anniversary of the Sunday-school in an English 
 parish church : " The happy choice of a text had a 
 
 1 Trumbull, "Yale Lectures on the Sunday-school," pp. 8, u. 
 2 Edersheim, "Sketches," p. 130. 3 " Yale Lectures," p. 192. 
 
l6 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 remarkable effect in commanding the attention of 
 the audience. The Scriptures could not have 
 furnished a passage more literally applicable to the 
 subject. It was taken from Deut. 31 : 12, 13: 
 « Gather the people together, men, and women, 
 and children, and thy stranger that is within thy 
 gates, that they may hear, and that they may 
 learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to 
 do all the words of this law : and that their chil- 
 dren, which have not known any thing, may hear, 
 and learn to fear the Lord your God.' " l 
 
 When from the Old Testament we pass to the 
 New, we find no material change in the view of 
 infancy, childhood, and youth, as God sees them 
 and as he wills that his ministers shall regard 
 them. 
 
 Now, the prominent figure in our pictures is 
 Jesus, the ideal young Hebrew. Glance at his 
 own life. A poor woman standing in a London 
 gallery before a picture of the Virgin and Child, 
 was heard to say, " Who wouldn't be a good 
 mother with such a son as that ? " But that his 
 Father's business is calling to him so imperiously, 
 we could wish that we knew more of that fair 
 childhood and that opening youth. What we do 
 know is wonderfully fascinating. In the temple 
 at eight days old he was initiated into the family 
 
 1 Gregory's "Life of Robert Raikes," p. 178. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD \J 
 
 of Israel. Over the babe, cradled in his arms, 
 devout Simeon broke forth into the prayer which 
 in its last words 
 
 Did attain 
 To something of prophetic strain. 
 
 In Nazareth, growing in wisdom as he grew in 
 age, Jesus was subject to his parents ; and in all 
 probability in the synagogue school of the little 
 city "he learned his earliest earthly lesson from 
 the book of Leviticus." l 
 
 So he made ready for the visit to Jerusalem 
 which was taken " after the custom of the feast " ; 2 
 and in the higher school, as we may dare to call it, 
 in the temple, the boy of twelve found his place 
 among the doctors of the law, " hearing them and 
 asking them questions, so that all that heard him 
 were astonished at his understanding and an- 
 swers." 
 
 Consider the course which Jesus pursued with 
 children and young people. Naturally they had a 
 great charm for him. Still in his eyes heaven lay 
 around them. To have a little child in his arms 
 was to come nearer to heaven than he could come 
 in any other way. Follower and crowd had to 
 stand back when the child appealed to his love. 
 There was a depth in the child's wondering glance, 
 and a response in the child's simple embrace which 
 
 1 Trumbull, p. 29. 2 Luke 2 : 42. 
 
1 8 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 he sought for in vain elsewhere. The kingdom of 
 heaven was within appreciable reach of the arms 
 that held the infant, and the child set in the midst 
 of envious and ambitious disciples — a jewel in a 
 swine's snout — preached a silent sermon on the 
 humility without which no man can ever be truly 
 great. The man whom we think of as the young- 
 est and most childlike among the apostles was the 
 disciple whom Jesus loved, and the only other time 
 when that expression is used is when the young 
 ruler kneels at his feet to ask what he shall do to 
 inherit eternal life. The young girl at his bidding 
 arose from the dead ; and it was a young man, the 
 only son of his mother and she a widow, on whom 
 he worked the miracle of resurrection at the gate 
 of Nain. 
 
 This natural attraction toward the life which 
 was still in its springtide comes to have a deeper 
 meaning when we listen to the words which fell 
 from our Lord's lips as to children. Of such, he 
 said again and again, was the kingdom of heaven. 
 To despise one of these little ones was the gravest 
 offense, "for I say unto you, that in heaven their 
 angels do always behold the face of my Father 
 which is in heaven." l Among the last injunctions 
 to Peter was that to " Feed my lambs," which, in- 
 terpret it as we may, can scarcely have been spoken 
 
 1 Matt. 18 : io. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 1 9 
 
 without some profound reference to the young life 
 to be hereafter folded in the church which our 
 Lord came to found. 1 
 
 It is to Jesus, then, that we look as the model 
 teacher, for while John the Baptist came preaching 
 in the wilderness, it was Jesus who rather taught, 2 
 beside the lake or in the court of the temple. It 
 is in Jesus that we see the model pastor, by his last 
 words to Peter and the other disciples giving its 
 perpetual place in the Christian ministry to the 
 prophecy of Isaiah, " He shall feed his flock like a 
 shepherd, he shall gather the lambs with his arms, 
 and carry them in his bosom." 3 
 
 It is to Jesus also that we turn for the model of 
 what each minister should aim to be in his relation 
 to the young people of his congregation. More 
 than the teacher, more than the pastor, he should 
 aspire to be their friend. For the infant in arms, 
 for the little child beginning to run, for the young 
 man on the threshold of life, Jesus had an irresist- 
 ible attractiveness. He had, as no other before or 
 since, the one touch of nature which makes the 
 whole world kin. And this youth saw and to 
 this youth responded, while lives more mature in 
 the ways of the world held aloof. 
 
 On the mount of ascension Jesus was parted 
 from his disciples and a cloud received him out of 
 
 1 Craft, "The Bible and the Sunday-school," p. 107. 
 2 Trumbull, p. 33. 3 Isa. 40 : II. 
 
20 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 their sight. But still the traditional insistence 
 upon the value of the child, which lay at the very 
 foundation of the Jewish theocracy, and received 
 a fresh emphasis from the lips of our Lord, re- 
 mained. " For the promise," said Peter in his 
 address on the day of Pentecost, " is to you, and 
 to your children." l Children at a very early age 
 were baptized and added to the Lord. There is 
 nothing which makes Paul so much one of our- 
 selves as his tender affection for Titus, " my own 
 son," or for " Son Timothy," 2 the heir of his in- 
 spiring charges ; or for Onesimus the runaway 
 slave, "whom I have begotten in my bonds." In 
 Timothy himself we find the earliest example of 
 boyhood in a Christian family. " To his recollec- 
 tion, there probably never was a time when he did 
 not sympathize with the piety so venerable in Lois, 
 so lovely in Eunice. He had been trained for 
 Christ, and grew up a lamb in the Shepherd's 
 fold." 3 
 
 Paul's Epistles are the witnesses that because a 
 boy or girl came into that fold filial duties were 
 by no means relaxed. Rather were they strength- 
 ened by new and more sacred bonds. "Children," 4 
 the injunction now ran, "obey your parents in the 
 Lord ; for this is right." Here was a new motive 
 
 1 Acts 2 : 39. 2 I Tim. I : 18. 
 
 3 S. G. Green, "Christian Ministry to the Young," p. 18. 
 
 4 Eph. 6 : I. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 21 
 
 for a natural duty. You catch its force still bet- 
 ter in another form of the same injunction : "Chil- 
 dren, obey your parents in all things ; for this is 
 well pleasing unto the Lord." l The ancient Jew- 
 ish conception seems to be lifted into a serener 
 light as we listen to John when he begins his sec- 
 ond Epistle : " The elder unto the elect lady, and 
 her children, whom I love in the truth." 2 
 
 As to distinct teaching, such as was the strength 
 of the synagogue school, it is abundantly evident 
 that to it under the new order which was gradually 
 growing up, all the old honor was paid. 3 Paul, who 
 had himself been a scholar in the school of Gama- 
 liel, made the synagogue wherever he went in his 
 journeys as a Christian missionary the scene of 
 careful, patient, exhaustive teaching, while at 
 Athens, 4 in the market-place, every day, he dis- 
 cussed the truths of the kingdom with them that 
 met with him. There seems, therefore, to be 
 some reason in the claim that the ancient Jewish 
 schools, which had gained in number and in influ- 
 ence after the exile, became now " the fresh start- 
 ing points of the Christian church 5 in all the 
 earlier apostolic work under the requirements and 
 the authority of the Great Commission." The 
 Bible-school was literally the nursery of the church. 
 "The Apostolic Church," as Baron Bunsen says, 
 
 1 Col. 3 : 20. 2 2 John I. 3 Trumbull, p. 48. 
 
 * Acts 17:17. 5 Trumbull, p. 48. 
 
22 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 " made the school the connecting link between 
 herself and the world." ! And the Acts of the 
 Apostles, which is indeed but the first chapter in 
 the acts of the Holy Spirit to which no limit of 
 time can be put, closes appropriately with the 
 figure of Paul in his own hired house in Rome, 2 
 where he received all that came in unto him, 
 preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those 
 things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with 
 all confidence, no man forbidding him." A teacher 
 to the last, and so a model for many of us to whom 
 may be denied his eloquent tongue, his burning 
 zeal, and the varied and adventurous chapters in 
 the history of his ministry. 
 
 My reason for pursuing this line of thought will 
 be made plain if we pass from this clear, exhilarat- 
 ing air into the ages which followed. To do so is, 
 little by little, to change our atmosphere for the 
 worse. How this happened it is not to our pur- 
 pose to describe. The Hebrew conception of the 
 home, with its careful training in the law, dies out. 
 The apostolic practice of free discussion is trans- 
 formed into the medieval pronouncement of dog- 
 matic conclusions. The simple rites of the primi- 
 tive church stiffen into awful and mysterious 
 sacraments. There is little or no home nurture 
 encouraged. The child is handed over to the 
 
 1 Trumbull, p. 39. 2 Acts 28 : 30, 31. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 23 
 
 priest for instruction. The formal catechism, with 
 its perplexing definitions, becomes the authoritative 
 substitute for the more natural conversation of an 
 earlier day. Jesus no longer sits in the midst of 
 the doctors, hearing them and asking them ques- 
 tions. The child spirit is not now welcome there, 
 and the heart of the child beats there, warm and 
 responsive, no more. An era comes of hard dog- 
 matic theology. In science the Middle Ages 
 made the sun go round the earth, substituting 
 center for circumference ; and in their religious 
 dialectics, by a like confusion between greater 
 and less, the world of human life revolves about a 
 hard and fast system of thought. In the sphere of 
 our own subject the child is made for theology, not 
 theology for the child. Among other ominous 
 features which mark this changed aspect of the 
 Christian faith we note the growth of fear as an 
 instrument of spiritual influence. Threats take 
 the place of promises, and once more the disciples 
 repel the child from the arms of the Master. 
 
 It might be a suggestive inquiry, were this the 
 place to pursue it, how far the debased medieval 
 teaching as to children in their relation to the 
 church cast a shadow over the Protestant Reforma- 
 tion, which was a revolt against it, and to what 
 extent that shadow lingered in the later Puritan 
 teaching, which influences us yet. Because this 
 influence has been so virile in its effect on the life 
 
24 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 of the church and the commonwealth we must 
 pause for a few moments to glance at one or two 
 of its characteristics. 
 
 Let us try to picture to ourselves what religion 
 meant to the Puritan boy or girl in the old Eng- 
 land of the Ironsides or in the New England of 
 the Massachusetts settlers. 
 
 " When your children shall ask their fathers " ! 
 suggests the Jewish method of teaching. It is 
 significant that the question comes from the child, 
 the answer from the parent. An exchange of this 
 kind has often dismayed the elders as much as if 
 the boy had gained possession of the rod or the 
 horse of the spur. But in the early Christian time 
 the religious teaching, following the Jewish model, 
 " was mainly by the approved means of question 
 and answer." 2 The word "homily" suggests that 
 in the services of the meeting-house the sermon 
 was so free in its cast that questions were en- 
 couraged. " Even when the ministry was trans- 
 ferred to a designated class of persons this right 
 of joining in conversation with the preacher (as he 
 discoursed) was not wholly surrendered by the 
 congregation." 3 To the neglect and abandonment 
 of this wholesome practice we owe it that the tone 
 of the preacher became gradually authoritative and 
 dogmatic, " As who should say, ' I am Sir Oracle, 
 
 1 Josh. 1:51. 2 Trumbull, p. 52. *Ibid., p. 54. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 25 
 
 and when I ope my lips let no dog bark.'" The 
 Bible-school of Paul and his fellow-apostles (had it 
 been preserved) would have held the spirit of 
 ecclesiastical assumption in check. The layman 
 would have had his chance. Even the child might 
 have put his question. The evidence is only too 
 abundant that the reverse condition of things pre- 
 vailed. The layman who raised his voice was apt 
 to pay for his contumacy with his life. And even 
 under the Puritan rule the child was bidden to be 
 seen but not heard. The prevailing impression as 
 to children, in the England on either side of the 
 Atlantic, seems to have been that they must be 
 held in, if not with bit and bridle, then with rod 
 and rule. Dr. E. N. Kirk, in our own country, 
 recalled the days of his childhood as days " when 
 indoctrination and restraint were the highest aim 
 of parents, preachers, and teachers." 
 
 The Puritan was so much accustomed to be 
 persecuted that we need not wonder at his import- 
 ing into the theological teaching which he gave to 
 his children some of the sterner and harsher 
 elements of medieval theology. I cannot think 
 that religion to the Puritan boy was so joyous or 
 so wholesome a thing as it was to the young He- 
 brew. The "New England Primer" was scarcely 
 an evolution from the conversations in Paul's hired 
 house in Rome, and the " Bay Psalm Book" 
 can hardly be put in tune with the jubilant or- 
 
26 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 chestra of the sons of Asaph. To refer to the 
 "New England Primer" is to speak of the Ameri- 
 can classic of the eighteenth century, about which 
 it is no exaggeration to say that " there never has 
 been printed in this country a book laying no 
 claim to inspiration whose influence has been so 
 extended and enduring as that of the < New Eng- 
 land Primer.'" In many respects, I had almost 
 said in most, it seems to be a compendium of 
 religious faith and practice well worthy of the 
 place which it held unchallenged for a hundred 
 years in the life of the colonists. All the more 
 interesting, therefore, is it to turn to its pages for 
 light upon our present subject. There is much 
 said and taught as to young people. These four 
 lines we are bidden learn by heart : 
 
 Have communion with few, 
 
 Be intimate with One, 
 Deal justly with all, 
 
 Speak evil of none. 
 
 Are they not almost cynical in their shrewdness ? 
 Certainly they are not likely to promote sociability. 
 The "Advice to Youth," in another part of the 
 book, is not founded on the Gospels, but is a 
 paraphrase from the closing words of Ecclesiastes, 
 and what we notice is that the burden of its mes- 
 sage recalls rather the despair of Anacreon than the 
 exhilaration of the last chapter of the Philippians : 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 2J 
 
 Behold, the months come hasting on 
 When you shall say, my joys are gone. 
 
 The view of sin is remarkable chiefly by defect. 
 Much stress is laid upon its origin in the heart, 
 due to " Adam's sin imputed to me, and a corrupt 
 nature dwelling in me," so that this nature is 
 " empty of grace, bent unto sin, only unto sin and 
 that continually." But little is made of its moral 
 heinousness, of the present punishment it brings 
 with it, of the shame and degradation into which 
 it drags our manhood and womanhood. Even in 
 the lines which seem to incline toward a brighter 
 view of the possibilities of life, a sudden twist at 
 the last brings in the inevitable lash : 
 
 What' s right and good now show me, Lord, 
 And teach me by thy grace and word. 
 Thus shall I be a child of God, 
 And love and fear thy hand and rod. 
 
 This element of fear is rarely absent, but in al- 
 most every instance it is dread of future retribu- 
 tion rather than of present punishment. At any 
 moment that future may become the present, for 
 
 Cruel death is always near, 
 So frail a thing is man. 
 
 Even in the famous alphabet from which genera- 
 tions of New England children learned their let- 
 ters, Y gives us a cut of a boy with a wine cup 
 
28 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 rather larger than his head before him, while the 
 skeleton at the feast rises on the other side of the 
 table, and the cheerful legend runs : 
 
 While youth do cheer, 
 Death may be near, 
 
 and the exigencies of the letter which comes be. 
 fore this, — X, — are met by bidding the child to 
 say — and how he must have wondered who 
 " Xerxes " was : — 
 
 Xerxes did die, and so must I. 
 
 Probably in all Protestant literature there is 
 nothing more sombre or tragic than the " Dialogue 
 between Christ, Youth, and the Devil," with which 
 this primer concludes. It is at some grotesquely 
 terrible twelfth century carving over a cathedral 
 portal that we seem to be gazing as we read what 
 Death, the last speaker, says : 
 
 Youth, I am come to fetch thy breath, 
 And carry thee to the shades of death. 
 No pity on thee can I show, 
 Thou hast thy God offended so. 
 Thy soul and body I'll divide, 
 Thy body in the grave I'll hide, 
 And thy dear soul in hell must lie 
 With devils to eternity. 
 
 It almost appears as though the treatment of 
 children were somehow turned about since the days 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 29 
 
 when Jesus drew the babes to his arms and blessed 
 them. The answers in the " Shorter Catechism " 
 are as a rule admirable, and the definition of the 
 chief end of man has probably never been ex- 
 celled. But to commit these answers to memory, 
 as an exercise in sheer mnemonics, must have led 
 to a wrong conception of religion. The intellect 
 rather than the heart was appealed to. And so the 
 mischief made itself apparent when a system or a 
 scheme of theology took the place of religion, and 
 the decisions of councils or assemblies, embodied 
 in carefully weighed phrases, rose between the 
 child and the simplicity that is in Christ. It 
 seems strange when we remember the picture of 
 Philip Doddridge, the little boy, learning the 
 Scripture history from the Dutch tiles in the fire- 
 place, as he sat on his mother's knee, to hear 
 Philip Doddridge the divine saying : " Without a 
 miracle it cannot be expected that much of the 
 Christian scheme could be understood by these 
 little creatures in the first dawning of reason, 
 though a few evangelical phrases may be taught 
 (to them), and sometimes, by a happy kind of acci- 
 dent, may be rightly applied." l In that saving 
 clause of concession, "a happy kind of accident," 
 lay the whole catechetical method, and among the 
 triumphs of the evangelical revival, for which no 
 
 1 Trumbull, p. 125. 
 
30 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 man sighed more sincerely or prayed more ear- 
 nestly than did Philip Doddridge, the establishment 
 and spread of the Sunday-school is assuredly one 
 of the most glorious. 
 
 Striking its roots in the Middle Ages rather 
 than in the first days of Christianity, the Puritan 
 conception of the child was so much in evidence 
 when the Sunday-school system was founded that 
 it is well for us to recognize its powerful influence. 
 It is impossible to acquit that conception of grave 
 injustice to the child himself, and consequently of 
 grave misapprehension of the minister's duty 
 toward him. 
 
 Was it not a mistake to make religion so largely 
 a matter of the understanding, to the neglect of 
 the feelings ? To do this (and it has always been 
 the weakness of Protestantism) was untrue to the 
 child's nature. In it there are wide and fruitful 
 margins of imagination bordering the hard, beaten 
 track of fact. Nothing in the child's life is felt apart 
 from its atmosphere, or looked at apart from its 
 sunlight. A child sees each thing in the concrete, 
 or else sees it not at all. 1 Perhaps in consequence 
 of this natural delight in fancy, the child finds very 
 
 1 "When I say my prayers, " a little child said lately, "I al- 
 ways see everything. When T say, ' deliver us from evil,' I see 
 God going out with a spear to fight Satan ; and when I say, ' for- 
 give us our trespasses,' I see him with a big rubber cleaning a 
 blackboard." 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 3 I 
 
 few difficulties in the narratives of the Bible. 
 Often he lives in a world of imagination ; and there 
 the axe can swim, and the cruse of salt can heal 
 the bitter waters of the fountain ; under stress of 
 circumstances there is nothing wonderful in the 
 ass speaking, and it was to be expected that the 
 whale, being prepared for the purpose, would swal- 
 low Jonah. There is no skepticism in a healthy 
 childhood, and so the highest science when once it 
 recognizes that there are more things in heaven 
 and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy, 
 sees a new application in those great words : 
 " Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as a 
 little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of 
 heaven." l 
 
 Consider also the misconception which the min- 
 ister is likely to form, under the teaching which 
 we have in view, of his duties and privileges as the 
 pastor of the lambs of the flock. 
 
 The extreme emphasis which the Puritan clergy- 
 man placed on a corrupt nature in the child would 
 be likely to befog him as he looked at children 
 themselves. He would endeavor to make them 
 square with his theology, and although it might be 
 a task as difficult and painful of accomplishment 
 as the Chinese foot-binding, yet it must be done. 
 So the child would not be understood ; and here 
 
 Matt. 
 
32 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 as elsewhere ignorance as to your material is likely 
 to prove fatal to sound building. Then, in due 
 course the time came when the pendulum swung 
 to the opposite extreme, and Channing's appeal 
 found many responsive hearers : 
 
 j You must have faith in the child whom you instruct. 
 Believe in the greatness of its nature, and in its capacity 
 of improvement. . . Have faith in his nature, especially 
 as fitted for religion. Do not, as some do, look on the 
 child as born under the curse of God, as naturally hostile 
 to all goodness and truth. . . Was it an infant demon 
 which Jesus took in his arms and said, "Of such is the 
 kingdom of heaven " ? Is the child who, as you relate to 
 him a story of suffering or generosity, listens with a tearful 
 or kindling eye and a thrilling heart, is he a child of hell ? 
 My friends, have faith in the child ; not that it is virtuous 
 and holy at birth ; for virtue or holiness is not, cannot be, 
 born with us, . . but have faith in the child as capable of 
 knowing and loving the good and the true, as having a con- 
 science to take the side of duty, as open to ingenuous mo- 
 tives for well-doing, as created for knowledge, wisdom, 
 piety, and disinterested love. l 
 
 Another evil which may be traced to an erro- 
 neous view of the resources and capacities of the 
 young, was a disbelief in their early conversion. 
 " A New England clergyman's wife," says Dr. 
 Trumbull, " told me, years ago, that when, as a 
 child, she and one or two of her playmates were 
 interested in the subject of personal religion, they 
 
 1 "Works," p. 359. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 33 
 
 dared not be detected by their parents in social 
 prayer, lest their action should be deemed irrev- 
 erent, and they were necessitated to seek Christ 
 clandestinely." 1 When the great awakening- 
 swept over Northampton, in 1734, Jonathan Ed- 
 wards was " amazed at the large numbers of chil- 
 dren who professed what he regarded as a genuine 
 experience." 2 The truth was that the conception 
 of what conversion meant had become inadequate 
 to the thing itself. There were no doubt good 
 men and true in the churches who were as much 
 scandalized at the early devotion of the young as 
 were the chief priests and scribes with the children 
 of Jerusalem crying their hosannas before the 
 Saviour as he entered the temple, and they as 
 much as the chief priests and scribes needed to 
 lay to heart the psalmist's words : " Out of the 
 mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected 
 praise." 3 
 
 Perhaps it is owing to these unrevised theologi- 
 cal conceptions, which had come centuries before 
 from the churches that made no place for conver- 
 sion in their ecclesiastical arrangements, that the 
 Sabbath-school, when first it was proposed in 
 America, found little favor with many good people 
 and some opposition from others. Professor Aus- 
 tin Phelps, in looking back to the days of his child- 
 
 1 Trumbull, p. 174. 2 Allen's "Edwards," p. 158. 
 
 3 Matt. 21 : 16. 
 
 C 
 
34 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 hood, remarks that biblical exposition was not 
 common, except in the exercises of public worship, 
 and then he goes on to say : 
 
 Nearly all the exposition of the Scriptures which the 
 people received was from their pastors and was given by 
 them from their pulpits. The formal, religious instruction 
 of children at home was confined mainly to two things, 
 the Westminster Catechism and the text of Scriptures, 
 both of which were committed to memory. Aged persons 
 are still living who give evidence of this fact in their own 
 religious culture. 
 
 The second Sabbath-school in Massachusetts was estab- 
 lished by my father, at the suggestion of a Christian lady, 
 in his parish at West Brookfield. It was done in opposi- 
 tion to the judgment of some of his most devout parish- 
 ioners. They refused to countenance the innovation by the 
 presence of their children. And he has told me that they 
 and others who favored it had reflected so little on the 
 subject that they scarcely knew what to do with the children 
 who did attend. 1 
 
 It cannot be due to mere accident that the more 
 healthful feeling and policy of the ministry and 
 the church, as regards the young people of the 
 congregation, dates from the beginning of the 
 Sunday-school era. The old New England idea 
 seems to have been that the Lord's Day was not to 
 be secularized by any kind of instruction. Not 
 even of the Bible was there to be any teaching. 
 The day was sacred to worship, and, while that 
 
 Theory of Preaching, " p. 206. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 35 
 
 worship included its full share of preaching, noth- 
 ing which savored of a school class was to intrude 
 upon it. For Bible instruction the week-day 
 schools were designed. The better class of min- 
 isters no doubt catechised in these schools, and, 
 later, in the churches, in an intelligent manner. 
 But for the rest it was easier to preach than it was 
 to catechise, and it was easier, when catechising 
 needed to be done, to keep to the words of the 
 book. So it came about that in process of time 
 the catechism was dropped in the day-school in 
 favor of secular subjects and in the church service 
 in favor of the sermon. " An untaught genera- 
 tion — untaught in any form of the divinely ap- 
 pointed Bible-school — was a sure result, and the 
 religious decline of New England was inevitable." l 
 
 Not yet, it would seem, had our forefathers dis- 
 covered that often the Sunday-school is the starting 
 place for the church. This is one lesson which 
 our home missionary societies have taught us. 
 The church to-day owes fully as much to the 
 school as the school owes to the church. How 
 emphatically true this is we may have further op- 
 portunities to point out. At present there are 
 two results of this new feeling in relation to chil- 
 dren. 
 
 First, I think the pastor came to believe, as his 
 
 1 Trumbull, pp. 88, 89. 
 
36 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 predecessors had not, in bringing children into the 
 church. He must fold as well as feed the lambs 
 of the flock. 
 
 How reasonable this sounds to us. To quote 
 Dr. Edward Judson : 1 "It is sometimes said that 
 even a child can be converted; it should be said 
 that even a grown person can be. The nearer the 
 cradle, as a rule, the nearer Christ. The most 
 intelligent Christians are readiest to accept chil- 
 dren." And so the same writer happily compares 
 the conversion of the child to crossing a stream 
 near its source. To do so is easy. " Only a step 
 will take you across, and you may even pass from 
 bank to bank without knowing it." But every 
 after mile of the river's course, broadening the 
 water, increases the difficulty of crossing. Perhaps 
 it was to meet this familiar experience that the 
 church, neglecting child conversion and Christian 
 culture, was driven to violent and artificial revival 
 methods. The still small voice had no longer a 
 hearing amid the hundred vociferating tones of 
 business and pleasure, and so the cornet, the big 
 drum, the American organ, by and by the whole 
 orchestra, had to be turned on. More than half 
 of the evils inevitable to the clamorous revival — 
 noisy, irreverent, shallow — must be placed to the 
 account of the church, which by its neglect of the 
 
 1 "The Institutional Church," p. 109. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILL) 2)7 
 
 reasonable methods pursued under the Hebrew 
 theocracy, and so on to the days of the apostles, 
 was driven to resort to methods which were often 
 as unreasonable as they were unscriptural. We 
 must of course recognize in passing that the better 
 men among the evangelistic preachers are now in 
 full and happy accord with the more excellent way 
 which we are commending. But it is difficult to 
 account for the leakage in American church-mem- 
 bership — often largest in the districts which have 
 been roused and swept by a revival — on any other 
 explanation than that the so-called conversion of 
 the young people has been preceded by no nurture 
 and followed by no training. It has been little 
 more than a passing breeze, seized at the moment 
 to fill the sails, and when that has died away, the 
 convert, numbered among the trophies of the 
 awakening, has lain 
 
 As idle as a painted ship 
 Upon a painted ocean. 
 
 The humanity of early church-fellowship must 
 be apparent. The nominal conversion of one 
 already versed in sin and sadly wise in the ways of 
 the world is often little more than the life pre- 
 server which hangs from the ceiling of the state- 
 room in an ocean steamer. Neglected at ordinary 
 times, it may be hastily assumed in a time of dan- 
 ger or alarm, perhaps to save, but perhaps and 
 
38 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 quite as probably only to entangle the wearer and 
 so hasten him to his end. The simple and natural 
 conversion of the young is like learning to swim, 
 once learned not always practised, but never to be 
 forgotten. It should be the aim of the Christian 
 minister to bring the lamb into the fold before the 
 bitter winds are abroad. A wrong is done to God, 
 to his wisdom, and to his love, by any course 
 which allows men and women to believe that 
 salvation is something which comes in only when 
 sin has run riot in the soul ; that the far country, 
 with its bitter bondage and its hard hunger, is a 
 necessary step toward the father's house and wel- 
 come. There is no need that we continue in sin 
 that grace may abound. No ; " Thou shalt call 
 his name Jesus : for he shall save his people from 
 their sins." 1 Religion is indeed an antidote when 
 the poison has been taken, but it is far more and 
 far better. It is a preventive first, and a cure 
 only when as a preventive it has not been used. 
 "I am," says Jesus, " the bread of life." The 
 journey into the far country, the riotous living, the 
 citizen's field, and the degrading companionship of 
 the swine, must have sown tares in the memory 
 of the prodigal which would, in a happier future, 
 shame and torment him, and from which he might 
 have been free had he never cried, " Father, give 
 
 1 Matt. I : 21. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 39 
 
 me the portion of goods that falleth to me." No 
 return to the God of our youth, after we have 
 wandered far from him, can take the sting from 
 the natural law in the spiritual world : " He that 
 soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corrup- 
 tion." 
 
 A pastor of long experience says : 1 
 
 We are verily guilty if we do not thoroughly believe in, 
 labor, and pray for, early conversions. Is it not written : 
 "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth " ? 
 that Eli "perceived that the Lord had called Samuel, the 
 child" ? that Josiah began, when eight years old, to seek 
 after his father' s God ? Robert Hall became a Christian 
 at twelve, Matthew Henry at seven. Mr. Spurgeon states 
 that in one year he had baptized forty children and that 
 they had held out better than an average equal number of 
 adults. 
 
 This leads me to notice the second feature in 
 our present conviction as to the relation of the 
 minister to the children in his congregation. I 
 mean the increasing importance which he attaches 
 to Christian nurture. 
 
 When Horace Bushnell used that phrase a 
 generation ago it fell upon the ear of the church 
 almost as the accent of an unknown tongue. The 
 suspicion of a strange new doctrine which attached 
 to some of the conclusions of his fresh and vigor- 
 ous volume attached, in a certain degree, even to 
 
 1 Baldwin, " A Forty-one Years' Pastorate," pp. 53, 54. 
 
40 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 its fortunate title. And yet that title was a re- 
 covery, and, like the casket brought up from the 
 sunken wreck by the diver, carried in it great 
 treasure. For Paul wrote : " And ye fathers, pro- 
 voke not your children to wrath ; but bring them 
 up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." 
 
 How early that nurture begins — if indeed it 
 can even be said to have a beginning — we need 
 not inquire. It should be the atmosphere into 
 which the new life is born. The child should no 
 more be able to recall its first breath than he can 
 recall his own first step. It goes with the birth- 
 right and is part of it. To the children that have 
 not known anything, to the little ones that cannot 
 discern between their right hand and their left 
 hand, it belongs. Can any one say when feeling 
 begins in the mind of a boy or girl ? The things 
 which still affect you the most keenly are the 
 things which cannot be traced to their source : 
 
 A boy' s will is the wind' s will, 
 
 And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. 1 
 
 It was for a draught from the well of Bethlehem 2 
 that David longed in the hot day, begirt with the 
 enemy, but when first he drank of that well no 
 Philistines rose between him and its cool waters. 
 The remembrance clung to him through sheepfold, 
 
 1 Longfellow, " My Lost Youth." 2 2 Sam. 23 : 16. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 4 1 
 
 court, and camp, and at the moment when his 
 thirst was fiercest the memory was the most tan- 
 talizing, until, turned by the valor of his three 
 mighty men into reality, it became a drink offer- 
 ing to be poured out unto the Lord. 
 
 At the earliest opportunity, and touching with 
 great care the faculties only half conscious, the 
 parent and pastor should begin the work of Chris- 
 tian nurture. " For before the harvest, when the 
 bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in 
 the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with 
 pruning hooks and take away and cut down the 
 branches." l Millet, afterward to win fame as the 
 painter of the "Angelus," was but a little boy 
 when he saw his first sunset on the waves ; his 
 first, I say, because first in the impression which 
 it made upon his mind. The splendor of the 
 scene threw the child into an ecstasy of delight. 
 11 My son," his father said, taking off his cap rev- 
 erently, " it is God." The boy never failed after 
 that to associate with the setting sun the power 
 and the goodness of God. There were after years 
 of willful wandering from him, but at length the 
 influence started by the profound word from his 
 father brought him to his true self and to his true 
 home. And so, to lift this truth to its highest set- 
 ting, we may say with Horace Bushnell, 2 speaking 
 
 1 Isa. l8: 5. 2 " Christian Nurture," pp. 11, 12. 
 
42 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 of the children thus early nurtured in the Chris- 
 tian life : 
 
 Perhaps they will go through a rough mental struggle at 
 some future day and seem to others and to themselves there 
 to have entered on a Christian life. And yet it may be true 
 that there was still some root of right principle established 
 in their childhood which is here only quickened and devel- 
 oped, as when Christians of mature age are revived in their 
 piety after a period of spiritual lethargy, for it is conceiv- 
 able that regenerate character may exist long before it is 
 fully and formally developed. 
 
 At present I am saying nothing further as to 
 the more definite and formal training which must 
 surely make an important part of this nurture. So 
 much depends upon early impressions uncon- 
 sciously received that I have been content to dwell 
 chiefly upon them. And the pastor will be remem- 
 bered by the boy as that boy grows up and leaves 
 home, and when sermon and prayer fade out of 
 his memory, more by what he was than by what 
 he said, just as to his old students at Rugby 
 Thomas Arnold was not a schoolmaster so much 
 as a very incarnation of character in the class 
 room and of devotion in the chapel. But Christian 
 nurture is incomplete if it depends only or even 
 mainly upon the power of a good example or the 
 atmosphere of a godly home. There must be 
 careful teaching based upon the truths revealed or 
 emphasized in the Bible. It was when Jehosha- 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 43 
 
 phat sought the Lord so that his heart was lifted 
 up in his ways that he instituted throughout his 
 whole kingdom the most complete system of 
 biblical instruction of which we have any record. 
 His chosen officers " taught in Judah ; and had the 
 book of the law of the Lord with them, and went 
 about throughout all the cities of Judah and taught 
 the people." l 
 
 Equally explicit, in its insistence on an intelli- 
 gent study of Scripture, is the better known pic- 
 ture of Ezra standing in the midst of the people in 
 Jerusalem, on his pulpit of wood, and to the men 
 and women and all that could hear with under- 
 standing, reading in the law of God distinctly and 
 giving the sense and causing the people to under- 
 stand the meaning. 
 
 To do this is primarily the work of the parents 
 with their children, but also of the minister as 
 well. The crown and consummation of Christian 
 nurture is not an ability to repeat in their order all 
 the books of the Bible, or to pass examinations on 
 Scripture geography or on the lives of the Herods. 
 These are but things which accompany salvation. 
 What we must aim at supremely is the develop- 
 ment of the Christian life. 
 
 My chief concern in this chapter has been with 
 that. I have tried to show how strong and deep 
 
 1 2 Chron. 17 : 7-9. 
 
44 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 is the divine love for children and what ample pro- 
 vision has always been made by our heavenly 
 Father for their religious education. Starting 
 with the far-off days when the roots of national 
 life were struck firm and deep in the family and 
 when the father was also the priest to his house- 
 hold, we have followed the divine method through 
 the life of the Hebrew people, catching the voice 
 of the child in the simple festivals which gladdened 
 the year at home, and the more splendid celebra- 
 tions in the holy city to which now and again he was 
 carried. We have seen how he went, on the week 
 day and on the Sabbath also, to the synagogue, 
 associating the acquisition of all knowledge with 
 the fear of the Lord, which was the beginning of it 
 all. We have mingled with the throng that sur- 
 rounded Jesus of Nazareth and watched his tender 
 care of the little ones, and listened to his profound 
 teaching as to children and the kingdom, and seen 
 his divine glory as it displayed itself in raising 
 young life from the grave. There was no break in 
 the line of testimony when the present Jesus be- 
 came the ascended Lord. No directions are clearer 
 than those which Paul gave to parent and children 
 alike, and no more attractive or affecting picture 
 is there than that of the old veteran and his young 
 companions, Timothy and Titus. 
 
 I have endeavored to indicate some of the cor- 
 rupting causes to which we must trace the partial 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 45 
 
 loss of this "tale of olden time, long, long ago"; 
 and with far keener zest, I trust, we have seen the 
 recovery of the true idea — so closely bound up 
 with alike the Old and the New Testament — under 
 the evangelical revival of our own era, which gave 
 to us the institution of the Sunday-school and the 
 insistence on Christian nurture. It was only after 
 he had served a painful apprenticeship to expe- 
 rience that Richard Baxter, himself a prince in 
 the pulpit, discovered that the pulpit is not the 
 only throne which the preacher has to fill, but that 
 "education is as properly a means of grace as 
 preaching." * The truth which came so late to 
 him he might have found in the old book of Prov- 
 erbs : "Train up a child in the way he should go: 
 and when he is old, he will not depart from it." 2 
 
 1 Bushnell, p. 25. 2 Pro v. 22 : 6. 
 
II 
 
 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL IN THE 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
Characteristics of the century. What led to the estab- 
 lishment of Sunday-schools. The impulse of human 
 sympathy. The evangelical revival. Precursors of the 
 Modern Sunday-school. Borromeo, Alleine, and others. 
 The originators of the Sunday-school. Robert Raikes, 
 Rowland Hill, Charles of Bala, Hannah More. Immediate 
 results. 
 
II 
 
 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL IN THE EIGHTEENTH 
 CENTURY 
 
 We are in the habit of tracing the Sunday- 
 schools of the present time to the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. While this is true, it needs to be remem- 
 bered that the causes which led to their being 
 established were in operation long before the 
 century dawned, and also that the first half of the 
 century gave scant promise of the great awakening 
 in morals and religion with which it closed. It 
 was a period of political and spiritual stagnation. 
 The statesmanship of Sir Robert Walpole expressed 
 its highest ambition in his maxim, " Quieta non 
 movere." The bishops of the Established Church 
 of England anticipated in their conduct and often 
 in their counsels Talleyrand's famous advice, 
 " Above all things, no zeal." The Nonconformists 
 were almost equally afraid of enthusiasm, and even 
 the devout Philip Doddridge, while praying for a 
 revival of religion, did not dare wish for it to come 
 in his time. 
 
 The beginning of the eighteenth century was a 
 period of moral barrenness. Politics were corrupt, 
 
 49 
 
50 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 social life was coarse, and religion, like some shallow 
 stream creeping through a region of marsh and 
 sand, moved slowly if it moved at all. The bril- 
 liant Granville had the clergy as well as the laity 
 in his thoughts when, in 1709, he wrote to his 
 friend Harley : " We constantly remember you, I 
 can't say in our prayers, for I fear we don't all 
 pray, but in our cups, for we all drink." Even 
 fifty years after this, the genial bachelor, Gilbert 
 White, the vicar of Selborne and the chronicler in 
 charming language of its natural history, loved to 
 fill his house with guests and to dance on Saturday 
 night almost to the dawn of Sunday morning. 
 
 More to our purpose is it to recognize in pass- 
 ing the widespread youthful depravity, and of this 
 we shall find abundant proof as we go on. A 
 coarse and brutal age registers its vices in the 
 children. As the Talmud puts it: "What the 
 child says out of doors he has learned indoors." 
 
 It is true that the age was not lacking — to 
 reverse a well-known epigram — in the excellencies 
 of its defects. Rude it certainly was, but it was 
 not soft ; coarse it was, and also strong. The Brit- 
 ish people prided themselves on their vigor. Pro- 
 tracted wars had indeed impoverished the land 
 and robbed the fields of a large proportion of the 
 tillers of the soil, but it should be acknowledged, 
 as one among the few helpful symptoms with 
 which the century opened, that poor and sordid as 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 5 I 
 
 were the conditions of large masses of the popula- 
 tion of England, never had a higher value been 
 set on the national virtue of courage. 
 
 Already the forces were gathering which would 
 appeal to this virtue and summon it to a nobler 
 conflict than the main in the cock-pit or the wrest- 
 ling bout on the village green. They were strong 
 men and women who before the century reached 
 its third quarter responded to the passionate ap- 
 peals of George Whitefield and built themselves 
 into the society organized by John Wesley. 
 
 The spiritual torpor of the eighteenth century 
 was effectually broken before that century touched 
 its fiftieth year. Doddridge had written his " Rise 
 and Progress of Religion in the Soul"; Wesley 
 had made the Holy Club of Oxford a spiritual 
 force in the community ; Whitefield had joined 
 two continents with the cry, "O Earth, Earth, 
 Earth, hear the word of the Lord"; John Newton 
 had yielded his sturdy and genial heart to the 
 service of Christ and his church ; and in New 
 England, Jonathan Edwards, combining with a 
 metaphysical acumen still peerless in its force an 
 imagination that Dante might have envied, had 
 flung himself into the religious quickening of his 
 parish in Northampton and started a train of con- 
 sequences which aimed at nothing less than the 
 evangelization of the world. The practical benevo- 
 lence of Robert Raikes ; the missionary zeal of 
 
52 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 William Carey; the philanthropy of Hannah More; 
 the persuasive eloquence of William Wilberforce, 
 consecrated to the cause of freedom ; and the 
 social reform of Thomas Chalmers, in which he 
 anticipated so much of the work to which the 
 church is giving itself to-day, all these, directly or 
 indirectly, had their rise in the first half of the 
 eighteenth century. When the sun of the century 
 sloped toward the west an impulse of human sym- 
 pathy was coming to be its chief glory. For the 
 prisoner languishing in his foul cell, for the lunatic 
 in his fetters, for the miserable waif in the work- 
 house, and the hapless climbing boy in the chim- 
 ney, relief was at hand. "The moral, the philan- 
 thropic, the religious ideas which have molded 
 English society into its present shape" were al- 
 ready active. 1 And when John Wesley wrote, in 
 1784, "God begins his work in children," he 
 showed where the emphasis of reformation must 
 be laid. The Sunday-school was an inevitable 
 consequence of this strong impulse of human sym- 
 pathy which throbbed in the blood of the country 
 a hundred and fifty years ago. 
 
 The evangelical revival of the same period can 
 scarcely be separated from this quickened philan- 
 thropy. The one was the works, the other the 
 faith of the same great movement. Mr. John 
 
 1 J. R. Green. 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 53 
 
 Morley says that "with the death of Cromwell the 
 brief life of Puritan theocracy in England expired. 
 It was a phase of a movement that left an inherit- 
 ance of some noble thoughts, the memory of a 
 brave struggle for human freedom, and a procession 
 of strong and capacious master spirits, with Milton 
 and Cromwell at their head. Political ends mis- 
 carry and the revolutionary leader treads a path of 
 fire." But he lights up the gloom of this apparent 
 failure of a great experience when he adds: "It is 
 our true wisdom to learn how to combine sane and 
 equitable historic verdicts with a just value for 
 those eternal qualities of high endeavor on which, 
 amid all changes of fashion, formula, direction, the 
 world's best hopes depend." Without any doubt 
 the religious revival of the eighteenth century was 
 a return to Puritanism, but it was the Puritanism 
 of the Protestant Reformation rather than that of 
 Oliver Cromwell. "The glorious Reformation" 
 was one theme of which the devout members of 
 the Established Church of England never tired, 
 and Hannah More could not forgive her favorite 
 protege, Macaulay, whose studies she had directed, 
 because in the pages of the " Edinburgh Review" 
 he expressed his admiration for the tenacious vi- 
 tality of popery. She was so grieved at his defec- 
 tion that she changed her purpose of leaving him 
 her library, a change of which the pain was, we 
 fear, greater to her than was the loss to him. 
 
54 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 When we speak of the modern Sunday-school as 
 the child of the eighteenth century we must not 
 forget the good work of earlier years, nor when 
 we call Robert Raikes its founder must we fail to 
 do justice to those who preceded him in the enter- 
 prise now so closely associated with his name. 
 The story of the Sunday-school movement cannot 
 be fairly told unless we recognize that here, as 
 elsewhere, 
 
 The healing of the world 
 
 Is in God's nameless saints. 
 
 Many of them have no memorial on earth, and 
 many more are barely known. An accident re- 
 vealed the fact, for instance, that some years 
 before Raikes began his work in Gloucester, " a 
 quiet, studious, unobtrusive Independent min- 
 ister" 1 at Nailsworth, not far away, was in the 
 habit of teaching the children of his congregation 
 on Sunday. He may have been one of many who 
 established and maintained schools for the religious 
 instruction of children independent of the move- 
 ment started by Robert Raikes. Indeed, two 
 hundred years before this time, Cardinal Borro- 
 meo drew upon himself the hatred of the monas- 
 tic order by establishing among the churches of 
 northern Italy a number of Sunday-schools. For 
 teaching poor children to read in the cathedral of 
 
 1 " Robert Raikes : The Man and His Work," Harris, p. 138. 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 55 
 
 Milan he was charged with being " a desecrator 
 of the Sabbath, the sanctuary, and his priesthood. 
 His Sunday-school was thought to be a dangerous 
 innovation." In the beautiful parish church of St. 
 Mary Magdalen, in the west of England town of 
 Taunton, the saintly Joseph Alleine catechised 
 and instructed children in the middle of the seven- 
 teenth century. There is no pleasanter picture 
 than that which shows us the vicar of Catterick 
 in Yorkshire, Theophilus Lindsay, just a hundred 
 years later, getting about him the village boys on 
 Sunday afternoons and forming them into a large 
 circle, "himself holding a Bible open in his hand, 
 with which he walked slowly around, giving it 
 regularly in succession to the boys," l so that each 
 read the book in his turn and had the passage 
 explained." Mr. Lindsay subsequently became a 
 'Unitarian, and a monument in the forecourt of the 
 Unitarian Chapel, Essex Street, London, associates 
 his name with the names of Cardinal Borromeo 
 and Robert Raikes as the " originators of Sunday- 
 schools." 
 
 Among the friends of children, and the most 
 successful workers for them, we should certainly 
 mention Isaac Watts, whose " Divine Songs " an- 
 ticipated by nearly two centuries the children's 
 book which some of the best authors of the present 
 
 1 " Robert Raikes and Northamptonshire Sunday-schools," p. I. 
 
56 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 day have given us. The change in public senti- 
 ment in this matter of writing for children may be 
 inferred from his words : " I well know that some 
 of my friends imagine my time is employed in too 
 mean a service while I write for babes ; but I con- 
 tent myself with this thought, that nothing is too 
 mean for a servant of Christ to engage in if he can 
 thereby most effectually promote the kingdom of 
 his blessed Maker." 
 
 Probably it would be fair to claim for Robert 
 Raikes that what he did was to revive and organize 
 the work of instructing children in the truths of the 
 Christian religion. This work had never entirely 
 died out. The catechism is almost as old as the 
 church. Its value in the estimation of the clergy 
 rose or declined with the rise or decline of religion. 
 Too often it " so fell into disuse that when prac- 
 tised it seemed a new thing and pious donors gave 
 legacies for its perpetuation." 1 
 
 The Reformation recognized its worth and in- 
 sisted under heavy penalties that it should be 
 maintained. With the Puritans it "grew into a 
 kind of domestic inquisition," especially in Scot- 
 land, and many among the Nonconformists of 
 England continued to employ it as the medium 
 for the religious teaching of their children. When 
 Robert Raikes writes that " Providence was pleased 
 
 1 Harris, " Robert Raikes," p. 155. 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ^7 
 
 to make me the instrument of introducing Sunday- 
 schools," he had in mind the schools of his own 
 system. A layman himself, he took the work out 
 of the hands of the clergy to the extent that 
 henceforth it was no longer doomed to depend on 
 their faithfulness for being done or to lie at the 
 mercy of their negligence for being left undone. 
 
 We have thus far been tracing the causes which 
 led to the establishment of Sunday-schools in the 
 eighteenth century, a century which before it was 
 fifty years old saw the stagnation of its earlier 
 period finally broken up, although it needed all 
 the forces which the evangelical leaders could 
 muster to lift Great Britain from her spiritual 
 torpor and put a soul behind the ribs of death. 
 The modern Sunday-school system, however, was 
 not to originate with Methodism or with the clergy 
 of the Established Church of England. In com- 
 mon with other great philanthropic enterprises, it 
 was to be born in the heart of a layman and to 
 number among its earliest advocates men and 
 women who were well known in the ranks of busi- 
 ness, politics, literature, and fashion. Of how 
 much service this was to the movement we shall 
 see if we glance at some of the prominent figures 
 in the early history of Sunday-schools. 
 
 By common consent the first place in the group 
 belongs to Robert Raikes, who was born in the 
 old cathedral city of Gloucester in 1736, lived 
 
58 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 there all his life, and there died in 1811. He 
 came of good Yorkshire stock, and his father, who 
 was printer and publisher of the " Gloucester Jour- 
 nal," was fearless in maintaining the liberty of the 
 press at the time when it was gagged and banned, 
 and high-minded in his resolve that in an age of 
 moral corruption his paper should be kept clean 
 and sweet. Ability and integrity had their reward, 
 and the Raikes family has not ceased to boast of 
 its number of men of mark in Church and State 
 down to the present time. At twenty-one, by the 
 death of his father, Robert found himself sole pro- 
 prietor of the newspaper, and his philanthropic 
 spirit can be detected in its columns from the time 
 that he became its editor. He made his paper 
 "a means of communication between the prisoners 
 and debtors, whom he found naked and starving 
 and rotting in the jail." l 
 
 A very human as well as a very humane person 
 was Robert Raikes ; gay and genial in tempera- 
 ment, with a certain childlike pleasure in his own 
 success and a simplicity of mind which never cul- 
 tivated the English virtue of reserve. He was 
 fastidious in his tastes, in his dislike of dirt and 
 disturbance, in his shrinking from what was coarse 
 and rude. Although in the estimation of the 
 cathedral city, where social lines would be drawn 
 
 1 Harris, p. 103. 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 59 
 
 strictly, he was in trade, he maintained a generous 
 house, had a handsome service of plate, and took 
 some pride in saying, "I keep no shop." The 
 circumstance which led to his interesting himself 
 in the depraved and neglected children of Glouces- 
 ter may have been that when he was reading proof 
 in his office he was "much annoyed by children 
 playing under his very nose." And if this offended 
 his taste, his moral sense was still more shocked 
 when through the window came their curses as 
 they quarreled and fought over their hop-scotch, 
 five-stones, and chuck. 
 
 Perhaps to moralize was a characteristic of the 
 age in which he lived, but the moralizing of the 
 eighteenth century too often ended on itself. Not 
 so in the case of Raikes. " Ignorance," * he wrote, 
 "is the root of the degradation everywhere around 
 us"; "idleness is a consequence of ignorance"; 
 " prevention is better than cure " ; " religion must 
 wait on improved education among the masses 
 before we shall be able to make much advance, 
 but religion and education may go together." A 
 more excellent way than begging in the columns 
 of his newspaper for pence for starving prisoners 
 was now in sight. It took him twenty years to 
 come to the conclusion that any genuine reforma- 
 tion must begin, not in the cells of the Gloucester 
 
 1 Harris, p. 72. 
 
60 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 jails, but in the gutters of Gloucester streets, that 
 even his Sunday-schools were not sufficient, but 
 that education the whole week through must be 
 tried. The conclusion once reached was held to 
 tenaciously to the end. That he was a layman 
 and a journalist in the tide of public affairs, and 
 given to regarding them as a citizen rather than as 
 an ecclesiastic, was an augury for good, but it was 
 fortunate also that with a message to a country in 
 which Church meant the national establishment 
 and State meant the government of King George 
 III., he was a loyal Episcopalian. William King, 
 a woolen card-maker, who was a Dissenter and a 
 follower of Whitefield, talking over the desecration 
 of the Sabbath with him, said that he himself had 
 tried to open a Sunday-school in his native village, 
 but "that from multitude of business through the 
 week he could not attend to it as he wished." " It 
 will not do for Dissenters," rejoined Raikes, "it 
 must be from the Church." He was attached to 
 his sovereign, lighted bonfires when the news of 
 British victories reached the office, attended with 
 alacrity the mock execution of Tom Paine (found 
 guilty of treason and sentenced as an outlaw), and 
 read the book of Revelation and the Prophets for 
 references to the politics of France and her bewil- 
 dered republic. 
 
 When, in a very quiet way, he started his first 
 Sunday-school, it was for boys only. An old man 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 6 1 
 
 who lived into the sixties of the last century re- 
 membered being sent to a Sunday-school in Sooty 
 Alley, opposite the City Prison, — called Sooty 
 Alley because the chimney sweeps lived there, — 
 and while he did not recall learning anything, his 
 memory carrying him back over eighty years, 
 testified that there were no girls in the school and 
 that the boys were " turrible bad." This was in 
 1780. Within three years the young savages were 
 brought into some kind of order, the girls, little 
 better at first than they, were admitted, and when 
 William Wilberforce was brought to see the school 
 the boys had learned to bow and the girls 
 to courtesy when strangers entered the room. 
 The children repeated simple prayers and the 
 catechism, and answered Bible questions, and 
 sang Doctor Watts' hymns. When Mr. Raikes 
 marched his children to church every Sunday 
 their clean clothes and good behavior made them 
 conspicuous in the congregation. They no longer 
 stuck pins into one another during service, nor 
 fought and swore so that the parish beadle had to 
 be called in to expel them. The fastidious Mr. 
 Raikes, whom his fellow-citizens were wont to 
 sneer at as a dandy, sat among them and kept 
 them under control by the power of his presence 
 as much as by the fear of his rod. 
 
 Closely associated with Robert Raikes was 
 Rev. Thomas Stock, a clergyman, who was also 
 
62 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 headmaster of the Gloucester Cathedral School. 
 The two men seem to have met by accident one 
 day, and, comparing notes, the one with an expe- 
 rience gathered from editing his paper and visiting 
 the jail, the other with an experience gained in 
 country parishes where he had tried to teach the 
 children their catechism, determined that some- 
 thing must be done to reclaim the young ruffians 
 swarming in the streets around them. Stock was 
 a man of gentler spirit than Raikes, with his tem- 
 per under better control, and a nature patient and 
 yet firm. 1 It is said that the rules which he drew 
 up for the conduct of his schools gave the model 
 for those adopted later by the Sunday-school com- 
 mittees. The old house still shown in St. Catha- 
 rine Street, Gloucester, although it has been 
 changed somewhat in the course of years, is sub- 
 stantially the same as it was when "a school was 
 established in it by the joint enterprise of Raikes 
 and Stock." 2 To this hour the house goes by 
 the name of " Robert Raikes' first Sunday-school." 
 The fact that Raikes lived in a dull cathedral 
 city, hard to stir to any enthusiasm or win over to 
 any new methods, makes his success all the more 
 remarkable. But it also accounts for the com- 
 parative indifference with which for a long time 
 his work was regarded, as well as for the feeling 
 
 1 Harris, p. 107. 2 Ibid., p. 35. 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 63 
 
 of depression against which even his gay nature 
 and sanguine temperament were not always proof. 
 " I walk alone," he said. " It seems as if I had 
 discovered a new country where no adventurer 
 chooses to follow." But this was far from being 
 a fair statement of the case. Into the new coun- 
 try which he had so far discovered the quickened 
 evangelical life of England was not long in follow- 
 ing him. In London, Rowland Hill, the minister 
 of Surrey Chapel and one of the most original of 
 men, in the foremost rank of the pulpit orators 
 of his time, and responsive to the cry of humanity 
 whenever its tones reached him, began a Sunday- 
 school about 1784. It is interesting to note that 
 in the schoolroom of his chapel the Religious 
 Tract Society was formed five years later, and 
 that it grew out of the demands of the new enter- 
 prise. In the same room in 1803 the Sunday- 
 school Union was inaugurated. 1 Closely connected 
 with these movements was the work of the Rev. 
 T. Charles, of Bala, who, beginning Sunday-schools 
 in Wales, was gladdened by a wonderful religious 
 awakening in his parish and the whole country- 
 side, largely attributable to the Sunday-school 
 instruction. From this revival sprang the call for 
 Welsh Bibles, and it was when he made his way to 
 London, and before his colleagues on the com- 
 
 1 "Northamptonshire Sunday-schools, " p. 18. 
 
64 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 mittee of the Religious Tract Society pleaded that 
 a society should be formed to supply the Scriptures 
 to the Welsh people in their own tongue, that 
 Rev. Joseph Hughes, secretary of the Tract So- 
 ciety, uttered the memorable words, " If for Wales, 
 why not also for the empire and the world?" from 
 which grew the British and Foreign Bible Society. 
 The Sunday-school was a parent of the other two 
 societies, in the same way as demand is the parent 
 of supply. 
 
 What Robert Raikes did for the children of the 
 city, Hannah More did for the children of the 
 country. 1 One of five sisters, daughters of a 
 Suffolk gentleman of damaged fortune but high 
 character, who became the head master of a school 
 in Gloucester, Hannah More sat on her father's 
 knee as a little child listening to the poetry of 
 Virgil, Horace, and Homer, and at seventeen had 
 written a drama to be acted by the pupils of her 
 sisters' school which at once brought her into 
 notice. She was twenty-seven when she paid her 
 first visit to London. Garrick, who had met with 
 a criticism of his acting from her pen, introduced 
 her to his wife, in whom she found her most inti- 
 mate friend ; Reynolds, the greatest living English 
 painter, made dinners in her honor; at the house 
 of Mrs. Delaney she touched a former generation 
 
 1 Born 1745. 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 65 
 
 when she shook hands with Horace Walpole ; the 
 bluestockings of London welcomed her as one of 
 themselves; Edmund Burke, the incomparable 
 orator, paid her compliments as sincere as they 
 were graceful ; and the famous Samuel Johnson 
 approached her in his most affable mood, toying 
 with a macaw on his finger and reciting a verse 
 from a hymn which she had composed. Her 
 sprightly letters remain as the chronicle of her 
 social and literary triumphs. As we read them, 
 however, we notice their tone growing more seri- 
 ous. Even when at the crest of the wave of 
 fashion she had craved a quiet which London 
 could not give, and in the intoxicating hour when 
 her play of "Percy" ran neck and neck with "The 
 School for Scandal" in the race for popularity, 
 "being of the Christian faction," she firmly de- 
 clined all invitations to Sunday dinners and routs. 
 The death of Garrick and her close companionship 
 with his widow (whose "domestic chaplain" Han- 
 nah was jocularly called) cut her aloof from the 
 pleasures of the town, and before long her heart 
 was wholly given to God. 1 She settled at Cowslip 
 Green, ten miles from Bristol and ten from the 
 romantic Cheddar Cliffs, where she was so shocked 
 at the condition of the villagers about her that 
 she wrote to a friend, " I have devoted the rem- 
 
 1 "Hannah More's Memoirs," Vol. I., p. 400. 
 E 
 
66 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 nant of my life to the poor and those that have no 
 helper, and if I can do them little good I can at 
 least sympathize with them, and I know it is some 
 comfort for a forlorn creature to be able to say, 
 'There is something that cares for me.'" From 
 that time until her death, at eighty-eight years of 
 age, she remained constant to her resolve. To 
 supply the spiritual and intellectual needs of vil- 
 lage children, " immersed in deplorable ignorance 
 and depravity," she opened first one school and 
 then another, battling with the prejudice of the 
 farmers, the brutality of the squires, and the open 
 or concealed opposition of the parsons, and bringing 
 to bear on the boors of Somersetshire villages all 
 the arts of coquetry which had once been practised 
 in the drawing rooms of London. " Miss Wilber- 
 force," she wrote to William Wilberforce, the most 
 fascinating of philanthropists, who shared with 
 herself and others the expenses of her enterprise, 
 " would have been shocked had she seen the petty 
 tyrants whose insolence I stroked and tamed, the 
 ugly children I praised, the pointers and spaniels I 
 caressed, the cider I commended, and the wine 
 I swallowed." l In the end she conquered. The 
 schools were rapidly filled with boys and girls. 
 The teaching in the class on Sunday naturally 
 paved the way for simple services for older people. 
 
 1 "Memoirs," Vol. I., p. 339. 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 67 
 
 The clergy were shamed into activity and found 
 their hands again. Her house at Barley Wood 
 " became a Mecca whither pilgrims of all sorts 
 resorted ; not the leaders of the evangelical school 
 alone, but many others came to listen to her bril- 
 liant conversation, yield to her enthusiastic philan- 
 thropy, and own that here was a religion which 
 was as cheerful as it was sincere and as inspiring 
 as it was practical." 1 It is easy to see why the 
 Sunday-schools of Robert Raikes and Hannah 
 More attracted a notice which might have been 
 denied to the school of the clergyman of the 
 parish or the minister of the dissenting meeting- 
 house. It was impossible to look on them as 
 simply work demanded by a sense of duty. The 
 journalist who was thoroughly successful in his 
 honorable calling and the literary lion who for 
 more than one season was the rage of London 
 deliberately devoted their lives to reaching the 
 children of city slums and country hamlets with 
 the truths of the gospel. Evidently religion was 
 no profession to be practised by the clergy only, but 
 rather a life to be lived out by every true follower 
 of Him who went about doing good. Business 
 paused to watch Robert Raikes as he marshaled 
 his waifs into church, and frivolity grew serious, at 
 least for a moment, as the irresistible Hannah 
 
 1 Overton, "The English Church in the Nineteenth Century," 
 p. 91. 
 
68 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 More was seen ministering to the plowboys of 
 Somersetshire. This was religion in earnest. It 
 meant something. It was the happy fate of Han- 
 nah More, living to extreme old age, " to see the 
 battle against vice and ignorance, which at first 
 she waged if not single-handed at any rate with 
 the support of a very few, ultimately carried on 
 by a large and formidable army in all parts of the 
 country." l She is really a link between the 
 chapter in the history of Sunday-schools which 
 tells the story of their birth and that which details 
 the story of their progress. At the immediate 
 results of the Sunday-school enterprise we must 
 now glance in closing this part of our subject. 
 
 In 1780 the Sunday-school was an experiment. 
 Within five years it was an assured success. The 
 " Gentleman's Magazine," still famous in the his- 
 tory of literature from its association with the 
 early struggles of Samuel Johnson, and at that 
 time the most influential journal in Great Britain, 
 understands that " the establishment of Sunday- 
 schools (1784) is becoming very general." To 
 "the truly benevolent Mr. Raikes," it informs its 
 readers, " it is incredible with what rapidity this 
 grain of mustard seed is extending its branches 
 over the kingdom." Raikes estimated the num- 
 ber of children under Sunday instruction in Eng- 
 
 1 Overton, p. 91. 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 69 
 
 land and Wales in 1780 at two hundred and fifty 
 thousand; the Bishop of Salisbury warmly recom- 
 mends the schools; the Bishop of Llandaff takes 
 some steps toward introducing them into the large 
 towns of his diocese; the Dean of Lincoln be- 
 lieves that the contemplation of criminal England 
 " would be a gloomy office but for the establish- 
 ment of Sunday-schools"; the devoted Fletcher, 
 of Madeley, begins six schools in his district, and 
 marks not only moral reformation but spiritual 
 quickening among both young and old. 1 
 
 In America the growth of the Sunday-school 
 system was so general and so rapid that it is hard 
 to say just where the first seed was sown. A 
 Sunday-school was organized as early as 1780 in 
 Virginia under the directors of Bishop Asbury ; 
 in 1791 Philadelphia saw a Sunday-school society 
 formed to secure religious instruction for poor 
 children, which continues active still ; in the same 
 year a Sunday-school was started in Boston ; and 
 two years after, Kate Ferguson, a Negro, began 
 one in New York ; in 1797 the first Baptist Sunday- 
 school was begun at Pawtucket, R. I., 2 and was 
 modeled upon the plan of the Raikes' schools in 
 England ; before the century closed the Sunday- 
 school was an accepted and essential agency of 
 any progressive church ; while out of systematic 
 
 1 "Johnson's Cyclopaedia," art. "Sunday-schools." 
 2 " A Century of Baptist Achievement," p. 236. 
 
yO THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 Sunday-school movements in Pittsburg, Pa., in 
 Philadelphia, in New York, and in Boston, grew the 
 American Sunday-school Union, which was organ- 
 ized in 1824. The first Sunday-school in Canada 
 would seem to have been organized by Rev. Wil- 
 liam Smart, a young pioneer preacher, at Brook- 
 ville, in the year 181 1, almost immediately on his 
 coming to America from England. 
 
 Of course there was opposition. The bishops 
 were by no means unanimous in their approval, 
 and many of their clergy were open in their oppo- 
 sition. The alarmists feared that "the education 
 of the poor would unfit them for menial service, 
 raise discontent, and foment rebellion." In Scot- 
 land a prominent Presbyterian minister declared 
 that while Sunday-schools might be needed in 
 England, where few parents in common life were 
 qualified to instruct their children in the principles 
 of true religion, no such argument held good in 
 regard to his native country. Sunday-schools were 
 " reflections on every parish where they were ap- 
 pointed." Yet this was the very country in which 
 Thomas Chalmers before long unearthed the de- 
 pravity of Glasgow, and where within fifty years 
 Thomas Guthrie, plunging into the reeking wynds 
 of Edinburgh, founded ragged schools. The Sun- 
 day-school, however, was destined to conquer, and 
 in 1798 a society was formed in Edinburgh called 
 " The Sabbath Evening School Society," having 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY /I 
 
 for its object the extension of the system to the 
 country at large. In the north of Ireland an inde- 
 pendent effort on behalf of the neglected children 
 of a country district was made by Doctor Ken- 
 nedy, 1 curate of Bright parish, County Down, and 
 out of a singing class established by him in 1774 
 grew a school held regularly every Sunday for an 
 hour and a half before the morning service. It 
 was not until eleven years later that he learned of 
 the work of Robert Raikes and remodeled his own 
 school on the Gloucester plan. 
 
 The moral reformation wrought by the early 
 Sunday-schools was matter for general remark. 
 "No plan," wrote Adam Smith, "has promised to 
 effect a change of manner with equal ease since 
 the days of the apostles." 2 Children once con- 
 spicuous for brutality and profaneness became 
 quiet and respectful and Sunday revels and wakes 
 were suppressed. Formerly a day of licentious 
 idleness, Sunday was now in hundreds of parishes 
 a day of public worship. Children who used to go 
 about begging of any stranger that came into the 
 village now went to church and behaved well. At 
 Bolton, as the children sang their hymns, John 
 Wesley thought that their voices could not be ex- 
 celled unless it might be by " the singing of angels 
 in our Father's house." As they grew up with a 
 
 1 Harris, p. 181. 2 Ibid., p. 129. 
 
72 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 knowledge of reading, the young farmers, abandon- 
 ing the public house, took to reading, and used 
 " their bacon racks in the double capacity of book- 
 cases." l " The Sunday-schools established by Mr. 
 Raikes," says Green, "were the beginnings of 
 popular education. By her writings and by her 
 own personal example Hannah More drew the 
 sympathy of England to the poverty and crime of 
 the agricultural laborer." It is not claiming too 
 much for Robert Raikes and Hannah More to say 
 that by their devotion to the children of the poor 
 in city and country they prepared the way for the 
 career of the Earl of Shaftesbury, and made pos- 
 sible the reforms in the treatment of the boys and 
 girls in the factory and on the farm in which his 
 great name is embalmed. 
 
 The second half of the eighteenth century, in 
 striking contrast with the first, saw both England 
 and America stirred to a new passion for the 
 Christian life. The evangelical awakening which 
 we associate with the consecrated generalship of 
 Wesley, the pleadings of Jonathan Edwards, the 
 apostolic zeal of Whitefield, the missionary enter- 
 prise of Carey, found in the Sunday-school a most 
 fertile field for prayer sowing and joyful reaping. 
 George III. recognized the true source of Eng- 
 land's strength when, visiting a Sunday-school at 
 
 1 Harris, pp. 79, 80. 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 73 
 
 Brentford, he uttered the wish " that every poor 
 child in my kingdom should be taught to read the 
 Bible." The king builded better than he knew 
 when he said this, for he unconsciously defined 
 what the true mission of the Sunday-school was to 
 be. Following the Revolutionary War, the earlier 
 efforts of the Sunday-school in England and 
 America " were in line with those of Robert 
 Raikes in England, religious teaching being held 
 secondary to secular and moral instruction. In 
 proportion as secular and public schools were pro- 
 vided for communities, the work so changed that 
 religious teaching became the dominant purpose." 1 
 In the Baptist Sunday-school at Pawtucket, to 
 which I have already referred as organized in 
 1797, it was not until eight years later that the 
 distinctly religious features were introduced. 2 
 Slowly the Bible came to its own, but by the 
 close of the eighteenth century, while very much 
 remained to be done, — as indeed much remains 
 to be done still, — it was generally recognized that 
 the Sunday-school was not a means of moral 
 reformation alone, but more and also better. It 
 was a medium for distinctively Christian teaching, 
 fairly to be included in the Commission of its 
 Divine Founder: "Go ye into all the world and 
 preach the gospel to every creature." 
 
 1 Dr. C. R. Blackall. 
 2 " A Century of Baptist Achievement," p. 236. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL IN THE 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
The decline of Sunday-schools with the opening century. 
 Causes in England. Secular education. Political condi- 
 tions. Growth of cities and increase of child labor. Inade- 
 quate organization. The revived interest in Sunday-schools 
 due (i) to better organization ; Sunday-school Unions ; 
 statistics of growth, Great Britain and America ; (2) to better 
 teaching ; the catechism ; the use of the Bible ; the Inter- 
 national Lesson Series. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL IN THE NINETEENTH 
 CENTURY 
 
 It will be remembered that in the early days of 
 the Sunday-school movement there was, in England 
 certainly, a necessity for better secular teaching. 
 How to read and write and even to cypher the 
 scholar needed to learn before he could with any 
 measure of intelligence study the Bible. In the 
 estimation of Robert Raikes ignorance was the 
 root of the degradation which he found everywhere 
 around him. Even religion itself, said he. had "to 
 wait on improved education." Simultaneously, 
 about the beginning of the nineteenth century two 
 men became interested in popular education, and, 
 I had almost said, stumbled on a plan of employ- 
 ing the elder scholars to teach the younger. This 
 plan lay at the foundation of the systems with 
 which their names are associated. These two 
 men were Dr. Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster. 1 
 When a chaplain at Madras, Doctor Bell happened 
 in an early morning ride to pass by a Malabar 
 school where he saw a number of children seated 
 
 1 Overton, p. 236, et seq. 
 
 77 
 
yS THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 on the ground writing with their fingers on the 
 sand. It suggested itself to him that the older 
 scholars in the British Military Orphan Asylum 
 could under his care teach the younger ones their 
 letters in this primitive way. Out of this sprang 
 the pupil-teacher system. A few years later a 
 poor Quaker lad, barely twenty years of age, 
 named Joseph Lancaster, obtained from his father 
 the use of a room in the Borough Road, in London, 
 in which he might keep a cheap school for the 
 poor in the neighborhood. To this school scholars 
 came in abundance, but money did not. He could 
 not afford to pay an assistant, and so was "com- 
 pelled to make use of the services of his pupils to 
 teach each other as monitors, and this practice, 
 the sheer offspring of necessity, ended in the 
 demonstration and definition of the power of one 
 master to teach hundreds." Doctor Bell was an 
 Episcopalian, and held that the national religion 
 must be the foundation of national education. 
 The parochial system was ready to his hand, and 
 so, under the "National Society," "national 
 schools " were planted or revived in the parishes 
 of England. Joseph Lancaster was a Quaker, and 
 believed that secular education, while it was not 
 to be irreligious, should be strictly undenomina- 
 tional. Out of this conviction came the " British 
 and Foreign School Society," with its widespread 
 network of British schools. I glance at the for- 
 
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 79 
 
 gotten controversy as to the priority of Bell or 
 Lancaster only to call attention to its influence 
 on Sunday-schools. Undoubtedly the revived in- 
 terest in national education hastened the settle- 
 ment of the moot question whether the combina- 
 tion of secular with religious instruction in the 
 Sunday-school needed to be any longer continued. 
 But another result was that the growth of the 
 spirit of nonconformity led to the conclusion that 
 the children of parents who were dissenters ought 
 to be at liberty to go to their own places of wor- 
 ship, instead of being marched, as in the time of 
 Robert Raikes and Hannah More, to the parish 
 church. This was the arrangement which Joseph 
 Lancaster made in his schools. Plainly the lines 
 between conformity and nonconformity to the Es- 
 tablished Church were to be tightly drawn in the 
 matter of both sacred and secular schooling. 
 When the nineteenth century began, Sunday- 
 schools were slowly feeling their way to their true 
 vocation. It was only twenty years since the first 
 school was opened by Raikes in Gloucester. The 
 prospering gale was not yet filling out the canvas 
 of the good ship, and at times her sails flapped 
 ominously in the wind. The early years of the 
 new century were indeed in many directions years 
 not of progress, but of decline. In America, ac- 
 cording to Dr. H. Clay Trumbull, " Bible study 
 and Bible teaching were at a lower ebb than at 
 
80 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUN DAY-SCHOOL 
 
 any earlier period." l In Great Britain, neither 
 Church nor State was clear in its mind as to what 
 this innovation, with its strong infusion of the lay 
 and voluntary elements, portended. The French 
 Revolution had outraged the conservative preju- 
 dices, which the country gentlemen of England mis- 
 took for principles, and strengthened the conviction 
 that the masses of the people could only be kept 
 quiet by being kept ignorant. Sunday-schools 
 were or would be " nurseries of Jacobinism." Even 
 a bishop of intelligence so far violated the usual 
 episcopal caution as to declare of some of the 
 schools held in connection with the conventicles 
 of the dissenters that there was much ground for 
 suspicion " that sedition and atheism are the real 
 objects of these institutions." " Indeed," he added 
 with unpardonable vagueness, " in some places this 
 is known to be the case." This alarm was neither 
 widespread nor long-lived. The cure for it, as that 
 same bishop pointed out, was for the clergy of the 
 Church of England to promote the establishment 
 of Sunday-schools in their parishes. As a rule 
 the clergy took this advice, and " at the commence- 
 ment of the nineteenth century the Sunday-school 
 had become a part of the regular organization of 
 almost every well-worked parish." 2 
 
 A more powerful reason for the temporary 
 
 1 Harris, p. 220. 2 Overton, p. 245. 
 
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 8 1 
 
 eclipse in the progress of Sunday-schools in the 
 Old Country is to be found in the decline of the 
 evangelical party. It was still indeed the strong- 
 est party in the national church, and remained so 
 for twenty-five years more, but its leaders were 
 passing away, and the fervor of its first zeal was 
 dying out. We need also to remember that the 
 Sunday-school was not at this time a purely volun- 
 tary system. Teachers were still paid in many 
 instances. The need for secular instruction was 
 still recognized. The Board school, now almost 
 universal in England, with its improved methods 
 of teaching, came nearer to the sunset than to the 
 dawn of the century. The Sunday-school was not 
 as yet so entirely religious as to appeal to the 
 passion for souls, which was the distinguishing 
 feature of the evangelical revival, a passion which 
 held its own even when the revival was treasured 
 among the traditions of a great past. Nor had 
 that revival laid hold on the mass of the clergy, 
 otherwise than to either shame or stimulate them 
 into a life somewhat worthier of their sacred call- 
 ing and less indifferent to their ordination vows. 
 The clergyman of that time was no longer the 
 clergyman of Fielding's novels, but neither was he 
 the minister of Paul's letter to Titus. 1 "He 
 farmed his own glebe," says Froude, "kept horses, 
 
 1 Overton, p. 16. 
 F 
 
82 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 shot and hunted moderately, and mixed in general 
 society. His wife and daughters looked after the 
 poor and taught in the Sunday-school." The de- 
 cline in the first enthusiasm for Sunday-schools 
 was only one symptom of the decline in evangeli- 
 cal religion, or, as perhaps it would be fairer to put 
 it, in the failure of evangelical religion to over- 
 come the inertness of the long years of spiritual 
 lethargy and unfaithfulness. 1 The Sunday-school 
 had not, so far, found its feet. It had not defined 
 the path which it was hereafter to pursue. 
 
 What has just been said of the Sunday-school is 
 also true of Great Britain at large. She had the 
 excellence of "the giant's strength," but too often 
 she used it tyrannously, " like a giant." She had 
 not yet learned how to control her own resources. 
 The development of machinery and the application 
 of the power of steam had given an immense 
 impulse to her manufactories, and — what we need 
 to notice for the bearing it has upon our subject — 
 the great centers where these manufactories were 
 being carried on " became studded with vast mills 
 surrounded by a densely crowded population, and 
 a demand for the labor of women and children 
 had been created which gave rise to frightful 
 abuses and cruelties." 2 The village life of Eng- 
 land was no longer the country's chief pride. The 
 
 1 Overton, p. 5. 
 2 Hodder, "The Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, " p. 20. 
 
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 83 
 
 population of the kingdom was increasing by 
 gigantic strides, and that population was centering, 
 a black ominous mass, in the manufacturing towns. 
 To meet this changed condition of things, neither 
 the government nor the church was ready. To 
 quote the biographer of the Earl of Shaftesbury : 
 
 There were no efficient educational laws in existence ; 
 industrial schools, mechanics' institutes, workingmen's 
 clubs were unknown ; the poor laws were pauperizing and 
 degrading ; the science of sanitation, a free newspaper 
 press, limited liability, employers' liability, all these had 
 yet to be. The church was in a state of lethargy, and the 
 vast machinery of philanthropy, with which we have been 
 familiar since the beginning of the second half of the nine- 
 teenth century, was only in its infancy. 1 
 
 The increased demand for child labor would 
 naturally affect the Sunday-school. In common 
 with every humane enterprise, if not blocked by 
 the greed of the manufacturer it would be chilled 
 by the indifference of an age to which, as never 
 before, material issues were appealing. For nearly 
 half a century this condition of things was to con- 
 tinue, until Lord Ashley (afterward Earl of Shaftes- 
 bury) gave a voice to the people, appealing on 
 behalf of humanity at the bar of public opinion. 
 "We ask," he cried, in bringing in his " Bill for 
 the Regulation of Labor in Factories," " but a 
 slight relaxation of toil, a time to live and a time 
 
 1 Hodder, pp. 114, 115. 
 
84 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 to die; a time for those comforts that sweeten life 
 and a time for those duties that adorn it." * Eng- 
 land, outside of Parliament, was more ready to 
 respond to the dumb appeal of the overworked 
 and underfed millions of her population than were 
 her rulers ; but Sir Robert Peel was taken aback 
 when to his sarcastic inquiry whether the House 
 of Commons was prepared to " legislate for all 
 these people," and for restriction of hours of labor 
 in agriculture, the House broke out in a tremen- 
 dous cheer. Now this battle for the people was 
 also the battle for the Sunday-school. 
 
 Undoubtedly the most serious obstacle to the 
 healthful growth of Sunday-schools a hundred 
 years ago was lack of system. The experimental 
 period had not yet been passed. There was no 
 large combination of Sunday-school workers for 
 general conference and united action. Just as the 
 first carriages which ran by steam were modeled 
 on the unmeaning lines of the ancient stagecoach, 
 so the first Sunday-schools were modeled on the 
 lines of the day-schools. The teachers in the 
 schools which Raikes began in Gloucester and 
 Hannah More in Cheddar were all paid. At a 
 Sunday-school anniversary in Northamptonshire, in 
 1789, we find that, " in addition to the one or two 
 shillings, or even more, received as wages, ' rewards 
 
 1 Hodder, p. 23- 
 
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 85 
 
 for diligence' were bestowed upon the teachers." l 
 The unpaid teacher, in common with the lay 
 preacher, seems to be a fruit of early Methodism. 
 A number of Wesleyan office bearers were lament- 
 ing their inability to hire teachers for want of 
 funds, when one of them, bolder than the rest, 
 said, " Let us do the work ourselves." Then, and 
 not before, the work got done. As early as 1785 
 Wesley records that there were teachers in his 
 schools who gave their services gratuitously. The 
 Sunday-school " treat" of to-day is probably a sur- 
 vival of the time when boys and girls had to be 
 lured to school by pious bribes. Presents of 
 clothes were made to scholars in the days of 
 Raikes : " Straw hats and blue bands," in one 
 instance, " to all the girls ; black hats and blue 
 bands to all the boys." By his will Robert Raikes 
 directed that "his Sunday scholars should follow 
 his remains to the grave, each receiving a shilling 
 and a plum cake." The remembrance of these 
 funeral baked meats lingered in the mind of at least 
 one of these scholars, Mrs. Summerhill, until 
 1880. "On his next birthday after the funeral," 
 she added, "we all went to a house in Bolt Lane 
 and had a good dinner of roast beef and plum pud- 
 ding." Writing half a century since, the late 
 Hugh Stowell Brown, of Liverpool, says: "It is 
 
 1 "Northamptonshire Schools," pp. 15, 16. 
 
86 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 curiously illustrative of the change of customs, 
 that in our first Sunday-school treats, more than 
 forty years ago, the children were regaled with 
 cake and wine." Very slowly the conception of 
 the Sunday-school as an institution formed on the 
 model of the day-school, with rewards and treats 
 thrown in to attract where attendance could not 
 be peremptorily enforced, died out. Between its 
 disappearance and the general acceptance of the 
 modern idea of a purely voluntary institution, in 
 which love was lure enough, there was a time 
 when the Sunday-school declined. In the city of 
 Gloucester, for example, the cradle of the Sunday- 
 school, and ten years before the death of Robert 
 Raikes, unpaid teaching was made general, but 
 not before the old system had shown ominous 
 signs of decrepitude. 1 Six young men, lamenting 
 the decline of Sunday-schools in the city, banded 
 themselves together with the determination to 
 revive them. All their efforts were in vain, until, 
 having resolved to do the work themselves, " gath- 
 ering one night, after business hours, around a 
 post at the corner of a lane, within twenty yards of 
 the spot where Bishop Hooper was martyred, they 
 clasped each other by the hand, and with rever- 
 ently uncovered heads resolved that, come what 
 would, Sunday-schools in Gloucester should be 
 
 1 "Northamptonshire Schools," p. 17. 
 
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 87 
 
 re-established. As a fund to start with they sub- 
 scribed a half-crown each, and then dividing the 
 city into districts, they canvassed it for scholars. 
 On the following Sunday upward of one hundred 
 children attended, and from that time forward the 
 work prospered." 
 
 The revival of Sunday-schools after the setback 
 in the early years of the nineteenth century seems 
 to be chiefly due to general organization and to 
 better methods of teaching. 
 
 The British Sunday-school Union dates from 
 1803, and grew out of a weekly meeting of active 
 teachers who, grappling with the needs of London, 
 "found reason to lament the want of plan and 
 order, and desired some means by which the neg- 
 lected districts might be supplied with schools 
 and young persons of suitable dispositions be in- 
 duced to undertake the work." 1 A union "de- 
 signed to consist of teachers and others actively 
 engaged in some Protestant Sunday-school " was 
 formed. From London it spread over the whole 
 country. In 1824, to guarantee the Christian 
 character of the institution, a doctrinal limitation 
 was resolved upon, as twelve years earlier the 
 schools connected with the union had been recom- 
 mended not to teach reading, writing, and spelling 
 in their classes on Sunday, "the same being con- 
 ic/: W. H. Watson, "The Sunday-school Union." 
 
88 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 sidered as a breach of the sanctity of that day." * 
 The earlier publications of the Union, however, 
 virtually acknowledged the general lack of a com- 
 mon school training by furnishing more than one 
 "Introduction to Reading." 
 
 After nine years of quiet growth the union 
 "made its proceedings more public" by inviting 
 the teachers and friends of Sunday-schools to a 
 breakfast at the New London Tavern. This essen- 
 tially British function, worthy of a robust people, 
 became so popular that although the hour of the 
 meal was placed at six o'clock, by 1832 the attend- 
 ance exceeded one thousand two hundred, and an 
 attempt was made (happily without success) to ex- 
 clude ladies. The first Sunday-school " Notes " seem 
 to have been published in "The Teachers' Maga- 
 zine" in 1841, and as early as 1816 a hymn book 
 for teachers was issued, followed six years later by 
 one for the use of scholars. The Sunday-school 
 Union celebrated the jubilee of Sunday-schools on 
 the 14th of September, 1831, the anniversary of 
 Robert Raikes' birthday, and in July, 1852, with 
 the commencement of the fiftieth year of its exist- 
 ence, its own jubilee was commemorated by public 
 meetings in London (including the inevitable break- 
 fast), and by starting a fund to put up a Jubilee 
 Memorial Building, which was completed in 1856. 
 
 1 Watson, p. iq. 
 
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 89 
 
 The first general Sunday-school Convention grew 
 out of a conference of evangelical Christians of all 
 nations held at Geneva in 1861. It gathered in 
 London in September, 1862, at the time of the 
 International Exhibition, and among the speakers 
 from abroad was Mr. Albert Woodruff, of New 
 York, who had devoted himself to Sunday-school 
 work in France, Italy, and Germany, and Rev. J. 
 H. Vincent, of Illinois, whose name is now united 
 with that of Mr. B. F. Jacobs as prominent in the 
 annals of American Sunday-schools. 
 
 In America, as in Great Britain, there were, 
 very early in the history of Sunday-schools, unions 
 of teachers for purposes of fellowship and study. 
 The century, as we have seen, opened with Bible 
 study and Bible teaching at a lower ebb than at 
 any earlier period. It was the Sunday-school 
 wisely and intelligently organized that raised the 
 standard of Christianity in New England and the 
 South, and by and by, as the chief agency of 
 evangelization, in the newer portions of the United 
 States. "The Society of Sunday-schools" in the 
 England of Hannah More's time found a parallel 
 in systematic movements in Pittsburg, in 1809, and 
 in New York five years later, and then in Phila- 
 delphia, and so on through other cities. Out of 
 these grew "The American Sunday-school Union," 
 which dates, as we have already seen, from 1824. 
 One distinction between English and American 
 
90 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 Sunday-schools seems to have been the greater use 
 made in this country of denominational as distin- 
 guished from union methods. For instance, in 
 the annual report of "The Baptist Tract Society," 
 in 1830, a suggestion was made that "the time 
 may come when the number of schools in our 
 denomination will be so great as to require the 
 Baptist Tract Society to publish a series of Sab- 
 bath-school books suited to their needs." l The 
 Tract Society changed its name to " The American 
 Baptist Publication and Sunday-school Society," 
 and in the end, under the less cumbrous title of 
 "The American Baptist Publication Society," came 
 to be generally recognized "as the specific denomi- 
 national Sunday-school organization." It would 
 be idle for us to discuss in this place the relative 
 advantage of unionism and denominationalism in 
 Sunday-school work. The evangelical Sunday- 
 schools of America are practically one, as are the 
 evangelical churches. But nothing is gained to 
 the whole by the sacrifice or surrender of what is 
 peculiar to each. The present growth of Sunday- 
 schools, not in numbers only or chiefly, but also 
 in efficiency and intelligence, is the best answer to 
 those who at the prompting of a laudable senti- 
 ment would urge any widespread union inde- 
 pendent of denominational lines. For all practical 
 
 1 "A Century of Baptist Achievement," pp. 236, 237. 
 
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 9 1 
 
 purposes the individual Sunday-school does better 
 as the child of the individual church, under her 
 wing, and subject to her control. 
 
 In the early days of the movement little atten- 
 tion was paid to statistics, and one aim of the 
 unions when they were formed was to remedy this 
 lack. But the growth of Sunday-schools in Eng- 
 land and Wales was evidently rapid after the torpor 
 of the first years of the nineteenth century had 
 been broken. 1 In 1818 four per cent, of the popu- 
 lation were in school, and the total of scholars was 
 four hundred and seventy-seven thousand, two hun- 
 dred and twenty-five; in 1833 the percentage was 
 eleven ; in 185 1 it was thirteen and five-tenths; in 
 1880 fifteen, and in 1887 it had risen to twenty 
 per cent, of the population, and there are reported 
 six hundred and sixteen thousand nine hundred 
 and forty-one teachers, and five million seven 
 hundred and thirty-three thousand three hun- 
 dred and twenty-five scholars. In the United 
 States more attention would seem to have been 
 given to statistics when once the practice of get- 
 ting them had been begun. In 1875 there were 
 sixty-four thousand eight hundred and seventy- 
 one schools, seven hundred and fifty-three thousand 
 and sixty teachers, and five million seven hundred 
 and ninety thousand six hundred and eighty-three 
 
 Gulick, "The Growth of the Kingdom of God," p. 104. 
 
92 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 scholars. In 1896 there were one hundred and 
 thirty-two thousand six hundred and thirty-nine 
 schools, one million three hundred and ninety-six 
 thousand five hundred and eight teachers, and 
 ten million eight hundred and ninety thousand and 
 ninety-two scholars, and at the World's Sunday- 
 school Convention, held in London in 1889, 1 it was 
 announced that about one-sixth of the population 
 of the United States were in Sunday-schools, 
 while the returns of 1899 give the total of one 
 hundred and thirty-eight thousand one hundred 
 and eighty schools, one million four hundred and 
 thirteen thousand nine hundred and eighty-seven 
 officers and teachers, and eleven million four hun- 
 dred and ninety-seven thousand three hundred 
 and twenty-eight scholars. In Canada, taking the 
 country from the Atlantic to the Pacific, we find 
 ten thousand one hundred and seventy-four schools, 
 seventy-nine thousand five hundred officers and 
 teachers, and a total of scholars amounting to six 
 hundred and fifty-seven thousand four hundred 
 and forty-two. 
 
 More than once attention has been called to the 
 fact that the growth of intelligence, the wider 
 education, and the better kind of teaching in the 
 public schools, ran side by side with the spread of 
 Sunday-schools and their general improvement in 
 
 1 "World's Sunday-school Convention Report, 1889," p. 79. 
 
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 93 
 
 methods and in organization. The harmony be- 
 tween education and religion is nowhere more 
 apparent than in the United States. The Sunday- 
 schools have the brightest young life of the coun- 
 try in their classes as teachers or scholars. The 
 growth of Sunday-schools has been simultaneous 
 with the growth of religion in the schools and col- 
 leges. A hundred years ago there were only three 
 professed Christians in Yale College ; to-day, out 
 of one thousand four hundred recent graduates of 
 Harvard, only two declared themselves to be un- 
 believers. " Never before were there so many 
 evangelical church-members among the students 
 of that institution. The Intercollegiate Young 
 Men's Christian Association is the largest college 
 organization in the world. * No fraternity, no ath- 
 letic organization, compares with it in size.' " ! 
 
 It is when we pass on to consider the character 
 of the teaching in the Sunday-school that we 
 understand how vast was the growth made in the 
 nineteenth century. When Robert Raikes began 
 his work, few of the children gathering in his 
 schools could read. The Horn-book was the poor 
 substitute in old England for the New England 
 Primer across the Atlantic. It consisted of " a 
 single page upon which the alphabet and a few 
 
 1 Gulick, p. 154 (1897). For details of Sunday-school progress 
 on the continent of Europe, see "The Day, the Book, and the 
 Teacher," by E. Paxton Hood, Chap. XI. 
 
94 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 short words were printed. 1 This was pasted upon 
 a small piece of board with a handle, and the 
 printed matter was covered with transparent horn, 
 so that the fingers of the young reader, probably 
 seldom very clean, should not obliterate the let- 
 ters." It was no doubt because education was in 
 so backward a condition in England that the 
 catechism, which relied chiefly on the memory, 
 was so generally used. As we have seen, it was 
 necessary for the Sunday-school to do what the 
 day-school had failed to do. A scholar in the 
 early part of the century recalls how " we had 
 long, narrow trays, filled with sand, in which with 
 our forefingers we used to trace the letters of the 
 alphabet. Then came what were called * battle- 
 dores,' thin pieces of wood, having printed on each 
 side words of two or three syllables. The next 
 stage was a spelling-book, and so on to catechisms 
 and long passages of Scripture and hymns, to be 
 learned during the week and repeated to the 
 teacher on Sunday." 2 "After morning church," 
 says one of the scholars, " Mr. Raikes used to 
 hear us all say the Collect for the day, and who- 
 ever said it best had a penny. In school the 
 Bible and the catechism were taught us." Faith 
 in a catechism was very general, and still remains 
 so, although the entirely satisfactory catechism is 
 
 1 E. P. Hood, p. 9. 
 2 "Northamptonshire Sunday-schools," p. 15. 
 
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 95 
 
 yet an unfulfilled prophecy. Others besides Dr. J. 
 A. Broadus have found an extremely difficult task 
 " to make questions and answers about the exist- 
 ence and attributes of the Divine Being that shall 
 be intelligible to children," and yet few will be 
 disposed to quarrel with the enthusiasm of Robert 
 Louis Stevenson when he writes that "the Shorter 
 Catechism opens with the best and shortest and 
 completest sermon ever written upon man's chief 
 end." At the first public meeting of the Sunday- 
 school Union in London, in 1812, it was reported 
 that thirty-eight thousand copies of a catechism in 
 verse, entitled " Milk for Babes," had been printed ; 
 and in the records of an old Baptist church in 
 Yorkshire, under date October 15, 1822, I find 
 that the church " thought it proper that school 
 children be taught to get catechisms off." I ask 
 you to notice this because it is plain, I think, that 
 the older Sunday-schools trained the memory far 
 more than we do, and to me it seems one good 
 sign of our times that there is once more a strong 
 and intelligent movement, originating with the 
 editors of the " Biblical World," of Chicago, to 
 formulate a catechism for pupils between the ages 
 of sixteen and twenty-one. 1 
 
 It will have been remarked that under Robert 
 Raikes the Bible was taught in the school. No 
 
 1 "The Outlook," March 2, 1901. 
 
g6 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 catechism was to be suffered to usurp its place. 
 As early as 1794 he printed a little book of one 
 hundred and twenty pages, about four inches 
 square, "'The Sunday-school Companion,' con- 
 sisting of Scripture sentences, Disposed in such 
 Order as will quickly ground young learners in the 
 Fundamental Doctrines of our most Holy Re- 
 ligion, and at the same time Lead Them Pleas- 
 antly On from Simple and Easy to Compound and 
 Difficult Words." The Bible was to be the text- 
 book in the class. Among the first publications 
 of the Sunday-school Union we find l " A Select 
 List of Scriptures, designed as a Guide to teachers 
 for a course of reading in Sunday-schools." In 
 18 1 8 the union prepared a "Reading book con- 
 sisting of extracts from the Sacred Scriptures." 
 And these publications were only temporary in 
 the minds of the managers of the union. " The 
 object desired and sought after was placing in the 
 hands of all the scholars who could read the Bible, 
 a complete copy of the word of God." This it 
 was, you remember, which made the Sunday- 
 school enterprise the parent of the Bible Society. 
 That society, in its turn, recognized its obligation 
 to the Sunday-school Union when, in 1840, after 
 repeated applications, it complied with the request 
 of the committee for a cheap Bible. The object 
 
 1 Watson, pp. 44, 45. 
 
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 97 
 
 of this concession was that, " read under the direc- 
 tion of pious teachers, the Scriptures should be 
 studied . . . and their truths impressed upon the 
 memory." l The reduction in the price of Bibles 
 created such a demand that, after expending 
 .£14,000, the Bible Society found it necessary in 
 self-defense to stop the supply. This was sixty 
 years ago. To-day the Bible is probably the cheap- 
 est book which issues from the press. 
 
 The Bible continued to be used in the classes 
 of English Sunday-schools certainly through the 
 first two-thirds of the nineteenth century. Prob- 
 ably it is still used in very many of them. For a 
 glimpse of the teaching as late as 1858 in a village 
 in one of the midland counties, I am indebted to 
 my friend, Rev. Dr. Trotter, president of Acadia 
 College, Nova Scotia. He writes : 
 
 In the Sunday-school of the General Baptist Church, at 
 Thurkeston, Leicestershire, England, where I attended as a 
 boy from 1858 to 1867, the exercises were ordinarily about 
 as follows : School was opened with singing and prayer, the 
 exercises being conducted by humble men, of only the 
 slightest education, who were either farm laborers or petty 
 tradesfolk. The hymns used were of a very doleful sort, a 
 very familiar one being : 
 
 " And am I born to die, 
 To lay this body down, 
 And must my trembling spirit fly 
 Into a world unknown ? " 
 
 1 Watson, p. 48. 
 G 
 
98 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 Only at the Sunday-school anniversary, when special serv- 
 ices were arranged, were the brighter hymns, which were 
 then coming somewhat into use in other places, employed. 
 The first of these which I can recall, and which was handed 
 out in printed form on single sheets, was the hymn, 
 
 ' ' There is a better world, they say, 
 Oh, so bright !" 
 
 I can never forget the delight with which this hymn thrilled 
 me as a little fellow of seven or eight. 
 
 The prayers were very hackneyed, so much so that as 
 regards fixity of expression we got the advantage of a liturgy 
 without, however, its color and music. Nevertheless, the 
 ideas so often repeated were substantially correct ideas, and 
 they glowed with real earnestness. 
 
 After the opening exercises we were dismissed to classes. 
 So far as my own experience goes, and I think it represents 
 what prevailed in the school, the half-hour spent in class 
 was spent entirely in the reading of the Scriptures. There 
 was no international series of lessons in those times, nor 
 was there any systematic direction whatever of the work in 
 the classes. One class read in one part of the Bible, an- 
 other in another part. Often the choice of the portion was 
 made after the class had assembled, the scholars having as 
 much to do in deciding the point as the teacher. Having 
 fixed upon the portion, we read by turn till the half-hour 
 was up. I cannot recall that there was any effort at ex- 
 planation. By the reading process, however, we got a 
 certain surface familiarity with large portions of the Bible. 
 At the close of the half-hour the superintendent called out 
 "time to dismiss," the younger children were then gath- 
 ered together for singing and to be talked to by somebody, 
 while the older scholars retired to a large vestry, round the 
 walls of which were folding desks, to spend half an hour 
 writing in copy books, this being the only opportunity 
 
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 99 
 
 some of the poorer children had of learning to write at all. 
 After this the entire school was gathered together for closing 
 exercises, which always included a few words about the 
 need of being born again, or the dying of Jesus as the 
 ground of forgiveness, or something vital. It was a crude 
 jumble of exercises, but I can trace the views I hold and 
 the experiences through which God' s grace has led me to 
 certain beginnings of thought and feeling and resolve in 
 the Sunday-school of that dear village far away. 
 
 The Sunday-school Union of London, first by 
 preparing a list of reading lessons for the use of 
 classes and then by publishing monthly "notes" 
 as a guide to teachers in their private study of the 
 lesson for the day, had prepared the way for a still 
 wider and more important combination. It was in 
 Chicago that, under Dr. J. H. Vincent, the first suc- 
 cessful effort was made to promote uniformity in 
 Bible study in all the Protestant schools of the city. 
 " So successful was this experiment at uniformity 
 in Chicago that the schools from other towns and 
 cities soon began to use these lessons also. Before 
 the international plan was agreed upon it is believed 
 that there were three millions of people engaged in 
 studying the lessons issued from Chicago. Then 
 the question arose, ' Why not extend this method 
 of studying the Scriptures throughout the United 
 States and so make it national ? ' The indica- 
 tions were that that could easily be done. ' But 
 why not strike out boldly and go still further ? ' 
 it was asked. < Why not make it international ? 
 
IOO THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 Why may there not be a common study of the 
 Bible for the world ? ' " 1 The question of adopting 
 a plan of united Bible study was debated at a Na- 
 tional Sunday-school Convention held in 1872 in 
 Indianapolis. When the debate was closed and 
 the chairman put the question to the vote, with 
 the exception of ten persons, the great throng 
 arose to vote in favor of the proposal, and as by 
 a common impulse the convention broke into the 
 doxology in which all English-speaking people 
 give voice to religious joy, 
 
 " Praise God from whom all blessings flow." 
 
 Next day the committee which had the matter in 
 charge was instructed to select " A course of les- 
 sons for a series of years not exceeding seven, 
 which shall, as far as they may decide possible, 
 embrace a general study of the Bible." 2 An Eng- 
 lish religious magazine, in describing what is justly 
 called "a great literary syndicate," thus sketches 
 the work which has now for so many years been 
 faithfully carried on by the staff of " The Inter- 
 national Sunday-school Lesson Series " : 
 
 The vast dimensions to which it has attained is a striking 
 evidence of the evangelical power of Christianity. Little 
 more than thirty-five years since there was no thought of 
 simultaneous study in our Sunday-schools ; nowadays 
 twenty million teachers and pupils are week after week 
 
 1 "Report of the World's Convention," etc., 1889, p. 117. 
 2 " The Sunday Magazine," 1901. 
 
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 10 1 
 
 studying the same lesson. The central editorial staff of 
 this great organization is the American Lesson Committee, 
 which held its last meeting in New York on April 17, 1901. 
 It has, however, an auxiliary body of associates known as 
 the British section, to which its work is submitted for 
 amendment and concurrence. As the members of this 
 section are divided between England, Australia, and India, 
 it will be seen that the entire editorial organization covers 
 three continents. America, however, exerts the dominant 
 influence, for the initiative rests with the American com- 
 mittee and the movement had its birth in Chicago. 
 
 Generally the sessions are held in the parlor of a hotel. 
 The full number on the committee roll is fifteen. The 
 present American Lesson Committee was appointed in 
 1896 and proceeded to the preparation of lessons for 1900- 
 1905. The theme chosen was the life of Christ and of the 
 great prophets, leaders, and apostles. At the first meeting 
 the scheme for this particular study is settled and an abstract 
 of the proceedings is sent to each member of the British 
 section— six in England, one in Australia, and one in India. 
 When the criticism on the abstract comes back, the com- 
 mittee meets again, and if the scheme is approved by the 
 corresponding members a detailed outline of the lessons for 
 five years is arranged. The first question with regard to 
 each lesson is, "From what book and chapter shall it be 
 taken?" The selection must be above denominational or 
 controversial issues, and it must be within the mental grasp 
 of every boy or girl, and at least a portion of the lesson and 
 the golden text must hold the attention of the toddlers in 
 the primary classes. 
 
 Then the passage which is the gem of the lesson is se- 
 lected for special treatment. Almost as difficult a task as 
 the choice of golden texts, to which much thought is devoted, 
 is the giving of appropriate names to the various lessons. 
 
102 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 When the lessons for the quarter have been chosen the 
 selections are subjected to a critical examination regarding 
 their relation to the lessons of the whole year. In the same 
 manner the completion of the selections for a year is the 
 signal for a patient re-examination of every lesson, with 
 special reference to the manner in which the year' s series 
 fits into the plan for the period and for the entire six years 
 embraced in the work of the committee. Then the lessons 
 thus definitely selected by the American Committee are 
 printed on strong paper, and copies are forwarded to the 
 British section for final emendation. After this the year' s 
 lessons are sent round to the great publishing houses, which 
 print them as leaflets, and hundreds of commentators set to 
 work to assist in elucidating them. 
 
 The committee has not failed to represent with 
 fairness the great denominations of Protestant 
 Christendom, and, although Bishop Vincent and 
 Mr. B. F. Jacobs, who were foremost in formu- 
 lating the lessons, remain to-day almost alone of 
 the leaders at the memorable Indianapolis Con- 
 vention, yet the spirit of the great enterprise is 
 practically unchanged. Its success was no doubt 
 due to a happy mingling of sentiment and common 
 sense. The imagination of multitudes of Chris- 
 tian people, always eager for union, was fascinated 
 by the idea of the great army of Sunday-schools 
 engaged simultaneously in the study of the same 
 portion of the Bible. And the sturdy denomina- 
 tional feeling was satisfied that no personal con- 
 victions were to be offended by a plan which left 
 
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 103 
 
 it to the separate churches to issue their own 
 lesson notes. 
 
 Brought together (such is the testimony of Dr. Warren 
 Randolph, speaking in the retrospect of twenty-seven years 
 of active work on the International Lesson Committee), as 
 we have been from many different denominations, we have 
 found no difficulty in regard to a common ground upon 
 which to stand in turning every leaf of the Bible. There 
 is not a chapter or verse from Genesis to Revelation which 
 has been passed by because of differences of opinion. With 
 different interpretations we have had nothing whatever to 
 do. All that has been left to the teachers and expositors 
 of the different schools and different denominations. 1 
 
 During the remaining years of the century the 
 International Lessons held the field. As time 
 passed on, with a more intelligent study of the 
 Bible there came to be grave questionings on the 
 part of many whether too much had not been sur- 
 rendered to the mere sentiment of uniformity. 
 At the result of these questionings we shall glance 
 later on. Our study thus far must certainly have 
 convinced us that the International Lesson course 
 has rendered an incalculable service to the cause 
 of intelligent Bible study. 
 
 And to the whole work of the Sunday-school in 
 its renewed vigor we owe it, as much as to any 
 one cause, that the religious life of the Old and 
 New World has been roused and lifted. Such dark 
 
 1 "World's Convention," etc., 1889, p. 120. 
 
104 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 forebodings as the century opened with were cer- 
 tainly uncalled for when it closed. "The univer- 
 sal inactivity of all religions," which Horace Wal- 
 pole noted in England in 1780 as a symptom of 
 degeneration ; the " daily complaints of the irre- 
 ligion and depravity of the age, which in 1802 a 
 reviewer of Doctor Blair's sermons feared to be 
 'not louder than just'"; the low ebb of Bible 
 study and Bible teaching in America at the begin- 
 ning of the nineteenth century, to which we have 
 already alluded, all these had ceased to be charac- 
 teristic of that century long before it reached its 
 last year. When Canon Farrar affirms that it is 
 no exaggeration at all to say that through the 
 organization commenced by the simple citizen of 
 Gloucester hundreds of thousands of Christ's little 
 ones have been reached and have been influenced 
 for their temporal and eternal good, he says only 
 what the history of the Sunday-schools of the nine- 
 teenth century proves to be even less than the whole 
 truth. Not the children alone, but the entire life 
 of the people at large, has been lifted into a brighter 
 light and into a purer and sweeter atmosphere by 
 the work which Robert Raikes commenced when, 
 in answer to the inward voice, " Can nothing be 
 done?" he responded bravely, "Try." 
 
IV 
 
 THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEO- 
 PLE OF THE CONGREGATION 
 
Nothing should take the place of parental obligation. 
 The minister as the friend of the young people. Three 
 stages in the development of the young. The minister as 
 the pastor of the young people. Influence of infant bap- 
 tism. Pastoral visitation. Organizing the young people 
 for Christian life and work. The minister as a preacher to 
 the young. Children' s services. The sermon or address. 
 
IV 
 
 THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF THE 
 CONGREGATION 
 
 As there is nothing which should lessen parental 
 responsibility, so there is nothing which should 
 take the place of parental obligation. The school 
 and the church miss their mark when they do this. 
 The claims alike of God and of the commonwealth 
 demand that the father and the mother recognize 
 that on them, in the first instance, does it rest to 
 train their child in the duties of life. " There can 
 be no question," 1 says Edersheim, "that according 
 to the law of Moses, the early education of a child 
 devolved upon the father ; of course always bear- 
 ing in mind that his first training would be the 
 mother's." It is from the home that we catch the 
 earliest notes of instruction. From the lifted tent- 
 flap or from the latticed window come these 
 sounds: "And ye shall teach these my words to 
 your children, speaking of them when thou sittest 
 in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, 
 when thou liest down and when thou risest up." 2 
 
 Abraham was priest as well as father in his 
 
 1 "Sketches," etc., p. 129. 2 Deut. 11 : 19. 
 
 107 
 
108 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 household. No after change, no partition of offices, 
 can affect the conclusion to which we are brought 
 by this fact. Even the initiatory rite of the Jews 
 belonged to the parents more than to the priest. 
 It was they who presented the child. It was they 
 who made the offerings. Bushnell, in dealing with 
 infant baptism, says : 
 
 According to the more ancient view nothing depends upon 
 the priest or minister save that he execute the rite in due 
 form. . . Everything depends upon the organic law of 
 character pertaining between the parent and the child, the 
 church and the child, thus upon duty and holy living and 
 gracious example. 1 
 
 At the very outset, then, let us understand 
 clearly that the parent precedes the minister, the 
 family the church, and the home the school. The 
 founder of Sunday-schools, Robert Raikes, evi- 
 dently loved his great enterprise none the less be- 
 cause he loved his own home circle first, for he 
 writes to an old correspondent in the pleasantly 
 formal fashion of his century : " I must now tell 
 you that I am blessed with six excellent girls and 
 two lovely boys. My eldest boy was born the very 
 day that I made public to the world the scheme 
 of Sunday-schools, in my paper of November 3, 
 
 1783." 
 
 And yet home teaching is not enough. The 
 
 1 "Christian Nurture," p. 46. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE IO9 
 
 parents who can and who will give Bible instruc- 
 tion to their children are few in number. In the 
 majority of cases the most that we can hope for 
 is parental example, and the home is fortunate 
 when even that is what it should be. In no coun- 
 try in the world does the home stand for more 
 than it does in Germany, and nowhere, I suppose, 
 does the State do more in the way of religious 
 education in the public schools ; yet it was the 
 lack of intelligent Bible study that led an American 
 traveler in that country to start a Sunday-school 
 in Berlin which has met with such favor that now 
 " all clergymen who are not rationalists have Sun- 
 day-schools." l 
 
 So it comes about that we need to ask ourselves 
 what the church owes to the children ; and since 
 the minister is to so large an extent the represent- 
 ative of the church our theme in this chapter is 
 his relation to them as friend, pastor, and preacher. 
 
 And, first, let us look on the minister as the 
 friend of the young people in his congregation. 
 First, I say, because it is first. He will influence 
 them little as pastor or preacher unless as their 
 friend he has already won their hearts. Knowl- 
 edge comes by way of the affections ; and it is 
 John, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," who look- 
 ing through the sheen of the morning, recognizes, 
 
 1 Trumbull, p. 135. 
 
IIO THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 earlier than Peter or the other disciples, the Mas- 
 ter standing on the lake shore, and says in raptured 
 tones, "It is the Lord." 
 
 As I think of it now, in the sunny haze of many 
 pastoral reminiscences, no relation other than that 
 of kindred, seems more beautiful than this which 
 grows up between the minister and the children 
 of his parish. It was a far cry from the London 
 lodging to the Irish parsonage ; but to Oliver Gold- 
 smith the portrait of his father, the good minister, 
 had lost none of its vivid color as memory recalled 
 it ; and so he wrote : 
 
 E' en children followed with endearing wile 
 
 And pluck' d his gown to share the good man' s smile. 
 
 His ready smile a parent's warmth express' d, 
 
 Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed. 
 
 To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, 
 
 But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. 
 
 A pastor writing of his forty years' l experience 
 in one church says : 
 
 How it began I forget, but it came to pass that for years 
 at the close of each morning's service, children from four 
 to ten years of age, came up into the pulpit and kissed the 
 pastor. That custom was very beautiful. It made the pul- 
 pit look like a bouquet of fragrant, animated flowers. He 
 will never forget it, and believes that they will remember it 
 in all after years. On one occasion an eminent minister, in 
 exchange, occupied the pastor' s place, and our little ones, 
 
 1 Baldwin, p. 50. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE I I I 
 
 as was their habit, went up into the pulpit to salute him ; 
 but he started back in amazement, and exclaimed : 
 "Whose young ones are these?" At which greeting they 
 retired in shamefaced disorder. No man can do the full 
 work of the ministry without love for, and perpetual interest 
 in, children. 
 
 Let the minister, therefore, begin as early as 
 possible to win the affection of the children in his 
 congregation. Let the child unconsciously asso- 
 ciate him with 
 
 The sweet presence of a good diffused. 1 
 
 And let those childish memories be connected with 
 religion. One purpose of the whole Jewish ritual, 
 of the private and united prayers of the family, of 
 the various domestic rites, of the weekly Sabbaths 
 and the stated festivals, was just this : " From the 
 moment a child was at all capable of being in- 
 structed, — still more of his taking any part in the 
 services, — the impression would deepen day by 
 day." 2 
 
 The Jews, so says Philo, " were from their swad- 
 dling clothes, even before being taught either the 
 sacred laws or the unwritten customs, trained by 
 their parents, teachers, and instructors to recog- 
 nize God as Father and as the Maker of the 
 world." 3 
 
 1 George Eliot. 
 2 Edersheim, "Sketches," etc., p. 108. 3 Ibid., p. no. 
 
112 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 It is not for us to speculate on how much of a 
 religious nature the soul coming from afar brings 
 with it, nor how profound a truth Mrs. Browning 
 expresses when she says : 
 
 I have not so far left the coasts of life 
 
 To travel inland, that I cannot hear 
 
 That murmur of the outer Infinite 
 
 Which unvveaned babies smile at in their sleep, 
 
 When wondered at for smiling. x 
 
 Enough if the pastor comes to be associated 
 lovingly in the impressions of this young life, and 
 to become an influence for good, growing with its 
 growth and strengthening with its strength. The 
 fact that the minister assumes no priestly attitude 
 toward the child will make the early impression all 
 the purer, by importing into it no element that is 
 tinctured by pride or assumption. " I have re- 
 fused authority," said Henry Ward Beecher, " that 
 I might have influence, which is a great deal bet- 
 ter." 
 
 The one essential, so it seems to me, to this 
 tender and beautiful influence is that on his part 
 the minister preserve fresh the child's heart. Some 
 will remember how Mr. Beecher himself kept this, 
 and how as he left Plymouth Church for the last 
 time it was with his arms about two little street 
 boys who had wandered in, after the service was 
 
 1 "Aurora Leigh." 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE I 1 3 
 
 over, when the congregation had dispersed, and 
 while the organist was playing to the tired preacher 
 the tunes he loved the best. Somehow there comes 
 unbidden to our minds the words of the olden 
 story, as applicable to the man for whom the life 
 of storm and stress was now almost over : " And 
 his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little 
 child, and he was clean." And some will remem- 
 ber too, how on his death-bed Thomas Guthrie, 
 the children's friend, begged that they would sing 
 to him "a bairn's hymn." The child-heart craved 
 its own nourishment. I pray my readers to pre- 
 serve it also. Apart from the joy which it will bring 
 into all your lives, and the relief which it will bring 
 into all your ministry, it will be of vast importance 
 in your influence on the children in the congrega- 
 tion if its minister can to the end say with Words- 
 worth • 
 
 My heart leaps up when I behold 
 A rainbow in the sky ; 
 
 So was it when my life began, 
 
 So is it now I am a man, 
 
 So be it when I shall grow old, 
 Or let me die ! 
 
 The child is father to the man, 
 
 And I could wish my days to be 
 
 Bound each to each by natural piety. 
 
 His affection for the young people and his desire 
 to do them good, will lead the minister to study 
 them. He will soon discover that the two daugh- 
 
 H 
 
114 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 ters of the horse-leech, 1 " crying, give, give," have 
 many brothers and sisters. A gentleman found a 
 little boy, barefooted and in rags, on his doorstep 
 one morning. " And what do you want, little one ? " 
 he inquired ; and the boy looking himself over 
 with a rapid glance, answered, " Everything." 
 Every healthy child wants everything ; and how- 
 ever long he lives or however much he gathers, he 
 will not get beyond the noble discontent which 
 Paul expressed when he said, " Not as though I 
 had already attained, either were already perfect." 
 To the development of what we may for the 
 moment call " the young person,*" there have been 
 three distinct stages. By all means let us remem- 
 ber this in our treatment of the various steps of 
 that young person's growth. First, imagination, 
 when the child, like Robert Louis Stevenson walk- 
 ing the Edinburgh street, is forever "supposing." 
 The little child is in this stage ; and if one means 
 to engage his attention he may tell a story. To 
 this succeeds memory, and now a personal remi- 
 niscence will interest. Then comes, third, reflec- 
 tion, and with it powers of reasoning, which will 
 fasten upon a thought if attractively put. Imagi- 
 nation, and then memory, and then reflection — 
 this, roughly speaking (and with no great care for 
 the modern disposition to study child-life in strata), 
 
 1 Prov. 30 : 15. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE I 1 5 
 
 this seems to be the order of the growing intelli- 
 gence. To recall these points when one conducts 
 the public service and aims to catch the attention 
 of the younger element in the congregation, will 
 be good ; but better still will it be never to forget 
 it. It will open to us the avenue of approach to 
 the hearts of the children, of the boys or girls, 
 and of the young people. 
 
 In the second place, we must consider the min- 
 ister as the pastor of the young people in his con- 
 gregation. 
 
 [The early Jewish rites brought each child in the theoc- 
 racy into close relations to the priest. The churches which 
 observe infant baptism give, perhaps, an advantage of the 
 same kind to their minister. It may be viewed as a sacra- 
 ment, or it may be looked at only as a simple form of dedi- 
 cation, but in any case the pastor, by virtue of this baptis- 
 mal service, comes into sympathetic connection with the 
 child. He has some ground for appeal, although in most 
 cases the ground may not be taken with any pretense of 
 sacerdotal authority. 
 
 The writer is strongly disposed to believe that a consecra- 
 tion service for infants should be encouraged among us, 
 with the assent of the parents, and not so much as a duty 
 but as a privilege. There seems to be authority for it in 
 the practice of some Baptist churches : for instance, the 
 First Baptist Church, Hartford, Ct. ; Dr. John Clifford's, Lon- 
 don ; and Emmanuel Baptist Church, New York City, Sam- 
 uel Alman, pastor, 1890. In one church in New York the 
 pastor for many years of his ministry has "urged it as a 
 duty upon Christian parents to bring their children as soon 
 as possible to the house of God and there publicly conse- 
 
Il6 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 crate and name them with prayer and thanksgiving." To 
 every family whose child is thus dedicated, is given a cer- 
 tificate of consecration, and the pastor testifies that "many 
 blessings have followed this religious ceremony." Among 
 the announcements made in the weekly "Bulletin" of the 
 Westbourne Park Baptist Church, London, of which Dr. 
 John Clifford is the minister, I find the following: "The 
 next baptism will take place on Wednesday evening, Jan- 
 uary 19th, and the next dedication service of children to 
 God our Father will be held on Sunday morning, January 
 23rd."] 
 
 One of our first duties as ministers is to include 
 the children of the families among those who have 
 the benefit of pastoral visitation. We need to 
 learn not only their Christian names, but also the 
 familiar and endearing epithets which they may 
 bear at home. To remember the names of the 
 sons of Levi or how Amram stood related to Uzziel 
 can be of no practical service to us which is at all 
 comparable with the knowledge that Mary is two 
 years older than Frank and two years younger 
 than Kate. 
 
 Let us study the tastes of the children. There 
 are many instances on record of pastoral popularity 
 when this was done more literally than is here 
 intended. The minister's pockets have prepared 
 the way for the minister's precepts. I remember 
 riding one summer afternoon with a French curt, 
 who was returning to his parish from the weekly 
 market, and how heartily he was welcomed as he 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE WJ 
 
 paused at one farm after another to drop his sim- 
 ple purchases, — a book for Jacques, a toy for Marie, 
 a doll for Babette, — and I think that I learned 
 then and there one of my earliest lessons in pas- 
 toral theology. "Talk with the children," said 
 Wesley to his preachers, " every time you see any 
 at home." l But I mean more, far more, than 
 this. Let us find the bent of each young mind. 
 We may help to develop the intellectual and moral 
 growth of a hundred lives. The normal school, 
 the college, the ministry may witness, by and by, 
 to the fruitage of our intelligent study of these 
 opening years. 
 
 I would go further. When we have won their 
 love and gained their respect for our words we 
 may now and then form voluntary classes for in- 
 struction from our lips in religious truth. In occa- 
 sional vacations, winter and spring and summer, 
 we can set apart one or two hours and meet those 
 who are free from the work of the public school. 
 We can talk to them directly and simply upon the 
 chief things. Perhaps we may set them learning 
 texts so as to have something with which to break 
 the ice at the beginning of the hour. 2 But we 
 must shun all formality, and, as we love the class, 
 keep clear of all assumption of the pedagogue. 
 
 1 Tyerman's "Life of Wesley," 3 : 23. 
 
 2 " Treasure Texts for Youthful Memories," Barton. The Pil- 
 grim Press, Chicago. 
 
I 1 8 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 The purely voluntary character of the gathering 
 will be helped if the children are met alone, with- 
 out any older persons (not even their parents) 
 being present. A little book given to each as a 
 memorial of these occasional classes will become 
 an heirloom. This was the praiseworthy practice 
 of the Puritan leader, Cotton Mather. He brought 
 his young people into religious association, and 
 added to Janeway's "Token for Children" — then 
 first published in Boston — a little book of his own, 
 which, however, hardly tempts us by its title, 
 " Some examples of children in whom the fear of 
 God was remarkably budding before they died in 
 several parts of New England." l But a glance at 
 the old-fashioned Sunday-school library may make 
 us less censorious when we reflect how long " the 
 anaemic child continued to be a great part of 
 spiritual literature." The pious but unhealthy 
 little boy who died early, also died out very slowly 
 from our books for children. 
 
 I am not aware that among the experts in sta- 
 tistics, often too much in evidence in our churches, 
 any one has gathered the figures in reference to 
 the causes which lead to conversion. The general 
 impression that preaching is the most prolific 
 source is probably erroneous. The influence and 
 instruction of a good Sunday-school teacher is 
 
 1 "Life," p. 221 ; "Old Chester Tales, " p. 93. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE I IQ 
 
 likely to be more productive of positive results 
 than the average sermon. But if I were asked to 
 what can be traced the largest number of conver- 
 sions which have been permanent and powerful, I 
 think that without much hesitation I should point 
 to pastoral influence. For personal surrender and 
 consecration in a natural and simple way, without 
 the unhealthful influences of heated rooms, flaring 
 lamps, exciting hymns, and sensational appeals, 
 the true minister will work all the time. 
 
 The true pastor will refuse to reckon an ap- 
 prenticeship to sin essential to the service of God. 
 The time has passed, I hope, in which the house- 
 hold of faith numbered no children among its 
 family. We have come to believe heartily in 
 early folding. It is preferable to Cotton Mather's 
 ideal of early dying. His buds all fell short of 
 flowers, ours blossom. The story may be recalled 
 — which has been told under so many guises that 
 there is probably some truth in it — of the good old 
 Scottish elder who, being deeply concerned be- 
 cause his pastor persistently refused to allow chil- 
 dren to be admitted to church-fellowship, invited 
 him to his house. After tea the elder took the 
 pastor out to see his large flock of sheep put into 
 the fold. Taking his stand at the entrance to the 
 sheepfold, the elder allowed the sheep to enter, 
 but as the little lambs came up he roughly pushed 
 them back with a heavy stick. At this unnatural 
 
120 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 treatment the pastor became very indignant and 
 exclaimed : " What are you doing to the lambs ? 
 They need the shelter far more than the sheep ! " 
 "Just what you are doing to the children of the 
 church," was the prompt reply. Upon the churches 
 generally as well as upon that particular pastor this 
 lesson has had its due effect. We are prepared as 
 never before to bring the children to the good 
 Shepherd and find shelter for them in his arms. 
 
 Gradually too, although the growth of this con- 
 viction is slow, we are coming to see that each 
 stage in our human life has to be treated according 
 to its own capacity. Nothing seems more intol- 
 erable than the religious prodigy. The old head 
 upon young shoulders is an abortion. Boys, as 
 Henry Drummond puts it, are to be religious as 
 boys and not as old maids. 1 In religion as in 
 other matters it has been found true that for pre- 
 cocity " some great price is always demanded, 
 sooner or later." 2 A child with a man's appetite, 
 a lad of twelve with the erudition of Grotius, a 
 cyclopaedic mind in a twenty years old student, 
 have no attraction for a sane judgment. It is 
 right that your Admirable Crichtons should die 
 young. 
 
 If the pastor is wise he will encourage only a 
 healthful and natural growth in the religions life of 
 
 1 H. Drummond, "Life," p. 344. 
 2 " Life of Margaret Fuller Ossoli," p. 374. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE 121 
 
 his young people. It would be hard to calculate 
 the harm that has been done to children by teach- 
 ing them to repeat formulas in their prayer meet- 
 ings which, however much they mean to their 
 elders, are on their lips absurd in their unreality. 
 By and by they may have significance enough, but 
 to foist on the springtime the heats of summer 
 and the hurricanes of the fall is to do a wrong to 
 the true order of nature. How often one has 
 heard that tremendous word "consecration" — " I 
 wish to consecrate myself" — from a young girl 
 scarcely yet in her teens, and glibly ready with 
 phrases for which she really cared less than she 
 did for the ribbon on her hat. With all our hearts 
 we join with Horace Bushnell in his protest against 
 the 
 
 Early wasting of impressions and experiences and a creep- 
 ing in of untruth whilst the power vanishes and the forms 
 of speech remain. For both the most delicate and the 
 most solemn experiences become, after this method, objects 
 of continual reflection and conversation under which, at 
 last, solemn earnestness as well as all delicacy is destroyed, 
 and there remains either a continual self-deception, with 
 the semblance of the reality of godliness, or a gnawing con- 
 sciousness of an increasing untruthfulness and of an inner 
 unfruitfulness beneath a mass of phrases. 1 
 
 To promote a healthful growth — a child's faith 
 for the child, a boy's for the boy, a young man's 
 
 1 " Christian Nurture," p. 382. 
 
122 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 for the young man — will be the aim of the pastor. 
 It may indeed be easier for him to let the usual 
 superficial and unreal methods remain undisturbed, 
 just as it may also be easier to preach moral essays 
 or to discuss sociological problems or to analyze 
 the poets in his sermons rather than Sunday after 
 Sunday to preach the truths which are able to 
 make men wise unto salvation. But if the preacher 
 is a good minister of Jesus Christ he will not let 
 his preaching and his pastoral work run on in easy 
 grooves and then every two or three years, calling 
 on his people to confess their unfaithfulness and 
 get up a revival, send for an evangelist and expect 
 to do with his poor dynamite what the minister 
 himself should have been doing all the time with 
 the divine power of Christian nurture and with the 
 divine provision of faithful preaching. 
 
 Has not a serious wrong been done to many a 
 young person brought into the church, by the neg- 
 lect of all after training? The greatest anxiety 
 has been shown to get him into the Christian 
 fellowship, and the greatest joy has been expressed 
 when once he was fairly within the gates ; but 
 what after that? The religion even of " highly 
 educated young persons," it has been said, " con- 
 sists of miscellaneous notions picked up from 
 formal attendance on the public worship, supple- 
 mented by a few promiscuous remarks heard in 
 the home circle, and colored by the superficial 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE 123 
 
 wash of fictitious literature." l Let us set ourselves 
 to remedy this. The pastor should have training 
 classes for young converts, and instruct them fa- 
 miliarly in the doctrines and practices, the history 
 and present condition, of the church of which they 
 are members, as well as of the yet broader church 
 of which it, in its turn, forms only a part. 
 
 Do we not also need to revise what I may call 
 the church suffrage ? Many churches, it is cur- 
 rently reported, are unduly controlled by the young 
 people. Irresponsible, swayed by feelings or preju- 
 dices, contributing little or nothing to the income 
 of the society, yet, by virtue of their numbers alone, 
 they can decide the choice of a pastor or precipi- 
 tate his resignation, launch the church on the 
 troubled sea of debt on the one hand, or on the 
 other hinder necessary projects of extension — 
 although to do them justice they are apt to be ex- 
 pansionists of the most generous kind. The remedy 
 for this is some kind of manhood suffrage, some 
 clause in the church charter which limits the power 
 to vote to what, at least presumably, is an age of 
 discretion. It seems a misfortune that when young 
 boys or girls join a church, oftener than not, they 
 come at a bound into all the rights and privileges 
 which the church can offer. 
 
 These are matters of detail ; and yet they are 
 
 1 S. R. Pattison, paper at Baptist Union of Great Britain and 
 Ireland, 1869, p. 7. 
 
124 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 not unimportant. Upon them all the pastor will 
 have to form and express an opinion. In our 
 church life, as much as anywhere else, is it true 
 that while life is made up of trifles, life itself is no 
 trifle. 
 
 I have set a high value upon pastoral example 
 in its unconscious influence on the hearts and 
 minds and consciences of the younger people in 
 the parish. It is almost impossible to exaggerate 
 that influence. The minister who remains many 
 years in one charge will enjoy its fruits, as the 
 transient birds of passage — the parochial tramps 
 — cannot. Their friend and counsellor in infancy, 
 childhood, and youth, he will seem to those who 
 grow up under his care to be himself a part of the 
 established order of things. To adopt the fine 
 words of an Oxford student, 1 writing in praise of 
 his ancient college, and to apply them to the 
 parish, " Here, if anywhere, the minister may hope 
 to hear the still voice of truth, to penetrate through 
 the little transitory questions of the hour to the 
 realities which abide while the generations come 
 and go." If he has a delicate sense of honor, if 
 he is high-minded and disinterested, if he is, to the 
 young people, incarnate truth and justice and love, 
 then the hour will never come when the influences 
 which he exerts will cease. On the other hand, 
 
 1 Professor Frazer, Oxford, 1899. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE 125 
 
 any meanness or inconsistency will be quickly 
 marked, and not he but the very cause of right- 
 eousness itself may have to suffer for it. Bernard 
 Gilpin, the apostle of the North, in the sixteenth 
 century, was only a boy when to his father's hall 
 came for bed and board one evening, a preaching 
 friar. The sermon of the next day was discounted 
 in advance by the intoxication of the supper table ; 
 and when the friar in his discourse waxed eloquent 
 in exposing the sins of the flesh, the boy plucked 
 his father's sleeve and asked him how the man 
 dared condemn excesses when he himself had been 
 taken to bed drunk the night before. We have no 
 quicker, and I had almost said no fairer, critics of 
 conduct than the young people in our congrega- 
 tion. Certainly there are none who with such in- 
 stinctive appreciation will recognize a high ideal 
 of manly virtue, and themselves be swayed and 
 molded by it. To be their minister seems to me 
 an incalculable privilege. In the early French 
 revolution the schoolboys of Bourges formed them- 
 selves into a company, wore their uniform, learned 
 their exercises and marching through the streets 
 of the city unfurled a banner bearing this inscrip- 
 tion, " Tremblez, tyrans, nous grandirons ! " " Trem- 
 ble, tyrants, we shall grow." To muster and mar- 
 shall the ranks of growing life is the pastor's office, 
 and I know of none that is more inspiring. The 
 church of to-morrow marches there. 
 
126 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 This mention of a band of disciplined volunteers 
 leads me to urge that we should be judicious in 
 organizing the young people in our congregation. 
 Let us not add to the already exhausting labors of 
 the alphabet by starting new societies calling for 
 new arrangements of letters to set forth their aims. 
 As a rule, it seems to me that, just as the poorer 
 the man the more numerous his family, so the 
 smaller the church the larger is likely to be the 
 number of petty organizations — each of course 
 with its title and its badge — which are struggling 
 for an existence, when, oftener than not, they had 
 better cease. The inscription on an English tomb- 
 stone, " Methuselah Coney, aged two weeks," in- 
 voluntarily occurs to me when I run my eye 
 over the list of these high-sounding enterprises. 
 " Strengthen the things that remain " rather than 
 call another piece of inflated feebleness into being. 
 In the Church, as in the State, what we need is 
 not fresh laws, but rather that what we already 
 have be fairly administered. And here it may not 
 be out of place to utter a word of caution against 
 the peril of inflicting on young and ignorant minds 
 conditions that can for the present mean nothing 
 to them. With Mr. Beecher I am inclined to say : 
 
 I am opposed, heartily opposed, to the imposition that 
 I see practised on children by attempting to make them, at 
 nine, ten, eleven, or twelve years old, do things and feel 
 things that belong to adult life and do not belong to chil- 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE \2] 
 
 dren. The idea that you can organize them and bring them 
 to pledges, and get them to make promises and put them 
 on platforms that are pre-eminently out of their reach, it 
 seems to me, is absolutely absurd. 1 
 
 As a practical conclusion to what has been said 
 about the relation of the pastor to the young peo- 
 ple who have been brought into his church, I 
 would urge that he keep in friendly and confiden- 
 tial touch with them. Once a year let him meet 
 all who have been added to the church in each 
 separate year and so give to them a distinct inter- 
 est in one another. Let the meeting be at the 
 same time social and devotional in its character. 
 Let the attendance be limited to those who have 
 been mentioned and to the deacons or elders of 
 the church. Get each one to speak, however 
 briefly. Have light refreshments provided and 
 bright music. Let the minister's own address, if 
 he makes one, be earnest and faithful. Each such 
 gathering can be utilized as a power for putting 
 new life into all the church and for pushing out 
 on aggressive lines of Christian work. 
 
 I may also recommend that each pastor have in 
 the vestibule of his church a pastor's letter-box, of 
 which he alone holds the key, and that he invite 
 the young people (of course not by any means 
 only them) to write to him on any questions of 
 faith and practice calling for light. But while 
 
 1 " Yale Lectures, " II., 185. 
 
128 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 these simple methods are referred to, I must, in 
 justice to my present purpose, add that the par- 
 ticular way in which this pastoral influence and 
 this friendly touch are obtained and kept up seems 
 to me altogether secondary. Every man must 
 devise his own. What suits one cannot possibly 
 suit all. The country church is not to be handled 
 as the city church is. The less cultured are not 
 responsive to methods which succeed with the 
 more refined. Of the true pastor, as of him whose 
 servant he is, we may dare to say that 
 
 The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
 And God fulfills himself in many ways. 
 
 We have now spoken of the minister as the 
 friend of the young people in his congregation 
 and as their pastor. It remains for me to deal 
 with a subject of great interest alike to him and to 
 them, I mean the minister as preacher. 
 
 Hitherto we have been thinking chiefly of how 
 the child, the boy, the girl, the young life in the 
 parish, look to the minister. But let us remember 
 that there are two sides to everything. Have we 
 ever considered the reverse of this and asked our- 
 selves how the minister — the preacher let us say 
 for our present purpose — looks to the child ? 
 "Your baby doesn't disturb me," said a minister 
 who was vociferating in his sermon to a mother 
 who was leaving the church with a crying infant. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE 1 29 
 
 "That isn't it, sir," she replied, "you disturb my 
 baby." When Tennyson wrote his "Northern 
 Farmer " we learned, almost it seemed as a revela- 
 tion, what the bucolic mind held as to the parson : 
 
 • ' An' I hallus corned to' s choorch afoor my Sally wur dead 
 An' eerd un a bummin awaay loike a buzzard clock ower 
 
 my ye' ed, 
 An' I niver knaw' d, but I thowt a 'adsummat to saay, 
 An' I thowt a said what a owt to ' a said, an' I corned 
 
 awaay. ' ' 
 
 In the same way one cannot help hoping that the 
 child's laureate will some day interpret for us the 
 wide-open eyes and calmly wondering look with 
 which the first sermon is received. The young 
 preacher in a country congregation who dared to 
 hold on with his sermon half an hour after milking 
 time was very properly informed by the farmer's 
 wife that, if only he had the feelings of a cow, 
 under these trying circumstances, he would know 
 better when to stop. The minister, if he has kept 
 fresh and natural the child's heart, will need no 
 such reproof. He will hear his own voice with 
 the child's ear and measure his own address by 
 the limited rule of the child's power of attention. 
 
 At a very early age children should be brought 
 to church. To the church first ; to the school 
 second. If it comes to be a question whether the 
 boy or girl should go to the morning service or to 
 the school, I should answer without any hesita- 
 
 1 
 
I30 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 tion, to the service. The habit of attending pub- 
 lic worship cannot too soon be begun. The neg- 
 lect of this, coupled with the unfortunate hour at 
 which many of our Sunday-schools meet, — noon, — 
 has done much to break the connection between 
 the young people and the church, and to abolish 
 that fine old institution, the family pew. The con- 
 gregation dispersing at twelve o'clock meets the 
 children coming to school. And it may very well 
 be that the absence of so large a proportion of our 
 population from church can be traced to this fact. 
 When the time came for the boy to leave his class, 
 having in his own estimation grown too old to go 
 any longer to school, there was no other alterna- 
 tive to which he had been accustomed than to go 
 nowhere. We must work for the revival of the 
 family pew, that spectacle of solid and prosperous 
 devotion which marks the British as distinguished 
 from the American congregation. In the case of 
 very young children, the minister, if he is wise, 
 will invite parents to bring them, and the mother, 
 if she is wise, will resist the temptation to take the 
 baby to the very front pew, so as to disturb the 
 service to the utmost when the inevitable cry 
 comes. She will be content for the time to be 
 rather a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord. 
 When children are brought to the service, let as 
 much liberty as possible be given to them. I hope 
 it is unnecessary for me to say that under no cir- 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE 131 
 
 cumstances should the child be kept awake. If it 
 sleeps it will do well for itself, and better perhaps 
 for all the rest of the congregation. Let not the 
 minister allow himself to be put out by reason of 
 any inattention on the part of the children. They 
 listen quite as much, in proportion, as do their 
 elders, but they have not yet learned how behind 
 a mask of polite toleration to conceal a mind which 
 is a thousand miles away. Think how little there 
 is in the ordinary congregational service to interest 
 a boy. How little part he can take in it. I believe 
 that Mr. Beecher is right when he says : 
 
 In the Episcopal and the Roman Catholic churches there 
 is something for children. In that regard these churches 
 are far beyond us. A child can follow the service in the 
 book, can make responses, can read, can sing — and there 
 is very much of song service in the Episcopal Church . In 
 ours how little is there which is fitted to the thought of the 
 children. 1 
 
 Under the Puritan rule in New England the 
 ordinary boy seems to have been an object of al- 
 most perpetual reprobation. It was the settled 
 conviction of the minister that foolishness was 
 bound up in the heart of the child, and that with 
 him and the tithing man did it rest to expel the 
 foolishness and correct the child. The boys were 
 seated on the pulpit stairs, and what terrors were 
 not conveyed to them by the preacher's word were 
 
 1 "Yale Lectures," 2, 190. 
 
132 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 carried to them by the other functionary's rod. 
 Above them stretched the gallery with its wider 
 spaces and its greater freedom, but only when they 
 behaved well were they suffered to sit there. They 
 persisted, it seems, in breaking the windows in 
 search of air ; and one church book still preserves 
 this resolution on its pages: "The constables are 
 desired to take notis (notice) of the persons that 
 open the windows in the tyme of public worship." l 
 Meanwhile the children, panting and pent in, 
 were not really inattentive. Their minds were 
 active and all their senses quick. We ourselves 
 may remember no word of any sermon ever 
 preached in our hearing in those tender years, but 
 shall we ever forget the peculiar odor of the sanc- 
 tuary — the church smell ; a mixture of mildew and 
 moth and rust, with a fair proportion of last Sun- 
 day's atmosphere carried forward to this, in the 
 one place where air seemed to be as changeless 
 and incapable of change as eternity itself ? The 
 boy longing, as he afterward confesses, for the 
 sounding board pendent above the pulpit, to fall 
 and put an end to the preacher and his sermon, 
 studying the knots and veins in the woodwork, 
 following the beetle's droning flight, and surren- 
 dering himself to the fascinating machinations of 
 the universal spider, is himself the best vindication 
 
 1 Earle, "New England Sabbaths," pp. 59, 61. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE 1 33 
 
 of his intelligence. All he asks for is for some- 
 thing to observe, to be interested in, to do. It is 
 our duty to meet this demand. 1 
 
 Having brought the child to the church, let us 
 make him a special object of study. Let us feed 
 him with food convenient for him. Throughout 
 the service there should, I venture to think, be 
 more variety and change. The congregation should 
 rise and sing every hymn, and there should be a 
 responsive reading. Our service is often open to 
 the criticism that when not triste it is unmeaning 
 and even frivolous. The reading of the Scriptures 
 should be a matter of very careful study. En- 
 courage the use of Bibles in the pew. It is a good 
 suggestion that " an effort should be made to 
 form this habit in our juvenile assemblies." If 
 necessary during the reading, by a word or two 
 well chosen, explain what to the young and inex- 
 perienced may be perplexing. 
 
 Never fail to remember the family in your 
 prayer. Are there boys and girls away from home 
 at school ? Are there others now, for the first 
 time, engaging in business ? Has some social stage 
 been reached ? Are there wedding bells in the 
 air, or the cry of the first-born, or has some little 
 grave been dug in the cemetery ? Do not fail to 
 make tender reference to all these. 
 
 1 Lucy Larcom, "A New England Girlhood." 
 
134 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 The singing should always attract the young 
 people, and much can be said in favor of the plan, 
 often carried out, I understand, in the north of 
 England, of introducing in some part of the service 
 a children's hymn, to be sung by the children 
 alone, and for which due preparation must be made 
 through the Sunday-school. 
 
 Now as to the sermon. If our reliance is placed 
 upon the ordinary discourse, then we should en- 
 deavor to have something in it which will attract 
 the children, and arrest the attention of the young 
 people. This was the practice of Philip Dod- 
 dridge and John Wesley. 1 To revert for a moment 
 to a point on which I have already touched, think 
 how the sermon appears to the younger members 
 of the congregation. Mr. Beecher says that he 
 does not believe that he ever understood a single 
 thing that his father preached about, till he was 
 ten years old. 2 To Lucy Larcom, the preacher 
 " seemed to be trying to explain the Bible by put- 
 ting it into long words." 3 These are no doubt good 
 samples of the impression which even superior ser- 
 mons made upon superior children. From these 
 you may descend to the lowest point, where you 
 will find the young British plowboy, who frankly 
 confesses that when the text is announced " I puts 
 my feet up on the seat, and I thinks about naw- 
 
 1 Trumbull, 333. 2 "Yale Lectures," 189. 
 
 3 "A New England Girlhood," 55. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE 1 35 
 
 thing at all." This humiliating consummation 
 preachers must determine to ward off by all legiti- 
 mate means. Even a child can be attracted, if not 
 held, by a descriptive or historical sermon. By 
 all means let us use concrete words, have illustra- 
 tions, nor be afraid of homely and familiar figures. 
 It is not at all necessary that our young hearer 
 should be able to understand all we say. Probably 
 no one does that. Possibly we do not ourselves. 
 But there should be hooks in every sermon to 
 which the young people can hang an idea ; and in 
 every green pasture of the pulpit, daisies, and even 
 dandelions, for the children to pick. 
 
 Of late years the plan of preceding the regular 
 sermon with a five-minute address to the children 
 in sermon form has been growing in favor. To it 
 there are only two serious objections, the first, 
 that many excellent preachers have no genius for 
 speaking to children ; the second, which is even 
 more weighty, that the sermon proper comes to be 
 looked at as no business of the children's. So 
 one of them remarked after a service of the kind 
 in London, " It seems as if we ought to go when 
 our sermon is over." They could have found a 
 sufficiently strong precedent for doing so, since 
 the catechumens, in the early church, used to be 
 dismissed when their part of the public worship 
 was concluded. But if one has the art of address- 
 ing children it is probable that this second objec- 
 
136 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 tion will not hold. The preacher who can do that 
 is not likely to preach any sermon in which there 
 are no points of interest to the child's mind. 
 Subjects for these five-minute sermons can be 
 found in the volumes into which some of the best 
 of them have been gathered and from the sugges- 
 tions of one's own reading and observation. 
 
 But apart altogether from these efforts there 
 should be now and then, and I think more fre- 
 quently than has been usual with us, a special 
 service for the children of the Sunday-school. In 
 the times of Robert Raikes and Hannah More the 
 custom was to bring the scholars to the church 
 and seat them by themselves under the care of 
 the teachers. Out of this probably came the 
 Sunday-school gallery, from which I in childhood, 
 looking up at it from the family pew in a country 
 meeting-house, formed my earliest conceptions of 
 the Spanish Inquisition. Especially do I recall 
 the almost fiendish cunning which the teacher by 
 long practice acquired in stinging the face of the 
 sleeping or restless boy by means of the pocket 
 handkerchief used as a whiplash. When this in- 
 strument of torture disappeared, to it succeeded, in 
 many cases, the separate service where the scholars 
 were addressed by their teachers, who had (or 
 thought they had) an aptitude for that exercise. 
 Much can be said in favor of this service, and 
 especially when from it the boy or girl passes in 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE 1 3/ 
 
 due time to the family seat and the ordinary wor- 
 ship of the congregation. 
 
 Where the separate service is held, whether as 
 an occasional or as a regular thing, there should 
 be preparation for it as careful and as thorough as 
 that which is given to any other. For a few mo- 
 ments, therefore, let us consider the service and 
 the sermon. 
 
 Let the first aim be to put life into every part of 
 the service. Let the Bible be read, but not too 
 many verses. It should be explained as it is read. 
 The prayer should be simple and earnest and not 
 exposed to the comment of one long-suffering lad, 
 who complained that " the minister had lost his 
 amen and could not find it again." When Thacke- 
 ray listened to the singing of the charity children 
 in St. Paul's Cathedral he declared, " It is the 
 finest thing in the world, finer than the Declara- 
 tion of Independence." 1 So it is, and so in its 
 own measure is the singing of the children any- 
 where. For this very reason let us make the 
 most of it. The tunes of many of our popular 
 hymns seem to be better than the hymns them- 
 selves. It must be confessed that they are often 
 halting in their metre, unreal in their emotion, 
 artificial in their sentiment, and in their doctrine 
 shallow or unsound. When a healthy boy sings 
 
 1 " Motley's Letters," I : 253. 
 
I38 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 with vigorous lungs, " I want to be an angel," 
 nothing is further from his thoughts. Even the 
 exquisite child's hymn, 
 
 I think when I read the sweet story of old, 
 When Jesus was here among men, 
 
 has been criticised for giving the conception of an 
 absent Saviour, whereas he is as near to the chil- 
 dren now as when in Judea he held them in his 
 arms and gave to them his blessing. I venture to 
 think that some at least of Doctor Watts's " Divine 
 Songs for Children," although written by a con- 
 firmed bachelor, are among the happiest that we 
 have, and certainly I should say that the hymns 
 which we love best in our ordinary service will in 
 many cases be popular with young people. 
 
 The sermon or address demands to be consid- 
 ered as our last point. 
 
 The importance of knowing how to preach to 
 children and of frequently doing so, needs to be 
 brought home to every minister's heart. " Spend 
 an hour," was Wesley's injunction to his preachers, 
 "spend an hour a week with the children in every 
 large town, whether you like it or not." l He may 
 have learned from Count Zinzendorf and the Mo- 
 ravians how useful a practice this was. The 
 count and his fellow-religionists preached directly 
 to the children, and a remarkable revival among 
 
 1 Tyerman, " Life of Wesley," 3 : 23. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE 1 39 
 
 them had its rise in a discourse to girls by Zinzen- 
 dorf himself. 1 Let no one allow himself to think 
 that there is any condescension on his part in 
 doing this. At no other time in all one's ministry 
 will he be treading closer in the footprints of the 
 Master. And never will he be in better company. 
 Mr. Spurgeon declared that for himself he felt 
 that he could preach much more readily to the low 
 and groveling minds of grown-up people than to 
 the purer and sublimer minds of children, who 
 seemed to be nearer heaven, better and simpler. 2 
 " We call it coming down," said Horace Bushnell, 
 " when we undertake the preaching to children ; 
 whereas it is coming up, rather, out of the subter- 
 ranean hills, darkness, intricacies, and dungeon- 
 like profundities of old, grown-up sin, to speak to 
 the bright daylight creatures of trust and sweet 
 affinities and easy convictions." 3 
 
 It should be enough to recall the men who have 
 made a special practice of the sermon to children 
 to convince any one how honorable a work it is. 
 At the beginning of the Protestant revival of the 
 eighteenth century the leaders were active here. 
 The persuasive tones of Philip Doddridge, the in- 
 tense devotion of John Wesley, and Richard Cecil's 
 rare eloquence, were pressed into the service. The 
 succession, from that time to this, has never been 
 
 1 Trumbull, p. 106. *Ibid., p. 34°. 
 
 3 "Life," p. 504. 
 
140 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 broken. In the earlier years of our century Alex- 
 ander Fletcher's annual discourse to children was 
 one of the events of the year in the city of London. 
 John Todd did no better work in all his ministry 
 than when he preached his virile sermons to young 
 people and then gave them to the press. The 
 ministry of Dr. Stephen H. Tyng, in New York, 
 was in no small degree a ministry to the young ; 
 and, in Philadelphia, Dr. Richard Newton became 
 for his generation and for ours the model preacher 
 to children. It is remarkable how often the men 
 who have excelled in this enviable art have been 
 men rich in the spirit of St. John : Frederic 
 Denison Maurice, the remembrance of whose face 
 in Lincoln's Inn Chapel is to me a constant bene- 
 diction ; the gentle Andrew Bonar ; William Arnot, 
 with a mind like a flower garden, as fragrant as it 
 was bright ; and John Cairns, of Berwick, whose 
 
 Strength was as the strength of ten, 
 Because his heart was pure. 
 
 Space will not allow me to add to the list. Enough 
 if I remind my readers that it contains the names 
 of men from all the churches whom the church 
 universal delights to honor. 
 
 To preach to children is not easy. " My chil- 
 dren's sermons," said Doctor Newton, " cost me 
 more time and labor than any others I preach." ! 
 
 1 Trumbull, p. 389. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE I4I 
 
 Nor is it given to every minister to excel here. 
 At a Sunday-school Convention held in Plymouth 
 Church, at the time when Mr. Beecher was in his 
 prime, he was called upon for an address. In the 
 course of his remarks he confessed that he never 
 felt at ease in addressing children. His mission 
 seemed to be to grown-up people, and he was 
 obliged to leave the children to others. Scarcely 
 had he said so when Dr. Stephen H. Tyng entered 
 the church and took his place on the platform. 
 Mr. Beecher went on to give a beautiful picture of 
 the work of a Sunday-school teacher. This part 
 Doctor Tyng heard, and when his turn came he 
 referred in the most flattering terms to the manner 
 in which Mr. Beecher had covered the whole 
 ground. He then went on to say, in the most 
 blissful ignorance of the personal application of his 
 words, that he always preferred in his choice of 
 pastoral work one child to two adults, adding : 
 
 " It seems to me that the devil would never ask 
 anything more of a minister than to have him feel 
 that his mission was chiefly to the grown-up mem- 
 bers of his congregation, while some one else was 
 to look after the children." The crowded audience 
 shook with subdued mirth while Doctor Tyng, 
 wholly unconscious of the point of his remark, 
 continued, pointing to the door of the church. 
 
 " I can see the devil looking in at that door and 
 saying to the minister on this platform : ' Now you 
 
142 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 just stand there and fire away at the old folks and 
 I'll go around and steal away the little ones.'' 
 The audience broke into a peal of laughter which 
 utterly astounded good Doctor Tyng. Yet as a 
 matter of fact both he and Mr. Beecher were right. 
 One star differeth from another star in service as 
 well as in glory. 
 
 Still, the qualifications on the part of the minis- 
 ter for preaching to children are just such as he 
 will need in all his pulpit work. He must be 
 earnest. He must be sympathetic. That is to 
 say, his aim must be not to amuse so much as to 
 make better, and he must put himself in the place 
 of his hearers, and first feel with, so that he may 
 also feel for them. It is difficult to see how this 
 could have been the case with a certain London 
 minister who took for his text, " Their houses shall 
 be full of doleful creatures," 1 and for his theme, 
 " Disagreeable Children." 
 
 A good text will illustrate afresh the truth of 
 the proverb, "It is the first step that counts." 
 The text should be short, simple, and striking. 2 
 
 "Talitha Cumi " is the text of one of Dean 
 Stanley's sermons in Westminster Abbey, where 
 he loved to meet the children and to talk to them. 3 
 A little mystery, a challenge to the fancy of the 
 hearer, will often be useful in attracting attention. 
 
 1 Isa. 13 : 21. 2 Trumbull, 351, 362. 
 
 3 W. G. Blackie, "For the Work of the Ministry," p. 196. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE 1 43 
 
 Nowhere can better texts be found than in the 
 great green book of nature, to which Jesus turned 
 when he said, " Consider the lilies, Ziowthey grow." 
 
 Equally important is the subject of the address. 
 It is not at all necessary that it be childish. The 
 popular book with boys is the book which is heroic ; 
 and I am afraid they prefer the prodigal son who 
 went so far afield, to the brother who stayed at 
 home and never gave his father any trouble, nor 
 gave him, for the matter of that, much of anything 
 else. 
 
 What is essential in your theme is the human 
 element. The young hearer, as much as the Ro- 
 man actor, counts nothing that is human foreign 
 to him. For this reason, Joseph and David and 
 Daniel are favorites forever. Dean Stanley could 
 put life into an old legend ; and his story of the 
 dying match-boy has passed into a classic. 
 
 As to the treatment of the sermon, I should say 
 that one idea is, as a rule, enough. Of older peo- 
 ple, even, is this not also true ? If you can do it 
 skillfully, bring that one idea out of the text by 
 means of question and answer. To do this well is 
 great art. It is wise sometimes to introduce your- 
 self by a question ; but be on your guard when 
 you do this. The answer may not always be much 
 to your mind. " What would you do," inquired 
 one preacher, " if you were compelled to stand 
 here before so many bright boys and girls, and had 
 
144 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 nothing to say ? " And the irrepressible small boy 
 replied, without a moment's hesitation, "I'd keep 
 quiet." 
 
 Dr. A. A. Bonar, one Sunday evening in June, 
 appeared at a school in Edinburgh. It was the 
 fifth school that he had addressed that day ; and 
 some of the scholars had previously heard him 
 more than once, being lured to this unusual effort 
 of self-sacrifice by the prospect of the impending 
 school-treats. They were ready to vote early and 
 often. That day the good doctor had used to ex- 
 cellent effect his famous children's address from 
 the text, " Like as a hen gathereth her chickens 
 under her wing." It began with the question 
 " Did any of you, dear little boys or girls, ever see 
 a hen? " But even of a good thing it is possible 
 to have too much, and so when the usual intro- 
 ductory question was launched, the repeaters in 
 that evening school, being primed for the purpose, 
 answered, " No, sir, no ! We never saw a hen — 
 never one of us ever saw a hen ! " 
 
 The tone of the address should be bright, with- 
 out being frivolous. Do not misrepresent the feel- 
 ing of our heavenly Father toward children. 
 "Thou God seest me," is a good text to preach 
 from, but remember that it has in it no terrifying 
 thought of God detecting and punishing sin. " It 
 occurs in one of the most beautiful and pathetic 
 of Scripture stories, telling of Divine compassion 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE I45 
 
 for those who have found man's tender mercies 
 cruel," and it commemorates the simple faith of 
 the outcast Hagar, when for her, under the present 
 care of God, " the desert rejoiced and blossomed 
 as the rose." J The harrowing and horrible should, 
 as a rule, be avoided, and it is no longer desirable 
 in the interests of good citizenship or sound life 
 insurance that all the good should die young, even 
 though that might be the fashion in New England 
 in the days of Cotton Mather. 
 
 The moral, — and to every successful sermon to 
 children there must be a moral, uttered or unex- 
 pressed, — may very well be distributed throughout 
 the address rather than concentrated at the close. 
 Put there, it runs a chance of being entirely neg- 
 lected. When Doctor Robertson, of Irvine, preach- 
 ing to the street Arabs of Glasgow, finished his 
 story and began to apply it, one of them bade him 
 shut up with his moral and give them another 
 story. " I learned from that rascal," said he, "to 
 wrap the moral well in the heart of the story ; not 
 to put it as a sting into the tail." In the same 
 spirit as this street waif, a little girl in a much 
 more genteel circle of society confided to her 
 mother that she liked their new minister — " because 
 he has no morals." 
 
 Yet I must add, with the accent of conviction, 
 
 1 Mrs. Carus-Wilson, "Unseal the Book," p. 69. 
 K 
 
I46 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 that in every address to children the element of 
 instruction should be found. An English bishop 
 has lately been pleading for " teaching sermons," 
 and one reason why men are not more attracted to 
 the churches is probably to be found in a neglect 
 of this truth that we must educate the minds of 
 our congregation as well as their hearts. The 
 same holds true with younger audiences. 
 
 As to the manner and spirit of the sermon, our 
 first and last insistence would frame itself into 
 the injunction, Be natural. Let us not affect sim- 
 plicity, let us not pretend to feelings which we do 
 not have, and never make the fatal blunder of 
 talking down to children. The simplicity which I 
 am commending is that of Reginald Heber, of 
 whom the little child said : " Oh, I like him very 
 much, and he told me a good many things, but I 
 don't think he knows much more than I do." To 
 speak like that is to recall Pascal's eulogy of the 
 supremely good book, " Every one thinks he could 
 have written it himself." 
 
 We shall do well to cultivate the art of speaking 
 in words which are short and concrete. The ad- 
 dress which began, " My dear children, I do not 
 propose, on the present occasion, to detain you 
 with any preliminary remarks of a recondite or 
 abstruse character," like the Chinese criminal, 
 carried its death sentence written on its forefront. 
 
 On the other hand, John Wesley, the greatest 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE I47 
 
 ecclesiastical general in the Protestant church, 
 prepared a sermon to children in which he used 
 no word having more than two syllables, and many 
 other preachers distinguished in the annals of the 
 pulpit have done the same. There is no better 
 example as to style than that of Dr. Samuel Cox, 
 who found, in revising his sermons to children, 
 " clusters of twenty and thirty, or even forty and 
 fifty words of one syllable," and who commends 
 the simplest and most colloquial English." 
 
 So much has been written of late on the subject 
 of preaching to children that it looks as though at 
 length the church were indeed waking up to its 
 neglected opportunity. The published volumes of 
 sermons preached to young people form a little 
 library of themselves. The counsels and direc- 
 tions on the subject in homiletical text-books are 
 wise and weighty, and no doubt, in common with 
 the counsels and directions for all homiletical 
 work, alternately inspire us with emulation and 
 overshadow us with despair. 
 
 But, after all, it is at the feet of the one perfect 
 Model that each one of us must sit and listen and 
 learn. Not only the soldiers, impotent to arrest 
 him, but equally the little children held willing 
 captives in his arms, bid us acknowledge that 
 "never man spake like this man." 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SUNDAY- 
 SCHOOL 
 
A comparison of the Sunday-school of the earlier times 
 and the present day. The minister must adjust his relation 
 to the Sunday-school. His relation to the school as a 
 whole. The minister is the pastor of the school. His 
 relation to the officers of the school. He must advise and 
 supervise. His relation to the teachers of the school. An 
 intellectual influence a spiritual power. Benefit of the 
 work to himself. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 How shall we define the Sunday-school ? A 
 century of experience has changed our conception 
 of the Sunday-school so radically that to-day we 
 scarcely recognize it as the same thing that it was 
 when Robert Raikes and Hannah More began 
 their philanthropic work in the lanes of Gloucester 
 and the villages of Somersetshire. Where can 
 you find, in England or America, a parallel to the 
 picture of the opening of the school at Blagden, 
 in the west of England, which we have in Hannah 
 More's " Mendip Annals " ? l 
 
 In the beginning of October, 1795, we opened one of the 
 largest, most affecting, and interesting schools we had yet 
 encountered, composed of a hundred and seventy young 
 people, the greater part from eleven to twenty years of age. 
 It was an affecting sight. Several of the grown-up youths 
 had been tried at the last assizes. There were the children 
 of a person lately condemned to be hanged, many thieves, 
 all ignorant, profane, and vicious beyond belief. Not one 
 out of the one hundred and seventy could make any reply 
 to the question, ■ ' Who made you ? ' ' 
 
 To-day we have reached the opposite extreme, 
 
 !P P . 168, 169. 
 
 151 
 
152 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 and it is to be feared that some of our Sunday- 
 schools are cheerful and sociable children's clubs 
 for the promotion of pleasant intercourse, the cir- 
 culation of popular literature, the cultivation of 
 kindly feeling among the families of the congrega- 
 tion, and, incidentally, the study, not of the Bible, 
 but of lesson notes more or less connected with it. 
 
 These extremes have certainly one thing in 
 common. The Sunday-school of Hannah More 
 was strictly parochial, and the Sunday-school of 
 to-day is the same in the sense that it keeps largely 
 within the bounds of the separate congregations. 
 Free though we may be, if we live in America, 
 from the parochial divisions which the State marks 
 out in the old country, yet our own congregational 
 bounds are of the same nature, and, while every 
 aggressive Sunday-school by its agencies reaches 
 out beyond these bounds, still it remains sub- 
 stantially true that " the Sunday-school may be 
 defined as the church and congregation, especially 
 children, meeting on Sunday for the study of the 
 Scriptures." J 
 
 When it is faithful to its office the Sunday- 
 school is much more like the early Christian 
 assemblages, as they are described by Justin Mar- 
 tyr, for instance, than is our modern congrega- 
 tional gathering for public worship. Its keynote 
 
 1 Judson, "The Institutional Church," p. 104. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 1 53 
 
 is instruction. No limit of age, of understanding, 
 or of condition, should for one moment be recog- 
 nized. 
 
 The Sunday-school, then, is not so much a 
 branch of congregational work as it is the congre- 
 gation itself. And the minister stands in just the 
 same relation to it as he does to the congregation, 
 understanding by the word " congregation " the 
 whole number of those who regularly come under 
 his spiritual influence. 
 
 How this truth has been obscured, lost sight of, 
 finally denied altogether, history bears melan- 
 choly witness. The struggling and scattered 
 church of the first days was, as Doctor Trum- 
 bull says : l 
 
 Unable to enforce a uniform church-school system in all 
 communities alike with carefully graded instruction from 
 the primary class to the divinity school. The best that it 
 could do was to provide in every local church gathering for 
 the catechetical instruction of the young, including the 
 children of all believers and all other children who could 
 be brought under its care. . . Individual Christians were 
 forward and active in efforts to reach and to teach the 
 young whenever and wherever they might do so. 
 
 But the growth of the hierarchy in numbers, 
 power, and assumption gradually changed the sim- 
 plicity of the early church. The ministry claimed 
 the exclusive right to instruct and then failed to 
 
 1 "Vale Lectures," p. 48. 
 
154 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 do it. Romanist and Protestant, State Church- 
 man and Nonconformist alike, lay under the male- 
 diction of the Master, " Woe unto you, lawyers ! 
 for ye have taken away the key of knowledge : ye 
 entered not in yourselves, and them that were 
 entering in ye hindered." 1 
 
 Confining ourselves to the area covered by the 
 modern Sunday-school movement, we find abun- 
 dant proof in Great Britain and America that the 
 woe was well deserved. The opposition of the 
 British clergy to that movement in its early days 
 was often undisguised and fierce. " Sunday- 
 schools," says Sir Charles Reed, " were attacked 
 by prelates in the pulpit. The Bishop of Roches- 
 ter notably denounced the movement and urged 
 the clergy not to support it, and the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury was the first man in that day to call 
 the bishops together to consider whether some- 
 thing could not be done to stop this great enter- 
 prise." 2 " Later the Presbyterians of Scotland and 
 the Congregationalists of New England were rep- 
 resented among the opponents of the Sunday- 
 school as it battled its way into deserved honor." 
 
 The clerical mind, here as in other matters, was 
 slow to change. There were from the first illus- 
 trious exceptions to the dislike or distrust with 
 which the Sunday-school was regarded, but the 
 
 1 Luke II : 52. 2 Trumbull, pp. 114, 115. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 1 55 
 
 average clergyman, when he ceased to persecute, 
 did what is little if anything better, he patronized. 
 " Within this month," wrote Mr. Raikes in 1787, 1 
 " the minister of my parish has at last conde- 
 scended to give me assistance in this laborious 
 work, which I have now carried on for six years 
 with little or no support. He chooses that the 
 children should come to church both morning and 
 evening." The Bishop of Gloucester, at his visita- 
 tion in July, 1786, ventured so far as to say, with 
 genuine episcopal caution, that " he doubted not, 
 with proper management and under the inspection 
 of the parochial clergy, Sunday-schools might be 
 productive of great good among the children of 
 the poor throughout the diocese." Such a man 
 would have patronized the angels of the Advent 
 and faintly approved of the Declaration of' Inde- 
 pendence, always, of course, " under the inspection 
 of the parochial clergy." The nutter in the eccle- 
 siastical dovecots may be imagined when one of 
 the most liberal and devoted of the Mendip clergy 
 needed to write : 
 
 I beg to state that the plans for instructing the children 
 and their older relations are circumscribed by every pre- 
 caution which appears to me needful or practicable in order 
 to guard against the smallest abuse or irregularity. The 
 whole economy of the school is under my direction and 
 
 1 Gregory, " Robert Raikes, Journalist and Philanthropist," p. 
 136. 
 
I56 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 control, and nothing is done but what I, with my whole 
 heart and to the best of my dispassionate judgment, ap- 
 prove. l 
 
 So, although with dignified deliberativeness, the 
 clergy came to acquiesce in the Sunday-school 
 movement. No doubt this was owing in part to 
 the fact that the queen herself sent for Raikes to 
 hear from his own lips " by what accident a thought 
 which promised so much benefit to the lower order 
 of people as the institution of Sunday-schools was 
 suggested to his mind." At Windsor, under the 
 shadow of the royal castle, " the ladies of fashion 
 passed their Sundays in teaching the poorest chil- 
 dren." There was a fair prospect that Sunday- 
 schools, as the eighteenth century wore to its 
 close, would become as popular with the aristocracy 
 as in our own times slumming has been. The 
 vagaries of fashion sometimes carry even her to 
 the limits of serious usefulness. 
 
 The British clergy were loyal to the royal ex- 
 ample. The name of Mr. Raikes became "a name 
 that every clergyman should highly reverence." 
 He was eulogized as a patriotic and virtuous citi- 
 zen to whom the present generation should " raise a 
 monument of gratitude." He was compared with 
 Jenner, who had recently benefited the whole 
 nation by introducing vaccination. The clergy 
 might now safely praise the man who basked in 
 
 1 " Mendip Annals," p. 188. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL I 57 
 
 the sunshine of the royal approval and who was 
 put side by side with the physician who had warded 
 off the small-pox. 
 
 In America, the progress of the Sunday-school 
 movement was almost as difficult, and from sub- 
 stantially the same causes. The birth of the Amer- 
 ican Sunday-school Union was probably under very 
 humble circumstances. A colored woman, in 1793, 
 started a Sunday-school in New York. Visitors 
 to the schools of Robert Raikes gave shape to this 
 and other voluntary enterprises. A minister from 
 London put enthusiasm into the work in Philadel- 
 phia. But even at this time a young girl who 
 dared to gather a little school in the galleries of 
 her home church in Norwich Town, Connecticut, 
 was forbidden to desecrate the day or the place by 
 her unsanctioned experiment. She was driven 
 even from the schoolhouse to which she had with- 
 drawn, and compelled at last to take refuge on the 
 church steps. From her baffled but victorious 
 endeavor sprang a school which has already sent 
 out twenty-six ministers and missionaries, several 
 of them members of her own family. 1 And of the 
 Sunday-school institution at large it can be said 
 that " from an aggregate membership of a few 
 hundred at the beginning of this century, it has 
 come to include,' within the evangelical Protestant 
 
 Trumbull, p. 128. 
 
158 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 bodies alone, from eight to ten millions, or nearly 
 one- fifth of the entire population of the United 
 States." 1 
 
 In an earlier chapter we traced the idea of Chris- 
 tian nurture through the apostolic age to the earlier 
 years of synagogue instruction, and still farther 
 back to the founding of the Hebrew theocracy, and 
 thence to the tent of Abram and the cradle of re- 
 sponsible family life. 
 
 We are now able to claim for the Sunday-school 
 (which is so powerful a means of Christian nur- 
 ture), that it lies, in germ, in the church of the 
 first days. Clouded, obscured, ignored, opposed, 
 without doubt it has kept an existence ever since. 
 It is the glory of our own times that this stream 
 has been cleared of its overgrowth of weeds, that 
 its channel has been well defined, and that, as its 
 waters have broadened and deepened, and gained 
 in volume and speed, the old prophetic words have 
 received a fresh fulfillment : " And everything 
 shall live whither the river cometh." 2 Our pres- 
 ent position, you will note, is that the Sunday- 
 school is a part of the local church, essential to its 
 completeness and inseparable from its successful 
 existence. You can have the school without the 
 church better than you can have the church with- 
 out the school. Old age is not so necessary to 
 
 1 Trumbull, p.. 131. a Ezek. 47 : 9. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 1 59 
 
 continued life as youth, and we shall part with the 
 grave at less cost than with the cradle. Among 
 the first things that we have to do, therefore, if 
 we are ministers of Jesus Christ, is to adjust our 
 relations to the Sunday-school. To a considera- 
 tion of this subject we will now turn. 
 
 And, first, the minister must settle just what is 
 his relation to the school as a whole. I began this 
 chapter, with the definition of the Sunday-school 
 as the church and congregation meeting for the 
 study of the Bible ; and I did so because it is only 
 too easy to lose sight of this close connection be- 
 tween the church and the school. 
 
 In England, as we have seen, the school came 
 into existence as an independent movement. The 
 layman rather than the minister fathered it. Only 
 after much active opposition or cool patronage did 
 the church recognize in the Sunday-school one of 
 her children. In America, on the other hand, the 
 birth of the local school — and this is especially 
 true in the West— has, oftener than not, preceded 
 the birth of the local church. The mother in the 
 one case has been the daughter in the other ; and 
 the child has literally been father to the man. 
 
 Now let us understand that back of these acci- 
 dents of origin, the Sunday-school is one distinct 
 phase of the church, and therefore never independ- 
 ent of pastoral care and supervision. Here is the 
 local school, meeting under the roof of the local 
 
l6o THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 church. Who is responsible for its management 
 and control ? Who shall answer for its condition, 
 commend it for its prosperity, or censure it for its 
 ill success ? I answer : The local church ; and, 
 as the representative of the church, the minister. 
 
 I confess to a jealousy of Mr. Beecher's state- 
 ment, except indeed as a telling bit of rhetoric : 
 " I think that Sunday-schools are the young peo- 
 ple's church." This is to banish the cradle to an 
 outhouse, to have the nursery removed to a sepa- 
 rate dwelling. It is to encourage the error, al- 
 ready too general, that the young people are to 
 have their own establishment and to receive their 
 visitors, have their own separate circle, create and 
 carry on their own interests, entirely indifferent 
 to their elders. It is the boarding-house parlor 
 and not the family sitting room that is set up as 
 our model here. And I protest against it. The 
 Sunday-school is not the children's church. The 
 church where their parents worship is none too 
 good for them, and it ought to be none too formal 
 or too old. The forest trees are better for having 
 the forest undergrowth. Give the children their 
 place in the family circle of the church, as it sur- 
 rounds the sacred table or gathers with psalms and 
 hymns and spiritual songs to sing and make mel- 
 ody to the Lord. 1 My church shall be the church 
 
 J Eph. 5 : 19. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL l6l 
 
 of my children ; and their Sunday-school shall be 
 mine as well. 
 
 The responsibility of the pastor for the Sunday- 
 school is not optional. It is obligatory. Every de- 
 partment of work and worship has been committed 
 to the minister, this among the rest. 
 
 The connection between church and school will 
 be kept all the closer if the church sustain the 
 school financially. A gentleman active in the 
 public school system of Toronto says : l 
 
 I would like to see Sunday-schools placed on the same 
 footing financially with relation to the church that public 
 schools hold toward the municipalities and the State. Does 
 not the Sunday-school bear even a closer relation to the 
 church than the public school does to the State? Is it not 
 literally a department, aye, and an important department, 
 of the church ? Why then should it not have its place in 
 the church estimates ? 
 
 Whatever money is collected in the classes 
 should go to beneficence, not to the support of 
 the school, not to the paying of a church debt, not 
 to defray the expenses of school festivals and pic- 
 nics, but exclusively to good works. Let the 
 school support, in whole or in part, a missionary 
 abroad or on the home field ; let it have its bed in 
 the local hospital, its share in the fresh-air fund, 
 its contribution to the relief of the famine or the 
 
 1 Mr. James Hughes, Inspector of Public Schools, Crafts, " The 
 Bible," etc., p. 70. 
 
1 62 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 fire. And let the funds be allotted under the di- 
 rection of a committee elected by the whole school, 
 with the approval of the church. The officers of 
 the school — perhaps even the teachers — should be 
 nominated at the annual election held for the pur- 
 pose, and voted upon, always subject to the ap- 
 proval of the church. 
 
 To the quickened sense of pastoral responsi- 
 bility we owe it that the local church is gathering 
 about it so many organizations for Christian en- 
 deavor, for manual or mental training, for asso- 
 ciations of young men and young women, which 
 fifty years ago would have been started each upon 
 its independent basis. It is little to the credit of 
 the church that in the eighteenth century she suf- 
 fered the Sunday-school to be begun by laymen, 
 and for years held the most valuable of her aux- 
 iliaries at arm's length. That the Christian Asso- 
 ciations for young men and young women have 
 been launched very much in the same way is little 
 to the credit of the church in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 I think that what has already been said settles 
 the minister's relation to his Sunday-school. He 
 is as much the pastor of the school as he is of 
 the fellowship. He is as much interested in the 
 choice of a superintendent as he is in the choice 
 of a deacon or an elder. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 1 63 
 
 I venture to counsel that from the first the 
 minister be very watchful over himself in this 
 matter. Let him avoid, by all means, assuming a 
 hostile position toward the officers of the school 
 or its management. Let the superintendent be 
 his close ally. It has sometimes been whispered 
 that the relations between the president and vice- 
 president in the republic are apt to be strained. 
 The officer who comes next to you in rank is the 
 one for whom unconsciously to yourself feelings 
 of petty jealousy may creep into your heart. The 
 superintendent of the Sunday-school is like the 
 general in the field, the pastor is rather the minis- 
 ter of war. There is always danger of friction. 
 Let the minister be on his guard against it. Let 
 him make the superintendent his personal friend 
 and his official confidant. Let him be his asso- 
 ciate, not in any sense his rival. 
 
 I trust that I need not warn any minister against 
 falling into a condition of indifference to the 
 school. A farmer might as well be indifferent to 
 his spring wheat. It is of the first importance 
 that he keep in close touch with every teacher in 
 his class and with every officer at his work. The 
 secret of the success of the late A. T. Stewart, 
 the drygoods merchant of New York, was said to 
 be that he was always in the store himself, and 
 that no single salesman was long out of his sight. 
 The care of all the churches was that which daily 
 
164 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 came upon the apostle, 1 and the care of all the 
 interests of the school should equally come upon 
 the minister. 
 
 And yet, at the same time, if he is prudent he 
 will not allow himself to be meddlesome. The 
 clerical weakness of omniscience is one to which 
 a minister easily yields. Many of us are credited 
 with so much more wisdom than we really possess 
 that it is not a very difficult matter for us to be- 
 lieve that, like Lord John Russell in Sydney 
 Smith's playful satire, we could take command of 
 the channel fleet, build St. Peter's, and perform 
 the most delicate surgical operation at an hour's 
 notice. The ability of the minister is seen, not in 
 doing ten men's work, but in setting ten men to 
 do it for themselves. 
 
 If the minister makes the best of his relation to 
 the school he will find that nowhere is there a 
 nobler field for the cultivation of that rare pastoral 
 gift which Doctor Chalmers in his stately rhetoric 
 was wont to call " the prosperous management of 
 human nature." 
 
 Having said so much as to the minister and 
 the school, it is easy to pass on to consider what 
 should be his relation to its officers. 
 
 The old Greek said, " He is the best shoemaker 
 who, out of the leather that he has nearest to his 
 
 l 2 Cor. II : 28. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 1 65 
 
 hand, makes the best pair of shoes." I think 
 there is nothing more foolish in a minister than to 
 quarrel with his materials. The despondent tone 
 is fatal to success. " If any one attempts to haul 
 down the American flag, shoot him on the spot," 
 wired General Dix on the eve of the Civil War, 
 and the whole North promptly waked up to the 
 certainty of success. Never haul down your flag ; 
 never even fly it at half-mast, as though there 
 were a funeral aboard. Make the officers and 
 teachers hopeful by your confident air. The 
 " gently complaining and fatigued spirit " which 
 Mr. Galton finds in the majority of clergymen is 
 an insult to God and to his world. The minister 
 who adopts it deserves the same fate — in a par- 
 liamentary sense, of course — as the man who 
 hauls down the American flag. 
 
 Let us honor our teachers. Let us discover 
 their virtues and excellencies. The church just 
 now is not crying out for critics, but for helpers. 
 The way to get better teachers is to make the 
 very best of those we already have. 
 
 I think what has to be said on this part of our 
 subject may fall under two divisions. The min- 
 ister must advise his teachers and he must super- 
 vise them. 
 
 First. He must advise. 
 
 The school, as a whole, is only one of a vast 
 number of similar organizations. Upon no branch 
 
1 66 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 of Christian work is so much thought expended. 
 By all means let the minister keep himself posted, 
 through the various excellent Sunday-school pub- 
 lications, in every advance which the army of 
 schools is making. Without showing himself 
 eager to advise the adoption of every new method 
 that is being discussed, let him never allow his 
 mind to fossilize. A school which is growing 
 must devise fresh plans for further increase. Can 
 you canvass the neighborhood ? Can you make 
 each class a recruiting agency ? Can you use the 
 press to better advantage ? Is there an advance 
 all along the line ? To debate such matters, let 
 the teachers be met every now and then, and let 
 these and other questions be open for free dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 It is of the first importance that the minister 
 advise, without dictating, as to the men in office 
 in the school. Let him find which way the current 
 is turning and wisely direct it. If it is possible 
 to have as his assistant in the pastorate a man 
 qualified to superintend the school, this is in many 
 respects a model arrangement. The work which 
 has been done by our volunteer superintendents, 
 while busy through the week in their daily avoca- 
 tions, has been beyond all praise. It is so still. 
 But when a Sunday-school is well up in the hun- 
 dreds, and is situated in a neighborhood favorable 
 to growth, it almost becomes a necessity that one 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 1 6/ 
 
 man, in addition to the minister, should give his 
 exclusive attention to it. The trouble with many 
 of our churches seems to be that, unlike some 
 armies we have heard of, even if adequately 
 manned, they are insufficiently officered. 
 
 Let the minister advise with his teachers as to 
 the size and character of the classes and as to 
 every permanent addition to the teaching force. 
 The band of regular teachers is a kind of cabinet ; 
 and the more he takes it into his counsels the more 
 likely will it be that the whole school will pull 
 unitedly in the right way. All this will require to 
 be done by him judiciously. He need not preside 
 at teachers' meetings, although he will do well to be 
 generally present at them ; but the teachers should 
 instinctively feel that his mind is to be sought 
 whenever the interests of the school are under dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 More pronounced will be the minister's influence 
 in the supervision of the school. The teaching 
 band first demands his attention. In the opening 
 clays of this movement, the teachers were many of 
 them paid. The present disposition to engage a 
 superintendent, well trained for that specific work, 
 and to pay him as one of the salaried officers of 
 the church, is practically a return to an early 
 method. There are instances — but they are rare — 
 in which even teachers are paid. As a rule, the 
 whole work of Sunday-school instruction is volun- 
 
l68 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 tary. And the volunteer Sunday-school corps, 
 like the volunteer choir in the church, labors under 
 this disadvantage, that it seems ungracious to find 
 any fault with it. When the illiterate Indian 
 preacher told a passing traveler that his salary was 
 five dollars a year and a fish pole, the traveler 
 naturally replied that this was " mighty poor pay," 
 and the Indian grunted back that it was also 
 "mighty poor preach." I have no inclination to 
 apply that story very closely ; but we cannot shut 
 our eyes to the fact that, take the country over, 
 the teaching in our Sunday-schools is not what it 
 might be. I should not say so much as this — 
 knowing how dangerous it is to indulge in glitter- 
 ing generalities — were it not that I wish to fasten 
 not a little of the responsibility for the sort of 
 teachers to be found in the Sunday-school upon 
 the minister. Far more care should be exercised 
 in their appointment. And, which is a point on 
 which I would lay the utmost stress, when ap- 
 pointed the pastor should see to it that week by 
 week the lesson for the next Sunday is intelligently 
 studied. One of the best ways to freeze out an 
 incompetent teacher is to raise the intellectual 
 tone of the whole school. The scholars will soon 
 find out his incapacity, and in time even the 
 teacher may have sufficient grace to find it out 
 himself. 
 
 I would earnestly counsel that the minister en- 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 1 69 
 
 courage in his school not the multiplication of 
 classes, so much as their efficiency. If ever it 
 should fall to his lot to build a school, let him re- 
 member that he can scarcely have too many class- 
 rooms. In the hall where all meet there should 
 be scarcely any teaching done. We have been 
 aiming at the impossible in trying to find in a 
 church of, say, four hundred members, a teaching 
 staff of forty. Each class may be allowed to be- 
 come just as numerous as its teacher can make it, 
 and the influence of some masters of the art of 
 popular Bible exposition with present-day applica- 
 tion, is to be seen in the multitudes that flock to 
 their class-rooms. 
 
 Take the utmost care in the selection of teach- 
 ers for the kindergarten department. Here from 
 the ages of three to seven gather the little chil- 
 dren, too young as yet to be admitted into the 
 public schools, but not too young to receive im- 
 pressions that will be more enduring than many 
 lessons later learned. The large church may well 
 " employ a devout and trained kindergartner, who 
 shall not only educate the child's mind and body 
 with the charming symbolic exercises of the kin- 
 dergarten, but also tell the story of the life of 
 Christ, and teach the child Christian prayers and 
 hymns." 1 If equal to doing so, the kindergarten 
 
 1 Judson, p. 172. 
 
170 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 should be established as a weekday institution in 
 the church, but often this will not be possible. 
 What I am now pleading for is : The teacher of 
 little children will learn, as well as her scholars. 
 She will be more and more impressed with the 
 beauty as well as with the mystery of infancy, and 
 will sympathize with Jean Paul Richter when he 
 says : " A single child upon the earth would seem 
 to us a wonderful angel, come from some distant 
 home, who, unaccustomed to our strange language, 
 manners, and air, looks at us speechless and in- 
 quisitive.'' 
 
 As a final word upon this subject of the teach- 
 ing force, let me beg all to remember that, in this 
 business of religious instruction, character is of 
 the utmost moment. A frivolous teacher, a teacher 
 loving the world more than the church, a teacher 
 mentally equipped but morally defective, should 
 be discouraged from further teaching. I have 
 known a teacher of very moderate ability who so 
 impressed his moral personality upon his class that 
 he became to many of his scholars the most power- 
 ful influence for good through all their after lives. 
 " Character is capital " in the ministry, and scarcely 
 less is this true also in the case of the teacher. 
 To him I may venture to apply the words of Dr. 
 Austin Phelps : " Call him what you will, dress 
 him as you please, put him where you choose, he 
 is practically a minister of the gospel." 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL I /I 
 
 Of late years we have grasped more firmly than 
 at first the wider mission of the Sunday-school. 
 We have made it central to a network of organi- 
 zations. Without it the Christian Endeavor So- 
 ciety, the gymnasium, the band of hope, the junior 
 missionary bands, the boys' orchestra, the young 
 people's literary society, the church sociable, and 
 a dozen other institutions, could scarcely exist. 
 The parish house, in one form or another, has risen 
 as a necessary adjunct to the church building. All 
 this is well. Still, the minister will need to be 
 watchful over these various interests. Let him 
 not multiply them without good reason. Let him 
 not allow the thin end of the wedge of rivalry, 
 frivolity, or roughness to get a chance. The wise 
 direction of the church sociable is no easy matter. 
 Let the minister as soon as possible add a good 
 stereopticon to his plant. Let him introduce his 
 young people, by means of it, to the wonders of 
 the world, to the great scenes of history, to the 
 masterpieces of art. Let him not condescend to 
 enter the field, as many churches have done, in 
 competition with the music hall or the variety 
 theatre. The mission of the church is not to 
 amuse, it is to elevate. Yet, keeping the idea of 
 the family, the minister can shed through the 
 school an atmosphere of good cheer ; and he can 
 make it the center of light and sweetness, draw- 
 ing to it the young life of the community. 
 
172 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 A word as to another valuable adjunct to the 
 school. I mean the library. Care should be 
 taken to have an intelligent committee to select 
 books for it. It will be well that the pastor serve 
 upon this committee himself. There are two ex- 
 tremes to be avoided in a Sunday-school library, 
 books that will not get read and books that ought 
 not to get read. A glance at the shelves will very 
 likely give a sample of the first of these. Books 
 " as good as new," which means good for little or 
 nothing ; black-bound, well printed, with no weak 
 pandering to the fancy by illustrations other than an 
 occasional portrait : " The Memoir of the Rev- 
 erend Ahasuerus Brittle, d. d." ; " The Early Bud 
 Blighted"; "The Chronological Tables of the 
 Kings of Judah and Israel"; a " Treatise on 
 Predestination," and "A Life of Joseph in Words 
 of One Syllable." A healthy boy to read any of 
 these must be reduced to the extremity of intel- 
 lectual starvation ; he must be where the besieged 
 army is when the soldiers eat their shoe soles. 
 
 On the other hand, there are books which are 
 popular and eagerly sought for, but which have no 
 true place in the Sunday-school library. We have 
 advanced far beyond the point at which our 
 fathers drew the line. We no longer discuss the 
 mission of fiction. We recognize the good work 
 that it can do. But the Sunday-school library 
 may be the only avenue open to many children for 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 1 73 
 
 gaining access to the better kinds of readable 
 literature and of fiction among the rest. Miss 
 Yonge and George Macdonald, Tom Hughes and 
 Charles Kingsley, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Miss 
 Mulock, and so on down to the books of Mrs. Wig- 
 gins and Ralph Connor and Mrs. Mason, how 
 they have enriched the shelves dear to boys and 
 girls. More serious works will find readers too. 
 The success of John G. Paton's books of mission- 
 ary adventure showed conclusively that a true man 
 can always command his audience when he has 
 something to say and knows how to say it. I 
 need only urge two points in passing : first, that 
 we remember how poor and worthless, and often 
 how demoralizing, is the literature in the home, 
 with its Sunday paper and dime novel ; and sec- 
 ondly, that we believe in the intelligence of our 
 scholars. A Sunday-school lesson may be made 
 to suggest reading in Jewish antiquities ; in the 
 geography, manners, customs, and present condi- 
 tion of Bible lands ; in the history of the time 
 and the great leaders living in other parts of the 
 world, which will reveal the slumbering faculty and 
 give to many a scholar a healthful intellectual im- 
 pulse of great value to his whole after career. 
 
 What has been said here as to pastoral super- 
 vision has been little more than by way of sug- 
 gestion. But it may have opened up the in- 
 creased and loftier sense of a pastor's responsi- 
 
174 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 bility which comes to the man who gratefully 
 accepts the view of the minister's relation to the 
 school and to its officers which I am pressing 
 home in this chapter. 
 
 I have reserved to the last the discussion of 
 what is in many respects the most important 
 branch of our subject, namely, the minister's rela- 
 tion to the teachers of the school. 
 
 Among them he must be alike an intellectual and 
 a spiritual force. These are the points which re- 
 main to be considered. 
 
 And, first, he should be intellectually powerful 
 in the teaching corps of his school. 
 
 If our view of the magnitude of Sunday-school 
 work be correct, then the minister is fully war- 
 ranted in giving a good share of his time and 
 thought to it. Should it seem that I am laying a 
 burden too heavy upon the minister in what I am 
 about to recommend, I can only answer that I am 
 speaking from personal experience when I urge 
 him to be in the widest sense of the term a 
 teacher of teachers. There is no branch of minis- 
 terial labor, I believe, which will more richly repay 
 him than this. 
 
 Occasionally, then, once in so many years, it 
 will be well for him to form a normal class and 
 teach it himself. A series of ten or fifteen studies 
 under the guidance of a simple handbook will be 
 sufficient. The months of the spring or of the 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 1 75 
 
 fall will be a good time for the exercise. Let it be 
 kept to one hour, on an evening free from all 
 other church engagements, and let the platform 
 be furnished with a blackboard and maps. 
 
 The two ends to aim at in a normal class are 
 instructing in the art of teaching and instructing 
 in the things that have to be taught. One has not 
 in this exercise to expound the lesson for the next 
 Sunday, but rather to show the teacher how to 
 handle his Bible, how to master its contents, and 
 how best to explain and apply the truths which it 
 sets forth. 
 
 The minister's first duty is to instruct in the art 
 of teaching. So few Sunday-school teachers know 
 anything about this that sometimes there is no 
 sight more pitiful than the teacher on the verge of 
 the half-hour given to instructing his class. You 
 have a strong inclination to call in the humane 
 society as to a case of cruelty to animals or to 
 send for the fire brigade and have that teacher put 
 out, like a conflagration. You instinctively envy 
 the promptitude of the editor who, when the fresh 
 hand, nibbling his pen, inquired, " What shall I 
 write about ? " answered, " Right about face," and 
 showed him to the door. "And yet show I you 
 a more excellent way " with the teacher. Let us 
 help him to teach. He has had no training. His 
 work through the week, in store or office, has not 
 done much for him. It is our duty to take him in 
 
I76 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 hand. " On the manner of teaching," says Doctor 
 Channing, 1 " how much depends ! I fear it is not 
 sufficiently studied by Sunday-school instructors. 
 They meet generally, and ought regularly to meet, 
 to prepare themselves for their tasks. But their 
 object commonly is to learn what they are to 
 teach rather than how to teach it, but the last 
 requires equal attention with the first, I had almost 
 said more." It will be wise if the pastor occa- 
 sionally turn the band of teachers into a class, or 
 make a selection from the number for the purpose, 
 and so give an object-lesson in how best a lesson 
 may be taught. This need not be done frequently. 
 Always, however, he will need to keep plainly be- 
 fore the minds of the teachers the fact that three 
 things are essential in a good instructor : First, to 
 study the truth of the lesson as authoritative ; 
 secondly, to arrive at clear ideas as to just what 
 the lesson means ; and, thirdly, to get the best 
 possible way of expressing it. Teaching, let us 
 remember, is the teacher's first duty ; not counsel, 
 or appeal, or story-telling. The teaching should 
 not be too scholastic. It is not of the first im- 
 portance that the scholar knows the distance from 
 Jerusalem to Jericho or the specific gravity of the 
 Dead Sea. A casual hearer of Dean Stanley's, at 
 Westminster Abbey, came away from the service 
 
 1 "Works," p. 366. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL IJJ 
 
 saying, " I went to hear about the way to heaven ; 
 I heard only about the way to Palestine." Yet it 
 is well to remember that the teacher is to learn 
 how to set forth truth to intelligent creatures. 
 " Children love knowledge," l says Henry Ward 
 Beecher ; "treat them as rational human beings. 
 Believe that the foundation element in them is 
 curiosity, as you call it ; that is, the nascent form 
 of philosophical feeling, the knowing states of 
 mind that are to be developed in them." It was 
 when the nineteenth century was yet young, and, 
 shall I say, foolish ? that an American religious 
 magazine discussed the question, "Can Children 
 Reason ? " and now, when its successor is yet 
 young, one wonders whether those learned dis- 
 putants were sworn to eternal celibacy, or whether 
 the American children have developed since then 
 a new faculty under the impulse of evolution. 
 Certainly they are as rational as their elders, and 
 possibly not more unreasonable than they. 
 
 The normal class will further be of service for 
 instructing the teachers in the things to be taught. 
 " Present Bibles ! " is the direction of the superin- 
 tendent in a Chicago Sunday-school, just before 
 the reading of the morning lesson ; and every 
 teacher and scholar holds up a copy of the Bible. 
 This is excellent, and suggests that what the 
 
 1 " Yale Lectures," II., 185. 
 M 
 
173 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 teacher has to learn is how to teach the Bible. I 
 am told that in the Sunday-school of the future 
 the normal class will include a course in mental 
 and moral philosophy, pedagogics, child-mind, and 
 kindergarten. 1 Such an announcement reconciles 
 one to the approach of old age, and adds another 
 charm to the prospect of the grave. Meanwhile, 
 the Bible will probably suffice for people of ordi- 
 nary intelligence and leisure. It was the early 
 text book in the Jewish schools and among the 
 first Christians as they gathered their children for' 
 religious instruction. 2 In it the Albigenses, the 
 Lollards, the Wycliffites, and the followers of John 
 Huss, trained their families ; and at this hour it 
 is the basis of the admirable teaching given in their 
 schools by the Waldenses, who thereby maintain 
 the noble traditions of a thousand years. 3 
 
 The course of instruction which is given in the 
 normal class should embrace Bible history, and the 
 history of the Bible ; the growth of the canon and 
 the order of the books ; the geography, national 
 history, and leading characteristics of the lands of 
 the Bible; and, finally, a consideration of the prin- 
 cipal truths with which the book deals. To this 
 normal class study all may be invited who wish 
 
 1 Mead, " Modern Methods in Church Work," p. 241. 
 
 2 Edersheim, "Sketches," etc., p. 125. Trumbull, p. 63. 
 
 3 " Qttelques Explications pour aider P Etude de la Bible" 
 Toni Petrie, 1898. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 1 79 
 
 to come ; and from it there may be found a sup- 
 ply of teachers in an emergency. 
 
 The normal class, as I have said, may be needed 
 only once in so many years. And if the pastor is 
 fortunate in his association with brother ministers, 
 the burden of it may easily be shared with others. 
 But it should not be allowed to pass into incapable 
 hands. Not every man has the necessary equip- 
 ment of studiousness, mental alacrity, popular ad- 
 dress, good temper, and devotion to his work to do 
 it well. 
 
 There is another class which, in my judgment, 
 the pastor had better conduct himself. I mean 
 the preparation class, in which the following Sun- 
 day's lesson is carefully studied. One evening in 
 the week should be given up entirely to this en- 
 gagement. Writing to me on the subject, Dr. A. 
 F. Schauffler, of New York, an expert in conduct- 
 ing such a class, says : 
 
 Might I venture to ask you to put very special emphasis 
 on the influence which a pastor ought to exercise as the 
 teacher of his teachers ? The whole question of the leader- 
 ship of teachers' meetings is one of very great importance, 
 and ministers in any city who develop the power of leading 
 a union teachers' meeting, have a field opened to them sec- 
 ond perhaps to none other in the world. 
 
 I am afraid that it is with good reason that 
 Doctor Schauffler adds : 
 
 Multitudes of ministers are graduated from our seminaries 
 
l80 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 who have no faintest conception of the field of usefulness 
 thus open to them. They think so little of teachers' meet- 
 ings that they pay no attention to the subject. 
 
 An experience of many years in conducting this 
 meeting — which I always threw open to all, from 
 any school or congregation, who desired to attend 
 it — confirms me in my hearty approval of these 
 words. 
 
 Let the minister take the lesson exposition him- 
 self. Let him prepare for it as thoroughly as he 
 would for a sermon. Short of making the attend- 
 ance of his own teachers obligatory let him do all 
 in his power to have them there regularly. The 
 task is not an easy one, but it will pay a hundred 
 fold. The two foes to teaching among ministers, 
 from the beginning, have been preaching and 
 ritual. This exercise may go a long way toward 
 teaching them how to teach in their sermon work. 
 It may break up the parson-tone into which the 
 enemy so readily beguiles many good men. It will 
 certainly furnish many a rich text and useful theme 
 for the pulpit. 
 
 The instruction of the hour may take one of two 
 forms. It may be cast in the mold of a running 
 exposition, with blackboard accompaniment, and 
 opportunity, either by word of mouth or in writing, 
 for any who wish to ask questions at the close. 
 Or — which it is no doubt preferable when a capa- 
 ble leader conducts it — the lesson may be taken 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL l8l 
 
 up by means of questions and answers. " The 
 object is not merely to give instruction, but to put 
 it into a communicable form, so that in learning 
 the hearers may be prepared to teach. Questions 
 should be asked by the conductor of the class as 
 to the leading points of the lesson. . . Better still, 
 questions should be invited from the members of 
 the class, that their own difficulties may be fairly 
 stated, and that the mental needs of the scholars 
 whom they represent may be adequately given." l 
 
 It remains that in this chapter I glance, much 
 more briefly than the subject deserves, at the 
 minister's spiritual power among his teachers. 
 What the moral influence — the higher personality 
 — of a principal is in the public school, that should 
 the religious influence — the highest personality — 
 of the minister be in the Sunday-school. 
 
 The great danger of Sunday-schools, as Doctor 
 Channing said, "is that they will fall into a course 
 of mechanical teaching, that they will give religion 
 as a lifeless tradition, and not as a quickening 
 reality. To wake up the soul to a clear, affection- 
 ate perception of the reality and truth and great- 
 ness of religion, is the great end of teaching." 
 
 I think that at least once every month the pas- 
 tor should meet the officers and teachers of the 
 school for prayer and conference — and for nothing 
 
 iS. G. Green, "Christian Ministry," etc., p. 187. 
 
1 82 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 else. The promotion of the spiritual life of this 
 body is of immense importance. Among the second- 
 ary blessings of such a meeting (as well as of class 
 prayer meetings, which he can also hold occasion- 
 ally), will be the development of spiritual efficiency 
 among the teachers. They will learn to pray in 
 public to edification. They will become accus- 
 tomed to hear their own voices in the statement 
 of religious experience. 
 
 At this meeting also, which need not be pro- 
 longed beyond half an hour at the most, the min- 
 ister may give his teachers valuable suggestions as 
 to how to do evangelistic work with their scholars. 
 On this point Rev. W. F. Crafts says : 
 
 It would be an excellent practice to devote fifteen min- 
 utes at each weekly teachers' meeting to the use of the 
 Bible with inquirers. Let the superintendent or pastor 
 state some difficulty, such as is presented by those who are 
 seeking Christ, and ask from the teacher the appropriate 
 passages to cancel the difficulty. 1 
 
 More will need to be said on this important 
 subject in our next chapter, when we propose to 
 carry the minister into the school itself. What I 
 now urge upon him in his ministry is, in a word, 
 to regard the teachers in his Sunday-school as 
 assistant pastors. So Dr. Edward Judson puts 
 the matter : 
 
 1 " The Bible in the Sunday-school," p. 55. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 1 83 
 
 Let the pastor commit to the care of his teachers the 
 families represented in their classes. Let the teachers call 
 upon these families regularly and report their condition to 
 the pastor. . . Strangers will be visited, because families 
 are in the habit of throwing their children out as feelers. 
 The sick will not be overlooked. The whole church will 
 become a compact social organism. 1 
 
 I wonder, in bringing this chapter to a close, 
 whether it has seemed to any one as though I 
 were laying a good deal on the minister ? He has 
 so much to do already! With reference to not a 
 little the pastor does or seems to do — the " busy 
 idleness " which eats into his time — I am disposed 
 to think that both he and the church may dispense 
 with it sooner than with this fine discipline of 
 mind and soul to which I am urging him. And 
 let me say that, whether these Sunday-school en- 
 gagements — a regular preparation class for his 
 teachers once a week, an occasional normal class, 
 gatherings at stated or special intervals for directly 
 religious conference and prayer — whether these 
 prove irksome or refreshing will depend very 
 largely on himself. It is inexpressibly good to be 
 working in the nurseries of life with the young 
 plants and saplings. They said that on into her 
 old age, Rosa Bonheur, the greatest animal painter 
 of the last century, carried the charm of an eighteen- 
 year-old girl because she loved so enthusiastically 
 
 1 "The Institutional Church," p. 106. 
 
184 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 the cattle and deer of her forest at Fontainebleau. 
 It is even better, more invigorating, and more in- 
 spiring, to live among the children and to live for 
 them. The minister should be more than a teacher 
 of teachers ; yes, more, and better. He should be 
 their atmosphere, " to teach them the fundamental 
 truths of Christianity without neglecting their spir- 
 itual affections and religious feelings, and to make 
 them love each other, and love the church, and 
 associate with the whole round of religion the 
 most joyous thoughts and feelings." l Under such 
 a conviction as this the minister will find his 
 reward for every hour of preparatory study which 
 he may give to the exposition of the Sunday-school 
 lesson and for all the pains he may expend in 
 advising and supervising the devoted band of 
 teachers that he will be sure to gather about him. 
 Here, as in many other branches of pastoral 
 service, finding it a joyful toil, he will come to 
 prove the truth of Macbeth's words, 
 
 The labor we delight in physics pain. 
 Needier, "Yale Lectures," III., 188. 
 
VI 
 
 THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY- 
 SCHOOL 
 
Beginning of the Sunday-school in England and America. 
 Three watchwords : Reformation, information, regenera- 
 tion. There must be a power to reform. The Sunday- 
 school must also educate. Bible study. Occasional serv- 
 ices conducted by the minister. Memorizing Scripture. 
 The catechism. Should the minister be a teacher? The 
 regenerating mission of the Sunday-school. The minister 
 should be well known by the scholars. He must take the 
 lead in special efforts for their spiritual welfare. The sub- 
 ject of religious decision to be made prominent. A child's 
 religion. The minister a unifying influence between home 
 and school and church and school. 
 
VI 
 
 THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 On the Thames Embankment, in London, the 
 people of England have raised a statue in honor 
 of Robert Raikes, the Gloucester printer, to whom, 
 more than to any other one man, Sunday-schools 
 owe their birth. The site of the statue is well 
 chosen, beside the noble river which, rising in the 
 county where Raikes was born, is now moving 
 swiftly toward the sea. It suggests the great 
 enterprise which from very humble beginnings 
 has swept on in its beneficent course until the 
 whole world is the better for it. Dean Farrar 
 gives voice to a feeling which we all share with 
 him when he says that he never passes that statue 
 without a sense of pleasure. 
 
 Raikes tells us, after seeing the ragged children rioting 
 about on Sunday in the streets of Gloucester : " As I asked, 
 ' Can nothing be done?' a voice answered, 'Try.' I did 
 try," he says, " and see what God hath wrought." There 
 are now Sunday-school teachers by tens of thousands all 
 over the world, but, humanly speaking, they all owe their 
 origin to that one word, "try," so softly whispered by some 
 voice divine to the loving and tender conscience of Robert 
 Raikes a hundred years ago. The echoes of that word 
 might be prolonged by millions of grateful children who 
 
 187 
 
1 88 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 have been taught for generation after generation by loving 
 teachers in Sunday-schools. 
 
 How it all came about Robert Raikes often told 
 his friends : 
 
 The utility of an establishment of this sort was first sug- 
 gested by a group of miserable little wretches whom I ob- 
 served one day in the street where many people employed 
 in the pin manufactory reside. I was expressing my con- 
 cern to one at their forlorn and neglected state, and was 
 told that if I were to pass through that street upon Sundays 
 it would shock me indeed to see the crowds of children who 
 were spending that sacred day in noise and riot, to the 
 extreme annoyance of all decent people. I immediately 
 determined to make some little effort to remedy the evil. 1 
 
 Reformation, then, was the first thought in the 
 Sunday-school system. But another followed, of 
 necessity. In the same letter from which I have 
 been quoting Raikes sounds a still higher note. In 
 these schools "children maybe received," he says, 
 "upon the Sunday, and then engaged in learning 
 to read and to repeat their catechism or anything 
 else that may be deemed proper to open their 
 minds to a knowledge of their duty to God, to 
 their neighbors, and themselves." Reformation 
 was to go hand in hand with information. These, 
 however, were not enough. Within a year or two 
 John Wesley, with characteristic devotion to the 
 true purpose of being, writes : " I find these schools 
 
 1 Gregory's " Raikes," p. 60. 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 1 89 
 
 springing up wherever I go. Perhaps God may 
 have a deeper end therein than men are aware of. 
 Who knows but some of these schools may become 
 nurseries of Christians ? " To his mind it is 
 evident that reformation and information were 
 incomplete unless they led to transformation. 
 
 In America the Sunday-school system, while it 
 did not spring directly from the movement in the 
 mother country, was so radical in its action that, 
 although it may have grown out of the catechetical 
 practice in the churches, it really amounted to a 
 revolution. 1 No doubt the shocking condition of 
 morals in England in the last century — when even 
 in a cathedral city such as Gloucester, abounding 
 in clergymen, " the streets swarmed with rogues 
 and vagabonds, who were flogged through the city 
 weekly by scores," and where George Whitefield 
 was known only as a dirty little rascal who robbed 
 his mother's till and tried to quiet his conscience 
 by giving part of the plunder to the poor, — made 
 the movement more reformatory in its character 
 than in the happier districts of New England ; 
 but there was need of moral dynamite every- 
 where. And this the Sunday-school movement 
 gave. The minister, as he comes to his Sunday- 
 school to take his share in this important branch 
 of Christian work, will do well to keep in mind the 
 
 1 "Life of Dr. Jeter," p. 26. 
 
190 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 three impelling forces — reformation, information, 
 transformation — v/ith which the young enterprise 
 was started a hundred and twenty years ago. 
 
 First, then, let him remember that there must 
 be in the Sunday-school a power to reform, a moral 
 influence. This lay at the root of the Jewish 
 school system. " The grand object of the teacher 
 was moral as well as intellectual training. To 
 keep children from all intercourse with the vicious ; 
 to suppress all feelings of bitterness, even though 
 wrong had been done to one's parents ; to punish 
 all wrong-doing ; rather to show sin in its repulsive- 
 ness than to predict what punishment would fol- 
 low, either in this or the next world, so as not to 
 ' discourage ' the child — such are some of the rules 
 laid down " in the Talmud. 1 
 
 The minister may well use the school for incul- 
 cating by example some of the minor moralities 
 — courtesy, for instance, and considerateness — to 
 which slight attention is paid in many homes. 
 Much will depend upon him in these matters. 
 The aim of the parochial system was to put a gen- 
 tleman in every parish, and, whether it succeeded 
 or not, it was a true and noble aim. On the part 
 of the minister, grace of manner, politeness, and 
 instinctive respect for the teacher — keeping him 
 from intruding and from interrupting him in his 
 
 1 Edersheim, "Sketches," etc., p. 135. 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 191 
 
 work, a careful regard for the office of superin- 
 tendent, and a public recognition on every occasion 
 of him who fills the office — will impress the scholars 
 with the beauty of courtesy. 
 
 The Sunday-school never stops with itself. The 
 home must feel its power. Some of the first 
 schools were held in private houses. 1 It was in a 
 weaver's cottage in Lancashire that a school was 
 gathered to the clanging of an old brass pestle and 
 mortar by a poor bobbin winder some years before 
 Raikes began his work. And nowhere, I suppose, 
 more than in this same English county has the 
 Sunday-school reached the home with such prac- 
 tical organizations as beneficiary and sick and 
 burial clubs. 2 
 
 Of the late R. W. Dale, of Birmingham, his 
 biographer says that " he never forgot that of 
 most children it may be said that if they have no 
 church in the home they have no home in the 
 church." But, judged by this criterion, how 
 many homes are no homes. The school alone, of 
 all the agencies of the church, is likely to reach 
 them with its saving message. From it, there- 
 fore, the minister will do well to launch any move- 
 ment — such as the " Pleasant Sunday Afternoons" 
 — for the bettering and brightening of the common 
 lot of the men and women all about him. From 
 
 1 Gregory, p. 47. 
 2 Mead, "Modern Methods," etc., Chap. XXXVII. 
 
192 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 the school he can carry the news of every such 
 organization to the homes of the scholars. I do 
 not mean that the church is to be known in the 
 neighborhood as a place of entertainment. Such 
 it is not. With Dr. A. J. Gordon I say : " The 
 rage for church amusement which the last few 
 years have witnessed has filled me with sincere 
 alarm. No reader of history can be ignorant of 
 the fact that it was precisely this process by which 
 the apostasy and corruption of Christianity were 
 originally accomplished." And, with him, I be- 
 lieve that the Society of Christian Endeavor "has 
 turned the energy and activity of our young peo- 
 ple into a better channel." It is well that the 
 school should be known in the home by the various 
 ministries of that society, but it is not well — it is 
 shameful and humiliating — that it should be known 
 by degrading the scholars into touts and ticket 
 agents for what has been called, not too severely, 
 " the devil's mission of amusement." 
 
 Widening our circle, we remark that the minis- 
 ter may, through the instruction given to the 
 scholars and the example set them, do something 
 to promote civic purity. It would be interesting, 
 were there space to do so, to trace this in some 
 concrete example, — in Birmingham, England, for 
 instance, which has been called the best governed 
 city in the world, and which has become so in the 
 last forty years, mainly because a body of young 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 1 93 
 
 men, ministers and Sunday-school teachers chiefly, 
 gave themselves with self-sacrificing ardor to the 
 good of the community. 
 
 Nor need we stay here. The Sunday-school 
 has exerted a national influence. The work of 
 Robert Raikes was scarcely six years old when 
 the Gloucestershire magistrates passed a unani- 
 mous vote to the effect that " the benefit of 
 Sunday-schools to the morals of the rising genera- 
 tion is too evident not to merit the recognition of 
 this bench and the thanks of the community to 
 the gentlemen instrumental in promoting them." Y 
 Indeed, it was the dreadful condition of the prisons, 
 making him write " could unhappy wretches see 
 the misery that awaits them in a crowded gaol 
 they would surely relinquish the gratifications that 
 reduce them to such a state of wretchedness," and 
 " the thought of the convict ships carrying out about 
 one thousand miserable creatures who might have 
 lived, perhaps happily, in this country had they 
 been early taught good principles," that led Raikes 
 to begin his schools. And, even after he had 
 gathered his scholars in classes and brought them 
 into some kind of order, how much of the criminal 
 element remained we may judge from the words 
 of an eye-witness : " There were always bad 'uns 
 coming in. I know the parents of one or two of 
 
 1 Gregory, p. 
 
 N 
 
194 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 them used to walk them to school with fourteen- 
 pound weights tied to their legs to keep them 
 from running away. Other boys would come 
 with wood tied to their ankles." So bad were 
 they that Raikes, at times, had to take them home 
 to their parents to be "walloped," and he used to 
 stop and see it done. Sometimes the boys would 
 be " belted " or strapped all the way to school. No 
 one would take any notice of punishment being 
 inflicted in Sunday-schools when they were first 
 started. The only sense that would appeal to the 
 boys who were first got together was the sense of 
 pain. Corporal punishment only very slowly died 
 out of the discipline of the Sunday-schools in 
 Great Britain. Possibly it is not wholly dead yet. 
 In New England the catechism (which was the 
 Sunday-school in germ) was certainly a powerful 
 agent in repressing evil and promoting good citi- 
 zenship, and one of the eulogists of that old- 
 fashioned instrument for the welfare of the parish, 
 challenges his audience with the questions, " Did 
 you ever know any man who was brought up on 
 the catechism who did not vote on rainy days, and 
 vote right too ? No. Did you ever know a de- 
 faulter, or a communist, or a profane swearer, or a 
 bulldozer, who was brought up on the catechism ? 
 No." l This is, no doubt, the testimony of a par- 
 
 1 Dorus Clarke, "Saying the Catechism," pp. 38, 39. 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 1 95 
 
 tial witness ; but without any question the effect 
 of the training in the Sunday-school on the home, 
 the neighborhood, and the whole community was 
 very marked. "The mere fact," it has been said, 
 "that children attend the Sunday-school brings 
 the subject of religion, week after week, before 
 the minds of the parents, and is a standing ad- 
 monition that the fear of the Lord should be the 
 law of the household." ] After twenty-five years' 
 experience of Sunday-schools in Ireland, the par- 
 liamentary report testified to their influence on 
 the moral character and in promoting deference to 
 the laws ; while in Wales, the Royal Education 
 Commission, by the mouth of one of its officials, 
 declared that " in little more than half a century 
 the Sunday-school has been the main agency in 
 effecting that change in the moral and social popu- 
 lation of the country, to which a parallel can 
 scarcely be found in history." 2 
 
 The minister has yet to understand his office 
 who does not view himself as an influence on the 
 community. He is called upon to deal with men 
 and women in their social, their civic, and their 
 national relations. It is the homes of the coming 
 years that are about him in the school, it is the 
 citizens who soon will cast their ballots, it is the 
 factors for weal or woe of the century, at whose 
 
 1 Trumbull, pp. 162, 163. % Ibid., p. 165. 
 
I96 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 doors we stand. " The twig will become a tree," 
 as the son of William the Silent said, called so 
 early by the assassin's bullet to take his father's 
 place. That is what you need to remember. " He 
 who helps a child," to quote the words of Phillips 
 Brooks, "helps humanity with a distinctiveness, 
 with an immediateness, which no other help given 
 to human creatures in any other stage of their 
 human life can possibly give again. The thing 
 that made the divine Master indignant as he stood 
 there in Jerusalem was that he dreamed of seeing 
 before him a man who had harmed some of these 
 little ones, and he said of any such ruffian, ' It 
 were better for him that he never had been born.' 
 It is such an awful thing to hurt a child's life ; to 
 aid a child's life is beautiful." l 
 
 How much the Sunday-school has changed in 
 its character will be evident if I have been fol- 
 lowed thus far. The well-to-do and the reputable 
 have taken possession of the organization which 
 was intended at first only for the poor and unfor- 
 tunate. As has so often happened in the history 
 of the world, Pharaoh's dream has been reversed, 
 and the seven rank and full ears have devoured 
 the seven thin ears, blasted with the East wind. 
 
 Robert Raikes was an old man, when in his re- 
 tirement there came to visit him a young Quaker 
 
 1 Phillips Brooks, " Essays and Addresses," pp. 506, 507. 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 1 97 
 
 named Joseph Lancaster, who was then absorbed 
 in the plan, which afterward made his name famous 
 in the annals of popular education, for giving 
 week-day instruction to the children of the poor. 
 Leaning on the arm of his visitor, Raikes led him 
 through the thoroughfares of Gloucester to the 
 spot in a back street where the first school was 
 held. " Pause here," said the old man. Uncov- 
 ering his head and closing his eyes, he stood for a 
 moment in silent prayer. Then turning toward 
 his friend, while the tears rolled down his cheeks, 
 he said, "This is the spot on which I stood when 
 I saw the destitution of the children and the 
 desecration of the Sabbath by the inhabitants of 
 the city." And then he added, referring to the 
 incident mentioned in the first sentences of this 
 chapter, "As I asked, 'Can nothing be done?' a 
 voice answered, 'Try.' I did try, and see what 
 God has wrought. I can never pass by this spot, 
 where the word ' try ' came so powerfully into my 
 mind, without lifting up my hands and heart 
 to heaven in gratitude to God for having put 
 such a thought into my heart." The meeting on 
 that memorable spot of the two men who did so 
 much, the one for sacred and the other for secular 
 schools, seems to me a subject fit for a painter. 
 Already the time had come when the Sunday- 
 school could hope to keep itself to its own true 
 vocation. At first, perforce, a great part of its 
 
I98 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 work had been to teach reading and writing. I 
 myself was once granted the use of a vacant ware- 
 house for a Sunday-school in a poor and crowded 
 district of an English city on condition that we 
 taught not reading and writing only, but arithme- 
 tic as well. All this is now changed ; the public 
 school takes its moral and religious character from 
 the Sunday-school, and the minister must remem- 
 ber in his dealings with his scholars of how much 
 moment this is. Aim, by all means, to make the 
 Sunday-school not the young people's church, but 
 the place where the whole congregation meets to 
 study the Bible. " The righteous," said the rab- 
 bis, " go from the synagogues to the school ; from 
 the place of prayer to the place of study." l En- 
 tering the synagogue Bible-school at six years old, 
 " the Jewish scholar never came to an age for 
 graduation from that school." The way to keep 
 the young people in the school is for the older 
 people to remain in it ; and first of all, for the 
 minister to do so. 
 
 We may begin, therefore, by laying it down as 
 the duty of the minister to be found in the Sun- 
 day-school every Sunday. Occasionally, but not as 
 a matter of course, let him offer prayer at the open- 
 ing or closing of the exercises. Let him be ready 
 to review the last Sunday's lesson before the les- 
 
 1 Trumbull, p. 16. 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 1 99 
 
 son for the day is taken up. Or, he may review, 
 briefly and with spirit, the lesson just taught, be- 
 fore the school is dismissed. Let him not, in 
 either case, spend more than a few minutes over 
 his review. He should have a blackboard and 
 learn, for it is an art, to use it deftly and to good 
 purpose. 
 
 Anyhow, let the minister be there. He needs 
 to learn that it is really not necessary in order to 
 exert an influence that he be always talking. He 
 can talk too much and be heard too often. His 
 silence may do as much good as his speech, possi- 
 bly sometimes even more. To be seen there, 
 ready for service or suggestion, is what must, first 
 of all, be expected of him. 
 
 I think much may be said in favor of a brief 
 exercise, say of five minutes, in which the pastor 
 drills the school in memorizing Scripture. Let 
 none misunderstand me. The parrot method is, 
 of course, to be condemned. In its feeblest and 
 most tyrannical days, the " Catechism of the West- 
 minster Assembly" was taught thus, but so it was 
 never intended to be taught. Learning by rote is 
 not really learning at all. The understanding is 
 not called into play. But with this word of warn- 
 ing, I heartily commend the practice of learning 
 the very words of Scripture. There is certainly 
 known to me one compendium of " Treasure Texts " 
 for youthful memories which might be used with 
 
200 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 advantage occasionally in our schools, and very 
 likely there are more. 1 
 
 Shall we venture a step farther and remind our 
 readers how powerful an agent in religious education 
 the catechism has been ? " A boy," said Lord Bacon, 
 "can preach, but a man only can catechise." Per- 
 haps the prevalence of preaching and the paucity 
 of catechetical instruction is, in part at least, ex- 
 plained here. Among the Jews, and in the early 
 church, one suspects that Lord Bacon's words 
 would have called forth hearty assent. You re- 
 member that our Lord's public life 2 may almost 
 be said to lie between the scene in the temple, 
 when he is found among the doctors hearing them 
 and asking them questions, and that other scene, 
 not long before the end, when, put to shame and 
 silence by his words, the lawyers "durst not from 
 that day forth ask him any more questions." 3 
 The buildings of the early church were constructed 
 in part with a special view to the catechumen, 4 
 and the frequent questions in the sermons of the 
 greatest of the preachers of the first days, notably 
 Chrysostom, were not alone for rhetorical effect. 5 
 They were, in part certainly, survivals of the golden 
 time when the pew not only might, but must an- 
 swer back to the pulpit. The catechisms of the 
 
 1 "Treasure Texts." Boston : The Pilgrim Press. 
 
 2 Luke 2 : 46. 3 Matt. 22 : 46. 
 
 4 Trumbull, p. 51. 5 Ibid., p. 60. 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 201 
 
 great churches of Christendom are standing proofs 
 of the importance which, in past centuries, has been 
 attached to this exercise, and among the rules 
 printed by Raikes for use in some of the earliest 
 of his Sunday-schools, I find this one, that the 
 scholars "shall assemble at church on the second 
 evening of every month, at six o'clock, to be ex- 
 amined and to hear a plain exposition of the cate- 
 chism, which the minister will endeavor to give 
 them." 1 How powerfully the catechism which 
 formed part of the "New England Primer" influ- 
 enced the first settlers in the eastern part of 
 America, I need only remind you. It was taught 
 in the day-schools and as regularly recited there, 
 down to times comparatively modern, " as Web- 
 ster's Spelling Book or Murray's English Gram- 
 mar." 2 On the Sunday afternoons appointed for 
 saying the catechism, the meeting-house would be 
 crowded with anxious parents and sympathizing 
 friends, while the minister, standing in the pulpit, 
 put out the questions to the children in order, and 
 each one, when the question came to him, was 
 expected to wheel out of the line of scholars into 
 the broad aisle and face the minister and make his 
 very best obeisance and answer the question put 
 to him without the slightest mistake. 3 
 
 It is easy to see how the use of the catechism 
 
 1 Gregory, p. 151. 2 Dorus Clarke, p. 18. 3 Ibid., p. 17. 
 
202 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 would be first abused and would then decline, how 
 it would become formal and meaningless when the 
 fire was dying out at the heart of the church ; but 
 I think that it would be hard to show any substi- 
 tute for it which is worthy of taking its place. 
 The Assembly's catechism still seems to me to 
 remain peerless, and after careful examination of 
 many of its forerunners and successors, down to 
 the " Evangelical Free Church Catechism," pub- 
 lished by a kind of ecclesiastical syndicate in Great 
 Britain, there is no other compendium of Bible 
 truth which appears to be at all comparable with 
 it. Admitting, as it does, of ready modification to 
 meet the needs of the age, I believe that if a 
 catechism is to be used in our schools at all, it 
 will be on the lines of this historic manual. 
 
 Were a catechism introduced, it would be the 
 minister who would have to teach it. To do so 
 would form part of his work in the Sunday-school. 
 A few minutes each Sunday, or a monthly exercise 
 of perhaps a quarter of an hour, would suffice. 
 Everything would depend on the way in which he 
 carried the exercise through. If well done, he and 
 the people committed to his care might come to 
 agree with John Owen, the Puritan, when he says : 
 " More knowledge is ordinarily diffused, especially 
 among the young and ignorant, by one hour's 
 catechetical exercise than by many hours' con- 
 tinual discourse." 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 203 
 
 Before leaving this part of our subject, I may 
 be allowed to suggest that at all events the min- 
 ister will do well now and then to offer prizes to 
 the scholars who pass the best examinations, oral 
 or written, in the lessons of a given period. This 
 plan has been successfully adopted in England 
 and much can be said in its favor. Certainly it is 
 to be regretted that our elaborate system of Sun- 
 day-school lessons does not oftener cumulate at 
 some visible point and show some appreciable 
 achievement. 
 
 We now come to a question of no little moment 
 to the minister in the Sunday-school. Should he 
 himself teach ? The ancient teaching, we must 
 remember, was all based on the catechism and it 
 was conducted by the priest or pastor. Now that 
 we have wisely distributed the teaching office and 
 enlarged it so materially, is the minister to have 
 no part in it ? Luther, in common with others of 
 the Reformers, was emphatic in his insistence on 
 the duty of the preacher to be a teacher also. He 
 held that a bishop ought to give proof before being 
 a bishop that he had aptness to teach. Many of 
 the popes have served this same apprenticeship, 
 and the present Archbishop of Canterbury was 
 famous in his earlier years as the greatest suc- 
 cessor to Thomas Arnold in the head-mastership 
 of Rugby School. 
 
 Yet I should be inclined to say that, with one 
 
204 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 exception, to which I am about to allude, the min- 
 ister had better not have a class in the Sunday- 
 school. His exposition of the lesson in the previ- 
 ous week will have fitted him to teach, and it will 
 be well for him to be ready to fill the vacant chair 
 of some absent teacher, — to carry, in fact, a roving 
 commission, which will allow him to become ac- 
 quainted with every part of his school. 
 
 The exception, the only exception, that I make 
 to this, is in favor of a Bible class for young men. 
 With the utmost advantage he may gather about 
 him, if he be equal to doing so, those to whom 
 the poet's words apply — " Shades of the prison- 
 house begin to close upon the growing boy." The 
 most serious trouble with our Sunday-school sys- 
 tem is that it does not prove more successful in 
 retaining the older scholars, and especially the 
 lads who openly boast that they are no longer 
 boys and yet secretly fear that they are not quite 
 men. The leakage between the school and the 
 church is heaviest here. From eighteen to twenty- 
 eight, is, as Doctor Cuyler says, the golden age of 
 opportunity. It is commonly the decisive decade 
 also. " If a young man reaches thirty without 
 giving his heart to' Christ, he has missed his best 
 time, and from that date onward the chances of 
 conversion (humanly speaking), diminish in a geo- 
 metric ratio." Then, very often comes the time 
 when the growing boy, begins to lose his interest 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 205 
 
 in the school. If he is taught in the main room 
 this is especially the case. And unless something is 
 done, within a few months he may be drifting 
 away. It is of him that Mr. Spurgeon is thinking 
 when he says, " A link must be found between 
 the senior scholars and the public means of grace, 
 or else Sunday-school work will be pouring water 
 into a leaking bucket." On the other hand, the 
 boys of fifteen or sixteen, if retained, interested 
 and brought to religious decision, will be the very 
 life-blood of the church twenty years hence. I 
 shall be forgiven if I say that I am now speaking 
 from personal experience. A young men's Bible 
 class which I began and maintained in one of our 
 Eastern cities, teaching it in a separate room im- 
 mediately after the morning service, was more 
 productive of good than any other one feature in 
 my ministry there. It grew in numbers and was 
 organized as a society, and when last I heard of it 
 it was flourishing still. Numbers of its members 
 were added to the church. It became a power in 
 the community, and business men in search of 
 young men to fill places in their offices or stores 
 often turned to that class first of all. " It would 
 be impossible," the minister wrote a few years 
 since, " even to name all the advantages which 
 have come to our own church, to other churches, 
 and to the young men of the city, through the 
 agency of the society." 
 
206 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 The minister should have such a class in his 
 school. Rather than let it fall into incompetent 
 hands, he should teach it himself. The actual 
 teaching need be all that he does. The president 
 and other officers of the class should be chosen by 
 popular vote. But as a teacher he must bring him- 
 self face to face with his young men. He must be 
 considerate, sympathetic, and perfectly honest. He 
 will find that his scholars often break upon him 
 " with very tough questions, questions that wear a 
 considerable looking toward infidelity." x He may 
 well teach his lips to say, " I do not know." Any 
 assumption of the dogmatist will close the mouth 
 of some young questioner, but it will not convince 
 his mind. It will only alienate his heart. Yet the 
 pastor will do well to remember the golden words 
 which Dr. Marcus Dods once spoke to just such 
 a class which he taught after his Sunday afternoon 
 service in Glasgow. " The Bible was given more 
 for our edification than for polemical purposes." 
 
 So one aim should be never lost sight of. I 
 mean the religious decision of each young man in 
 the class. Having won their confidence, the min- 
 ister may readily find an occasion to talk with 
 those who are not already Christians, and discuss 
 with them their difficulties, explain the matters 
 which may perplex them, and so win them to the 
 
 1 Bushnell, p. 378. 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 207 
 
 Saviour. He may (if he is wise he will) get the 
 Christian young men in his class to help him in 
 this important matter. The remarkable success 
 of the "Young Men's Baraca Union of America," 
 which sprang into existence from the conversation 
 of four members of a Bible class for young men 
 with their teacher when he was concerned at the 
 few conversions for the large amount of work ex- 
 pended, is proof how much can be done here. 
 That teacher writes to me : l " The Baraca now 
 numbers three hundred classes in thirty-four 
 States and Canada, and is growing rapidly. One 
 hundred and fifteen of my own class have joined 
 my church." I would advise every student for 
 the Christian ministry to obtain the literature in 
 reference to this very interesting organization, and 
 even at the risk of adding another society to his 
 list, to associate himself with it. 
 
 So much then for the work which the minister 
 may do in his school as a channel for information. 
 Let him not fear lest this interest in the young 
 people of his charge should prove too heavy a 
 tax. On the contrary, it will keep him vigorous 
 and young himself. He will find his enthusiasm 
 a tonic. The preparation class of the week will 
 furnish him the material for the Bible class on 
 the Sunday. The fellowship of young and ardent 
 
 1 M. A. Hudson, 200 Comstock Ave., Syracuse, N. Y., June, 
 1899. Comp. "The Standard," June 1889, p. II. 
 
208 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 hearts will do him good ; the fresh angles, some- 
 time very acute and sometimes very obtuse, at 
 which truth is seen will cause him to understand 
 how much, and how little too, there often is to the 
 human mind; and the growth of his church in the 
 stalwart and energetic blood of the coming genera- 
 tion will round out to its completion the great 
 aspiration of the psalmist : " Both young men and 
 maidens, old men and children, let them praise the 
 name of the Lord." l 
 
 At this point I wish to recall the fine prophetic 
 phrase of John Wesley when he beheld in the 
 Sunday-school of the coming era " nurseries for 
 Christians." No prophecy has ever received richer 
 fulfillment. Of no other enterprise of the Chris- 
 tian church has it been more true to say, " This 
 and that man was born in her ; and the Highest 
 himself shall establish her." The moral and the 
 intellectual influences of the Sunday-school fall 
 short of their noblest end, they fail to touch the 
 high-water mark of their fullest power, unless some 
 distinct effort be made to crown each life with 
 complete consecration to Christ. The Sunday- 
 school is a reforming and informing agency ; but, 
 more than this, it is under God a transforming 
 power. And here it is that the minister should 
 do his best work. 
 
 1 Ps. 148 : 12. 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 200. 
 
 I have already counseled the minister to be in 
 the Sunday-school every Sunday. "Frequently," 
 said Mr. Spurgeon to one of his students, " visit 
 your Sabbath-schools, if it is only to walk through 
 them." * Of a devoted English clergyman, his 
 friend writes : " I remember hearing him say in the 
 Sunday-school that, during the whole of six and 
 twenty years, except when away on his official 
 duties at Chester Cathedral, he had only twice 
 failed to be present in the school by at least two 
 minutes before the regular hour for opening on 
 Sunday morning." 2 I make this point again, and 
 in this place, because of what has to be said about 
 the minister as a spiritual force in the life of the 
 school. If he is rarely seen there, his occasional 
 presence will either be passed over with indiffer- 
 ence, or associated in the minds of teachers and 
 scholars with a kind of officialism. He will have 
 come only to do his duty, or perhaps to make a 
 formal attack on their souls. 
 
 Let the minister be there regularly, and he will 
 be what every minister should aim to be, namely, 
 the pastor of the school. Dr. S. G. Green, in his 
 lectures on " Christian Ministry to the Young," 3 
 speaks of one pastor who " conducted the opening 
 service of the school weekly for many years. The 
 teachers and children knew they would meet their 
 
 1 " Reminiscences of C. H. Spurgeon," by W. Williams, p. 194. 
 2 Davies, " Successful Preachers," p. 278. 3 Green, p. 182. 
 
210 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 minister there at nine on Sunday morning, and the 
 consequence was a regularity and fullness of at- 
 tendance hardly to be paralleled under ordinary 
 circumstances." 
 
 Without going the length of Dr. Stephen Tyng, 
 of New York, who believed in the minister "tak- 
 ing the pastoral charge and superintendence of his 
 own school," I should say with him that it is the 
 minister's duty " to give his mind and time and 
 presence and actual labor, to the work of saving 
 and teaching the children of his flock." ! 
 
 I mention three essentials to success in this 
 work. 
 
 The first is pastoral sympathy. The minister 
 must be there as the mother is in her nursery, 
 because he loves to be, and indeed cannot stay 
 away. No doubt there are men to whom this 
 comes more easily than it does to others. Dogs 
 and children, it is said, make few mistakes in their 
 judgment of people. There are ministers and 
 men, not only of great eloquence, but of genuine 
 kindness of heart too, who are not at home among 
 children. But they are the exceptions. There 
 are others again of whom it is true to say that 
 they seem never to have been children themselves. 
 They were born old, and swaddled in buckram. 
 To them a healthy, vigorous, demonstrative boy is 
 
 1 " Forty Years' Experience," etc., p. 196. 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 211 
 
 like a Fourth of July every day, no one can tell 
 when he will go off, or what mischief he will do 
 when he explodes. Such men may have their 
 place in the ministry, alas, who has not ? but not 
 in the Sunday-school. The first qualification for 
 pastoral success among the young is for the pastor 
 to be himself young at heart. 
 
 The second is, pastoral knowledge. Let the 
 minister cultivate the art of remembering names. 
 His visits to the homes will help him here. And 
 when he fails, a little tact may be used to bring 
 him the information he needs. Jonathan Edwards 
 might be allowed to ask the same boy his name 
 twice in the course of an hour, receiving in re- 
 sponse to his question, put a second time, " Whose 
 boy are you?" the answer, "Noah Holmes' boy, 
 sir, the same boy that I was an hour ago " ; but it 
 is not allowed to many of us to forget and to be 
 forgiven as was he. It will gain ready access to 
 the hearts of our young people if we know their 
 names, their homes, and some point in the life or 
 tastes of each which shall particularize every case, 
 and make each one stand, if not on his own merits, 
 which might be an insufficient footing for many of 
 them, at all events on his own individuality. 
 
 To pastoral sympathy and pastoral knowledge, 
 it is natural to add pastoral oversight. Doctor 
 Tyng, looking in at the door of his main Sunday- 
 school room at St. George's, New York, could say 
 
212 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 with honest pride, as his glance swept over all the 
 classes of that busy throng : " Every teacher in 
 that room started under my eye as a scholar in 
 the infant class. I have trained them all myself ; 
 and I know them all ; and they know me. They 
 are my children in the faith." This is a rare case, 
 of course, and yet measurably it may be true of 
 the minister that by his presence, his sympathy, 
 his careful attention to his school, he may gain a 
 power over it which shall make him the overseer, 
 the bishop indeed. In one direction, certainly, 
 he will need to be vigilant. Around the Sunday- 
 school, as around the outer courts about the tem- 
 ple at Jerusalem, grow up organizations of many 
 kinds. Boys' Brigades, in which Henry Drum- 
 mond placed more faith than most of us do ; 
 church guilds, for more purposes than I have 
 time to enumerate; Baraca bands; prayer circles; 
 Bible reading alliances ; these and many others 
 have trained themselves about the parent trunk 
 until sometimes you cannot see the tree for leaves. 
 My present contention is that none of these should 
 be allowed to grow away from the minister's over- 
 sight. He will need, if he watches for souls as one 
 that must give account, to use each of them as a 
 channel of spiritual influence. 
 
 The man who in his early ministry won for him- 
 self the title of " the model preacher of Con- 
 necticut," and who later achieved as honorable a 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 213 
 
 success in St. Louis, I mean Dr. Constans L. 
 Goodell, was the ideal Sunday-school pastor. Few 
 left his church after the morning service, almost 
 the whole congregation, with additions from the 
 younger children, took part in the after hour of 
 Bible study. He says : l " The pastor will reach 
 the children through the Bible-school. That is 
 not the children's church, but it is the church and 
 pastor mingling with the children, and laying out 
 all their experience and wisdom and spiritual 
 power on them for their instruction in righteous- 
 ness. The pastor is always in the Bible-school. 
 He thus brings the adults and youth together, re- 
 taining the older scholars in the school ... all 
 bound together by mutual interest. The Sabbath- 
 school becomes a constant feeder of the church, 
 and the church becomes a garden enclosed about 
 the children. Is not this God's order?" 
 
 This was the man who won the children's 
 hearts as Jesus did, not with treats and presents 
 and cheap pleasantries, but with the gracious and 
 sympathetic spirit of the kingdom of heaven it- 
 self. And we do not wonder when his biographer 
 tells us that " when Doctor Goodell died, a little 
 boy of another church and Sunday-school, ran 
 home and said to his mother, ' Oh, mamma, the 
 children's friend is dead ! ' " 
 
 1 "The Advance," May 24, 1888. 
 
214 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 We have now reached the key to the situation, 
 and must condense, on the minister putting forth 
 all his influence in the school for the spiritual 
 welfare of the scholars. 
 
 The first essential is that between the pastor 
 and the teachers in the school there should be the 
 heartiest sympathy in this matter ; I am almost 
 tempted to say that the one thing needful in a 
 Sunday-school teacher is that he should be " a 
 Christian, and a Christian of a pronounced type ; 
 not one whose conduct belies his doctrine, for God, 
 looking through the eyes of a little child, will be 
 quick to detect that ; not one who is perfunctory 
 in his attendance, considering it a tax or a conde- 
 scension ; but one who acts from the highest mo- 
 tives. It is a mistake to think any one will do 
 for a Sunday-school teacher. He ought to be 
 selected from the saintliest and best and wisest of 
 the church." 1 
 
 Paul writing to Philemon sends greeting " to 
 the church in thy house." That teacher is happy 
 who has a church in his class, and who meeting 
 with those who have made a religious decision 
 unites with them in prayer and conference for the 
 conversion of the rest. Now and then the pastor 
 also will do wisely to meet with them. Let him 
 feel the pulse of each class. 
 
 1 Rev. George Short, B. A. 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 215 
 
 "The Society of Christian Endeavor," or its 
 equivalent, in the church, should be kept in close 
 touch with the spiritual condition of the school. 
 That organization, however new and original in its 
 title and machinery, is in spirit one with organiza- 
 tions which have long been in healthful operation 
 in many of our British and New England churches. 1 
 They are the safest nurseries for Christian culture. 
 It matters little what name they bear, or what is 
 the special apparatus with which they work ; badges 
 and buttons are sometimes foolish enough ; the 
 weeds of laws and by-laws may, if mistaken for the 
 essentials, spring up and choke the free and health- 
 ful growth of the good seed of the kingdom ; but 
 the society of young people banded together for a 
 vigorous and persistent endeavor after the divine 
 life, is necessary to the highest welfare of the 
 church and the school. The pastor should be 
 present, rather however to suggest than to con- 
 trol at the religious meetings of his young people. 
 It is these gatherings that are likely to register 
 the rise of spiritual fervor, the tides of the Spirit, 
 which taken at the flood carry him and his people 
 out into the deep seas of religious prosperity. 
 
 The Sunday-school in which the minister keeps 
 the subject of religious decision prominent in 
 private conversation and in public appeals, will be 
 
 1 Trumbull, p. 293. 
 
2l6 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 the school best prepared for such special efforts as 
 ought occasionally to be made for the conversion 
 of the unconverted in the classes. It will be borne 
 in upon him at certain times, or it will become the 
 conviction of the most earnest and devoted of his 
 teachers, or perhaps the solicitude of a mother for 
 the conversion of her boy may be the single in- 
 centive to it, but in one or another way he will be- 
 come impressed with the feeling that the school is 
 ripening for a harvest. 
 
 The history of religious revivals is closely con- 
 nected with the history of Sunday-schools. The 
 spiritual dearth of the middle of the eighteenth 
 century was broken up by the great religious 
 awakening in New England and Great Britain. At 
 once the heart of the church was moved to solic- 
 itude for the conversion of children. There were 
 obstacles of traditionalism to be met and swept 
 away, of course. But with clear and open vision 
 the master minds, from John Wesley to Lyman 
 Beecher, saw in that widespread quickening their 
 opportunity, and with an intense and unabated 
 passion drove toward it. 1 To the loving nature of 
 Wesley, the Sunday-school seemed " one of the 
 noblest specimens of charity which has been set on 
 foot since the Norman conquest " ; and that hero 
 of a hundred revivals, Doctor Lyman Beecher, lived 
 
 1 Tyerman's "Wesley," Vol. III., p. 522. 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 2\J 
 
 to see the prophecies of his earlier years as to 
 Sabbath-schools more than realized. 1 In Scotland, 
 among a people excessively conservative of ances- 
 tral faith and traditional practice, Thomas Chal- 
 mers, perhaps the greatest of all her reformers, 
 beheld in the Sunday-school the new power which 
 would stem the woful degeneracy going on in the 
 religious habit and character of the country, and 
 he challenged the parents of his native land " to 
 regard a well-conducted Sabbath-school in any 
 other light than as a blessing and an acquisition to 
 their children." 2 
 
 Without adding to their testimonies, I need only 
 appeal to our own experience. Is it not true that 
 the Sunday-school in every large and vigorous 
 Christian church has at intervals a time of special 
 religious revival ? And on the conduct of the serv- 
 ices at such seasons, does not the future, not of the 
 school alone but also of the church itself, largely 
 depend ? Pastoral responsibility is never a reality 
 more serious than now. I urge upon the minis- 
 ter respect for "the soul of the child." In the 
 special services which you hold with the scholars 
 dread nothing more than injuring the natural deli- 
 cacy of a young faith. " Let the preacher," says 
 Dr. S. G. Green, " beware of arousing emotions 
 and demonstrations after which almost anything 
 
 1 Trumbull, p. 124. * Ibid., p. 162. 
 
2l8 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 must be an anti-climax"; and he cautions us 
 against such exhibitions as impair the modesty of 
 childhood, and minister either to thoughtlessness 
 or irreverence or both. 1 
 
 What services in all the ministry of the word 
 call for greater delicacy of touch than these ? For 
 what does one need more the prepared heart, 
 the heart of the Christ of the children ? We are 
 to deal with the plastic nature of childhood, the 
 impressionable nature of youth. Already in some 
 hearts the hardening processes are going on. 
 Some are even now feeling the first dim fascina- 
 tion of the evils that are in the world. To win 
 the children for Christ has been the aim of the 
 wisest of men and women in the church universal 
 through all time. If St. Francis Xavier cries : 2 
 " Give me the children until they are seven years 
 old, and any one may take them afterward," 
 none the less urgent is Luther's tone as he says : 
 " Young children and scholars are the seed and 
 the source of the church." We listen to Cardinal 
 Manning when he declares : " Give me the children 
 and England shall be Catholic in twenty years," 
 only to draw from his words a still loftier courage as 
 sweeping a far wider area we dare assert : " Give the 
 children to Christ, and in twenty years the world 
 shall be Christian." A child's theology may not be 
 
 1 " Lectures on Sunday-school," p. 181. 
 2 Trumbull, pp. 67, 71. 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 219 
 
 the theology of the churches which embodies itself 
 in the creeds of Christendom, but we know little of 
 the child's heart until we have found that there is 
 in it the possibility of a consciousness of wrong- 
 doing, a sorrow for sin, a desire to change, and a 
 love for the Saviour quickened by the sense of a 
 need of him. The religion of the child is not en- 
 tirely emotional, and when boyhood and girlhood 
 are reached there is an ability to grasp and to ap- 
 ply the simple theology of the New Testament, 
 which is as real in its spirit and as clear in its 
 mental apprehension as that which comes in later 
 years. The little child is the ideal of the believer, 
 and rises before us through all the centuries with 
 the arms of Jesus about him as the model for him 
 who would enter the kingdom of God ; and we 
 know that that kingdom is "righteousness and 
 peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." In what we 
 have to say, therefore, during a time of special 
 spiritual interest in the Sunday-school, let us not 
 deal only in the anecdotal. Illustrate truth by all 
 means, but first make quite plain the truth we 
 propose to illustrate. 
 
 The beginning of these special efforts for the 
 conversion of the scholars should be as quiet and 
 natural as possible. Some Sunday morning or 
 afternoon when the signs are favorable, having 
 previously obtained the consent of the superin- 
 tendent, let the regular exercises of the school be 
 
220 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 so arranged that the last ten minutes can be given 
 to the pastor. Let him talk at once, directly, with 
 great plainness and earnestness, upon the need 
 for personal salvation and the opportunity for it. 
 Let him call for manifestations of religious de- 
 cision. Methods will vary, but the thing itself is 
 what is aimed at. Let this meeting lead to 
 others, still more distinctly evangelistic in their 
 character. I think that a gathering of those whose 
 hearts are touched may be appointed for that same 
 Sunday, in the afternoon, or let them come to tho 
 meeting of the young people in the evening. 
 Have two or three meetings in the week. Keep 
 them clear of all formality, and in all let there 
 be a wise but vigorous drawing of the net. 
 
 Let none underrate the importance of such a 
 time of religious awakening. It cannot be sum- 
 moned at will. It cannot be got up at the bidding 
 of a peripatetic evangelist. It has as little in 
 common with the mechanical artifices of the 
 worked-up revival as the natural motions of the 
 human body have with the wooden gestures of a 
 painter's dummy. Let the pastor take the work 
 very seriously, for is it not his ? As truly as any 
 scholar in the school he can pray for himself : 
 
 Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, 
 Look upon a little child ; 
 Pity my simplicity, 
 Suffer me to come to thee. 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 221 
 
 With as genuine a humility as Solomon's can he 
 plead : " O Lor J, my God, thou hast made thy 
 servant king : . . and I am but a little child : I know 
 not how to go out or come in." l The conscious- 
 ness of ignorance is a good sympton in teacher as 
 well as in scholar. It is the first step toward 
 enlightenment. Margaret Fuller was always 
 cheered when any of her pupils wrote to her say- 
 ing that they felt their ignorance. She would 
 label such letters " under conviction." 
 
 Now, if ever, the familiar saying, ** The Sunday- 
 school is the nursery of the church," will take on 
 a very solemn and inspiring purport. The minis- 
 ter will repeat it to himself in this new atmosphere 
 of experiences, and in the clear, resonant air it will 
 carry a pressure of meaning bordering on the sub- 
 lime. Should he be so happy as to remain with 
 one church for many years, or at any rate to keep 
 track of it, he will as time goes on see the fruitage 
 of efforts which, when he put them forth, seemed 
 just as natural as breathing, and the contrast will 
 come home to him between the simple letting fall 
 of the seed from the hand of the sower, and the 
 golden glory of the harvest, by and by. I shall 
 not be chargeable with exaggeration if I say that 
 to the Sunday-school and to the honest work of 
 teachers and pastor for the religious decision of 
 
 1 i Kings 3 : 7. 
 
222 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 the scholars, we are indebted for the devoted lives 
 of many of the very best who are serving the 
 church of Christ to-day. Our elders and deacons 
 and office-bearers, our wisest superintendents, and 
 our most earnest and intelligent teachers, were 
 born again in the Sunday-school. They have given 
 back to her what she first gave them, good measure 
 pressed down and running over. And what shall 
 I say as to the service which the Sunday-school 
 has rendered to the Christian ministry ? What 
 need that I say anything when the ranks of every 
 theological seminary, the record of every pulpit, 
 the annals of every mission field are ready with 
 their witnesses ? Professor Drummond found, as 
 the result of his inquiries of a number of mission- 
 aries, that the average age at which they began 
 to think of the foreign field was when they were 
 thirteen years old ; and had his inquiries been 
 pushed farther and carried over a still wider range, 
 I believe the result would have confirmed the con- 
 viction, which has grown in my mind to a cer- 
 tainty, that the Sunday-school is the place where 
 first the future minister or missionary hears the 
 voice of the Lord, and where earliest comes the 
 response, u Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." 
 I would close what has been said on this subject 
 with two words of counsel. First, let none be 
 hasty in bringing the scholars into the church. 
 There should be some equivalent in every denom- 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 223 
 
 ination for the primitive catechumen class, for the 
 confirmation class of the Episcopalian Church, and 
 for the probationary training given in other com- 
 munions. The main thing for us is to make good 
 work. Once a week, for some time, let the pastor 
 meet the candidates for church-membership from 
 among the scholars, and have personal conversa- 
 tion with them one by one. The annual loss from 
 our church lists is, I am persuaded, due in a large 
 measure to the lack of careful preparatory train- 
 ing. 
 
 It is due also to the absence of after training, 
 and so I would further advise that the pastor meet 
 the young members of the church for brief courses 
 on such subjects as the elements of religion, the 
 meaning of the Christian ordinances, the history 
 of the religious denomination to which they have 
 attached themselves, and their duties and priv- 
 ileges as members of a local church. " Precept 
 must be upon precept, precept upon precept; 
 line upon line, line upon line ; here a little, and 
 there a little." It is hard to clear the minister of 
 responsibility for very much of the defection in 
 the ranks of church-membership when we reflect 
 how remiss he has been here. To bring into the 
 church is good ; but to keep in the church is 
 better ; and yet in his eagerness to swell the num- 
 bers of the fellowship how often the minister over- 
 looks the other end of the procession, and fails to 
 
224 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 notice that the untrained and the ill-fed are falling 
 away as fast as the new recruits are coming in. 
 Christian nurture is a minister's duty as well as 
 converting zeal. "Take heed therefore unto all 
 the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made 
 you overseers, to feed the church of God, which 
 he hath purchased with his own blood." 
 
 Between the home and the school there will be 
 no rivalry if the pastor's interests are given to the 
 one as much as to the other. They are but sepa- 
 rate rooms in one house. The early practice, as 
 we have seen, was for the father to be priest as 
 well as patriarch in his own household. And in 
 theory the belief lingered into our own century 
 that parents spent some time, certainly, on Sun- 
 day, in instructing their children. How sincere 
 the objection to the Sunday-school on the ground 
 that it usurped this parental duty and left the in- 
 fant Moses to the mercies of the Nile it is not 
 necessary for us to determine. It was heard most 
 loudly in an age of general parental neglect, and 
 sometimes it was raised by the clergy who were 
 jealous lest the office of the sponsor and of the 
 minister should be set aside. Yet it is in evi- 
 dence that the Sunday-school was forced into ex- 
 istence by parental and priestly neglect. Alike 
 the home instruction and the parochial system had 
 failed in the cities of England, as Raikes found 
 when he was appalled at the profligacy of the chil- 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 22 5 
 
 dren in Gloucester, and in the rural districts as 
 Hannah More discovered when the rich farmer in 
 one village assured her that " religion would be 
 the ruin of agriculture, that it was a very danger- 
 ous thing, and had produced much mischief ever 
 since it was introduced by the monks down at 
 Glastonbury." * I have little belief in the honesty 
 of this sudden access of parental virtue which had 
 to be met in Scotland, for example, by the fervid 
 eloquence of Chalmers arguing that the alterna- 
 tive was "not whether the rising generation should 
 be trained to Christianity in schools or trained to 
 it under the roof of their fathers ; but whether 
 they shall be trained to it in schools or not trained 
 at all." 2 I say I have little belief in the honesty 
 of this objection to Sunday-schools when I learn 
 that, at the time when they were founded, in Scot- 
 land the immorality in the homes of the upper 
 classes and the wretchedness of the hovels of the 
 poor defied description ; that in Ireland even the 
 children of Protestants were "no better than 
 heathen " ; that in England, William Wilberforce 
 was shocked at finding that within three miles of 
 a cathedral city every house in one village, and 
 that a sample of all the rest, was a scene of the 
 greatest ignorance and vice ; and that in America, 
 while skepticism was as much the fashion in the 
 
 1 " Mendip Annals," p. 14. 2 Trumbull, pp. 160-162. 
 P 
 
226 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 colleges as though it had been a species of ath- 
 letics, among the descendants of the Pilgrims, re- 
 ligious instruction in the family and in the church 
 had so far declined that Lyman Beecher declared 
 that " the result was a band of infidels and here- 
 tics and profligates." 1 The fact is, that the Sun- 
 day-school, so far from usurping the place of home, 
 has made it in many instances sweet home, and 
 has restored to it the sanctities and endearments 
 of which irreligion had threatened to despoil it. 
 
 And if the Sunday-school has not put itself in 
 rivalry with the home, equally true is it to assert 
 that it has not put itself in rivalry with the church. 
 Occasionally some champion of the exclusive spir- 
 itual prerogative of the clergy — a survival of the 
 Dark Ages — raises his voice in honest but bigoted 
 warning. The Sunday-school is arraigned because 
 of " incompetence of the teachers to give religious 
 instruction, because it is destructive of church- 
 going, and because it has done much to destroy 
 parental responsibility and priestly obligation." 2 
 And all the time the Roman Catholic hierarchy 
 declares that it is the divinely constituted guardian 
 of faith and morals. Against those claims, which 
 are as dangerous to civil liberty as they are to 
 religious progress, the Sunday-school may build 
 an effectual barrier. 3 
 
 1 Trumbull, p. 167. 
 2 1899. 3 Dr. R. W. Dale's "Life," p. 286. 
 
THE MINISTER IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 227 
 
 In the Old World, as every reader of the his- 
 tory of the eighteenth century knows, the Sunday- 
 school has been one of the most powerful agencies 
 for reviving: the church. It has kindled the zeal 
 of both the clergy and the laity. It has made re- 
 ligion, as it is embodied in a visible fellowship, a 
 necessary element in the life of the people. And 
 in America the Sunday-school has led in the west- 
 ward march of emigration, and the Sunday-school 
 Union alone for three-quarters of a century has 
 been organizing neighborhood Sunday-schools at the 
 average rate of three every day. 1 From the school 
 has grown the church, and the one has as truly been 
 the precursor of the other, as Caxton's printing 
 press was the precursor of Tyndale's English Bible. 
 
 How much the school has done for the church 
 by renewing her youth I need not say. What the 
 author of " Alice in Wonderland " — in whom "the 
 boy never quite left the man" — said of the world 
 at large we can say of thousands of vigorous and 
 prosperous churches : " It is the glory of the 
 world that there is a perpetual succession of 
 happy young life, given to pour fresh blood into 
 the sluggish veins of humanity and set its heart 
 beating again with that hopefulness which is God's 
 best gift. The heaviest curse which he could lay 
 upon us would be to keep us living on forever in 
 
 1 Trumbull, p. 189. 
 
228 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 a world in which no new life was seen and to let 
 the human race grow older without sending young 
 faces to brighten its weary visions, and remind it 
 of its own childhood. We should get mad and 
 savage enough to devour each other at last, if the 
 children did not come to keep us sane and fill us 
 with gentler thoughts ; they give us something to 
 work for when we are tired of working for our- 
 selves ; they refurnish our world with new hopes 
 when all our dear old hopes are dead ; they make 
 us believe in God again when the sorrows of life 
 have driven us faithless ; and they help to keep us 
 in the better way for their sake, when if we 
 thought only of ourselves we might drift into the 
 evil way. What are they but his jewels of bright, 
 celestial worth ? What are they but ladders set 
 up from heaven to earth?" 1 
 
 I believe that it would be capable of proof that 
 the children have done fully as much for the 
 church as the church has done for the children. 
 If the school is the pioneer of the sanctuary in 
 many a wild Western settlement, equally is it, to 
 every Christian fellowship, the adjunct aiming to 
 introduce the entire congregation, young and old, 
 to systematic Bible study, and the feeder bringing 
 to it from the world about it the new blood by 
 which its life is to be sustained. 
 
 1 Lewis Carroll. 
 
VII 
 
 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND THE 
 TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
The Sunday-school must be in touch with the times. 
 Signs of dissatisfaction. Criticism. To keep abreast of 
 the new century the Sunday-school must (i) respond to its 
 inevitable demands — life centering in great cities, danger 
 of the Sunday-school growing away from the people ; 
 
 (2) fall in with the philanthropic sentiment of the century ; 
 
 (3) sympathize with the religious thought of the century — 
 the emphasis on the life that now is as determining the life 
 that is to come ; (4) avail itself of the progressive intelli- 
 gence of the century — the model school, the building, offi- 
 cers, new methods, teachers, classes, teaching. 
 
 Conclusion : The minister lives for the future in caring 
 for the young life of the congregation. 
 
VII 
 
 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 Our study of the Sunday-school would not be 
 complete without a forward glance over the cen- 
 tury whose threshold we have so lately crossed. 
 To this we turn in conclusion. The modern Sun- 
 day-school is already more than a hundred years 
 old. Both the experimental stage and the stage 
 of reaction from the first enthusiasm have been 
 safely survived. From the beginning the move- 
 ment had in it elements which augured well for its 
 permanence. Its first leaders might be opposed, 
 but they could not be despised. An enterprise 
 which enlisted the active devotion of Raikes, with 
 his business sagacity, of Hannah More, with her 
 brilliant social charm, of Charles of Bala, with his 
 apostolic zeal, of William Wilberforce, the peer of 
 William Pitt for eloquence, and of John Wesley, 
 the foremost religious leader of the century, was 
 bound to succeed. Its founders were not fanatics 
 nor visionaries. They were eminently sane and 
 practical, and their intellects were as keen as their 
 affections were warm. 
 
 The closing years of the eighteenth century 
 
 231 
 
232 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 saw the rise of the modern Sunday-school. The 
 first half of the nineteenth gave to it shape, unit- 
 ing its range, concentrating its powers, and organ- 
 izing its forces. To the second half of the nine- 
 teenth century fell the still harder task of im- 
 proving the teaching in the Sunday-school, and 
 here it was the Americans outstripped all others 
 and furnished Sunday-school literature which is 
 incomparably superior to that of any other coun- 
 try. 
 
 That the Sunday-school still falls short of what 
 it might be is evident enough. It must keep in 
 the full current of the century if it is to live and 
 to fulfill its high destiny. Perhaps it is a matter 
 for congratulation, rather than for complaint, that 
 the truest friends of the Sunday-school movement 
 are the frankest of its critics. No more than any 
 other institution is it secure against the tendency 
 to fossilize. 
 
 Many of the best and ablest leaders in the affairs of 
 God, says one writer, 1 are vigilant and vigorous in devising 
 and applying new ideas to the system as it is in vogue. 
 The process has been in the main one of graft upon an un- 
 pruned stock, and the result a rather elaborate and, per- 
 haps, not altogether homogeneous and healthy organism. 
 The feeling lives and grows that the institution not only is 
 imperfect, but is falling short of that degree of efficiency 
 which fairly should be looked for in an institution of so im- 
 portant professed mission. In the average Sunday-school 
 
 1 W. H. S. Demarest, "The Presbyterian Review," Jan. 7, 1901. 
 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND TWENTIETH CENTURY 233 
 
 there are unquestioned defects in work and lack of re- 
 sults. 
 
 The Sunday-school of the twentieth century 
 must be kept abreast of the times. How shall this 
 be done ? 
 
 We answer, first, by responding to the inevita- 
 ble demands of the century. When Raikes first 
 drew public attention to the work which was being 
 done in his school he laid the chief stress on the 
 country and not on the city life, which it aimed to 
 reform. 
 
 Farmers and other inhabitants of the towns and villages 
 complain that they receive more injury in their property 
 on the Sabbath than all the week beside. This, in a great 
 measure, proceeds from the lawless state of the younger 
 class, who are allowed to run wild on that day, free from 
 every restraint. To remedy this evil, persons duly quali- 
 fied are employed to instruct those that cannot read ; and 
 those that may have learnt to read are taught the catechism 
 and conducted to church. 1 
 
 Although his work began in a city, it was a 
 city of no great size, and England was still a rural 
 community. This is no longer the case in the 
 Old World, and still less is it the case in the New. 
 Human life is more and more centering in cities. 
 The Sunday-school of the time in which we live 
 must not be suffered to grow away from the 
 masses of the people. It must not yield to the 
 
 1 "Gloucester Journal," Nov. 3, 1783. 
 
234 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 temptation to which too many churches have 
 yielded and move off from the crowded courts and 
 congested tenements. It must march with the 
 wholesome impulse which is now working in uni- 
 versity settlements, and multiplying Christian 
 agencies in the machinery of what is not very hap- 
 pily termed the institutional church. We can- 
 not afford to lose sight of the class on whose be- 
 half Sunday-schools were first started in the lanes 
 of Gloucester and the hamlets of Cheddar, and 
 for whom Charles Dickens, half a century after, 
 so well pleaded when he raised his voice in favor 
 of what he was the first to call " Ragged Schools." 
 The Sunday-school must not be allowed to narrow 
 down to a club for the children of the congrega- 
 tion ; it must hold to its original democratic char- 
 acter, and welcome alike the rich and the poor, in 
 the conviction that the Lord is the Maker of them 
 all. 
 
 Then the Sunday-school must keep abreast of 
 the times by falling in with the prevailing senti- 
 ment of the century. There is a growing feeling, 
 the civilized world over, that we are part of a 
 great human brotherhood, that we are our brother's 
 keeper. Philanthropy, unless we misread the signs 
 of the times, is to be one of the distinctive fea- 
 tures of this new age. To it we are impelled by 
 the crowded city life in which the majority of men 
 and women pass their days, as well as by the in- 
 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND TWENTIETH CENTURY 235 
 
 creasing acquaintance with the conditions of this 
 life, for which we are indebted to our newspapers 
 and periodical literature. It was a journalist, re- 
 member, who first established a Sunday-school, 
 and no ordained Christian pastor ever carried 
 within his breast a more sympathizing heart than 
 did he. Robert Raikes was full of love for the 
 bodies and minds and souls of the children of 
 Gloucester. In the very age which gave us mod- 
 ern missions he, in the true missionary spirit, gave 
 us Sunday-schools. To him, first of all, we owe it 
 that, as Dr. H. Clay Trumbull says, " A child is a 
 great deal bigger than he was a century ago. He 
 has grown more than a hundred years since then. 
 Conspicuous among the features of progress in 
 this century is the recognition of the child in his 
 relative importance before the thinkers and doers 
 of the Christian church and of the outside world." 
 " He had a good way with children," said an old 
 woman recalling Robert Raikes ; " he had author- 
 ity with him, and yet they were not afraid." It 
 is impossible to calculate how much this one man 
 increased the sum of human happiness. The love 
 for the masses perishing in ignorance in England 
 which burned in the bosom of Wesley, and for the 
 millions dying in heathenism in India which glowed 
 in the heart of Carey, and for the thousands and 
 tens of thousands of prisoners mouldering in fetid 
 dungeons which mastered the soul of John How- 
 
236 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 ard, the true philanthropy which, flow in what 
 channels it may, comes first of all from God, who 
 is its source, this it was which became the master 
 passion in the life of Robert Raikes. In the next 
 century it found its most illustrious champion in 
 Lord Shaftesbury, but he was only one of a band 
 of devoted men and women who gave themselves 
 up to the betterment of their kind. To-day this 
 philanthropy is not only pouring out its wealth as 
 never before, but better yet, it is following in the 
 very footsteps of Him who, not satisfied with 
 sending others, himself came to seek and to save 
 the lost. "The world for Christ in this century" 
 is the watchword of the new philanthropy, which 
 means also " Christ for the world." There is sig- 
 nificance in the fact that the work of the leading 
 evangelist of our times, as his course of useful- 
 ness drew to its close, more and more took on the 
 form of work for the young life of his country, 
 first building and endowing for it schools, and later 
 yet, reaching it in the colleges and inspiring it to 
 volunteer for missions to the uttermost parts of 
 the earth. 
 
 The Sunday-school must, still further, keep 
 abreast of the times by sympathizing with the re- 
 ligious thought of the century. It does not im- 
 ply that there has been any radical change in 
 theology because our age differs from that which 
 preceded it in the degree of emphasis which it 
 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND TWENTIETH CENTURY 237 
 
 lays on certain truths. What Henry Melvill said 
 of the Tree of Life is also true of our Chris- 
 tian faith : " You cannot come out of season to it. 
 You may bring your season with you, and the tree 
 takes it, and bears another fruit." Each age finds 
 there the fruit best suited to your needs. Wisely 
 says the Talmud : " Do not confine your children 
 to your own learning, for they were born in another 
 time." " Every age must have its own forms of 
 Christian language and thought. Our children's 
 children will not use the exact dialect in which 
 we speak one with another of eternal things. 
 Theological systems are the construction of the 
 age, and every generation may be left to build its 
 own." x Each century is tolerably sure to give 
 prominence to those aspects of eternal truths 
 which specially meet its needs. When the hosts 
 of the enemy are still on the horizon, the be- 
 sieged garrison is on the ramparts, but when they 
 are swarming about the moat and drawbridge, the 
 battlements will not need to be manned so strongly 
 as the foundations. A hundred years ago the dis- 
 position was to emphasize the future life and the 
 need of salvation now for the sake of that ; and 
 to-day the disposition is to emphasize the present 
 life, and to urge men to " a new and larger con- 
 ception of what the salvation of a soul must 
 
 1 "Christianity and the Child" ; W. Brock, in "The Ancient 
 Faith in Modern Light," p. 350. 
 
238 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 mean." The Sunday-school teacher will be likely 
 to feel the influence of this shifted emphasis. 
 And so the present life of the scholar, his con- 
 duct and character, will become not less momen- 
 tous in his eyes than will his future destiny. He 
 cannot consent to separate the two. His experi- 
 ence in the school and in the world about him 
 bears witness that whatsoever a man soweth that 
 shall he also reap. The minister, also, in his work 
 in the Sunday-school, will do the same. How to 
 seize, retain, and mold the life which is maturing 
 in his school and congregation is one of the most 
 serious problems before the twentieth century 
 minister. All the more serious is it because the 
 age of compulsion in which Sunday-schools were 
 born is forever past. The old authority, which 
 counted for so much in the home of a hundred 
 years ago, in the Old Country, has scarcely a par- 
 allel among us to-day. He is no true pastor who 
 does not give himself with all his strength to re- 
 taining the young people in his congregation. 
 "The fact remains that a large proportion of Sun- 
 day-school children graduate themselves from its 
 halls and into life wholly separate from the church 
 at least, and perhaps set apart to do evil." 1 It is 
 no exceptional case which is described in the fol- 
 lowing words : "In a certain city, the number of 
 
 1 Demarest, p. 135 
 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND TWENTIETH CENTURY 239 
 
 men in the churches and congregations was much 
 smaller than that of women. But in the Sunday- 
 schools of those same churches, the number of 
 boys was slightly in excess of the number of girls. 
 In other words, as many boys are brought under 
 church influence as girls ; but about the age of 
 twelve or thirteen, while the girls remain, the 
 boys, many of them, drop out of the religious 
 circle. It would seem, then, that the point at 
 which especial religious effort is to be directed is 
 the point at which the boy becomes the young 
 man. That period passed and the boy, now the 
 young man, still kept in the congregation, he may 
 be expected to remain in it all his life." Our 
 most faithful and able ministers are so impressed 
 with the momentous issues of this present life 
 that they are striving most earnestly to hold the 
 young men and women in their congregations 
 through this critical period. Robert Raikes, after 
 trying in vain to reform criminals in the jail for 
 thirty years, resolved that prevention must be not 
 only better but also likelier than cure. So he 
 began at the other end, and Sunday-schools were 
 the result. I have spoken at sufficient length of 
 the various ways in which ministers of Christ may 
 try to gain and keep their young people, but I 
 should counsel that they be quick to notice any 
 successful effort in the direction of forming closer 
 union between the session of the school and the 
 
24O THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 session of public worship. 1 That by the working 
 of our present arrangement of services these two 
 are not only not mutually helpful, but often very 
 much the reverse, is to my mind an argument for 
 a more excellent way, if only one can be devised. 
 Finally, the Sunday-school must keep abreast 
 of the times by availing itself of the progressive 
 intelligence of the century. In nothing is this 
 intelligence showing itself more than in the matter 
 of education. The little red schoolhouse is a 
 memory now, not a model. The public schools of 
 America and the board schools of Great Britain 
 are planned with increasing care, and serve their 
 highest ends now as never before. Shall the 
 building in which the Sunday-school meets still 
 continue to recall the old familiar model of that 
 ancient makeshift at the country cross roads ? 
 The time may come when if the whole school 
 needs to meet for preliminary exercises — generally 
 needlessly prolonged — the main audience room of 
 the church will be used rather than sacrifice the 
 space in the schoolroom proper, which should be 
 divided so that classes can be taught without any 
 annoyance to one by another. Each class should 
 have its own room. The wonder is not that the 
 work has been poorly done under the present sys- 
 tem, but that it has been done at all. 
 
 1 Demarest, p. 142. 
 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND TWENTIETH CENTURY 24I 
 
 And as the plan of the building is to be fol- 
 lowed, as far as may be, from that of the modern 
 public school, so as in the public school where 
 no inferior influences are suffered to interfere 
 with the rights of the people, the choice of offi- 
 cers is to be of the best. The president of Chi- 
 cago University is superintendent of the Sunday- 
 school of the church of which he is a member ; 
 one of the ablest Greek scholars in the country 
 is director of the work of instruction ; a colleague 
 of his, as able as himself, is director of the be- 
 nevolent work ; while the spiritual work of the 
 school is under the direction of the minister of 
 the church. In this school, which has done fine 
 work in education, while the spiritual life of the 
 pupils has been roused and quickened by con- 
 stant conversions, " there are three main divi- 
 sions : the elementary, embracing the kindergar- 
 ten and the first four grades ; the secondary, 
 embracing eight grades ; and the adult division. 
 Each division has a principal, secretary, and one 
 or more superintendents in charge of instruction 
 in groups of classes, each of which, of course, 
 has its regular teacher." These better arrange- 
 ments will claim, where they do not create, new 
 methods of teaching. There is no higher honor 
 than to be found competent as a teacher in a Sun- 
 day-school. It was of teachers that John Wesley 
 was thinking when he wrote to his brother Charles, 
 
 Q 
 
242 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 a few months before his death : " Nothing can 
 prevent the increase of the blessed work but the 
 neglect of the instruments ; therefore be sure to 
 watch over these with all care, that they may not 
 grow weary in well-doing." It was one of the 
 greatest schoolmasters of our time, Thring of Up- 
 pingham, who traced to his early experience in 
 teaching, when he was a curate in the very country 
 where, a century before, Sunday-schools were 
 born, what skill he afterward used as headmaster 
 of one of the most famous of English schools : 
 
 Never shall I forget those schools in the suburbs of Glou- 
 cester, and their little classroom, with its solemn problem 
 (no more difficult one in the world), how on earth the Cam- 
 bridge honor man, with his success and his brain work, was 
 to get at the minds of those little laborers' sons, with their 
 unfurnished heads and no time to give. They had to be 
 got at, or I had failed . . . There I learned the great secret 
 of St. Augustine' s golden key, which, though it be of gold, 
 is useless unless it fits the wards of the lock. And I found 
 the wards I had to fit, the wards of my lock which had to 
 be opened, the minds of those little street boys very queer 
 and tortuous affairs ; and I had to set about cutting and 
 chipping myself in every way to make myself into the 
 wooden key which should have the one merit of a key, 
 however common it might look, the merit of fitting the lock 
 and unlocking the minds and opening the shut chambers of 
 the heart. 
 
 The church is slowly waking up to her respon- 
 sibility in the matter of training teachers to teach. 
 The Sunday-school Commission of the Protestant 
 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND TWENTIETH CENTURY 243 
 
 Episcopal Diocese, of New York, has taken the 
 lead in doing this ; 1 but the day cannot be far dis- 
 tant in which the best principles and methods of 
 teaching will be made the subject of careful and 
 intelligent drill in public classes for all teachers 
 who care to attend. Summer schools for this 
 purpose, and evening classes through the winter, 
 will be much more general than they have been. 
 
 From the public school also we may learn to 
 have fewer classes, larger in the number of schol- 
 ars enrolled in each, and better taught. The num- 
 ber of scholars in the public schools, according to 
 the United States Census, 1 890-1 891, was eight 
 million three hundred and twenty-nine thousand 
 two hundred and thirty-four, as against eight mil- 
 lion six hundred and forty-nine thousand one hun- 
 dred and thirty-one in Sunday-schools. But in 
 the case of the public schools three hundred and 
 sixty-eight thousand seven hundred and ninety- 
 one teachers sufficed, whereas, with only a slightly 
 larger number of scholars, the Sunday-schools 
 numbered one million one hundred and fifty-one 
 thousand three hundred and forty teachers. 2 The 
 city of Rochester, N. Y., has more large Sunday- 
 school classes than any other city in the United 
 States. There are forty classes with a member- 
 ship which in 1900 ran up to between three thou- 
 
 1 "Outlook," Dec. 15, 1900. 
 2 Gulick, "The Growth of the Kingdom," p. 152. 
 
244 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 sand and four thousand men, and the explanation 
 of this is that some of the most vigorous and com- 
 petent young men in the city have devoted them- 
 selves to this work. One of these, the Hon. 
 Walter Hubbell, alluding to the rapid growth of 
 his class during the nine years that he has taught 
 it, says : 
 
 We now number two hundred and fifty, and this year, so 
 far, we have had an average attendance of something like 
 one hundred and fifty. I hardly know what to say in an- 
 swer to the question about the methods employed in teach- 
 ing. We use the International series of lessons, and I en- 
 deavor to keep closely to the text. I never discuss politics 
 or the ordinary international, national, or social questions 
 of the day. The class gives entertainments during the 
 winter. The treasurer's report shows that it costs about 
 one thousand dollars a year to run the class, including the 
 cost of the banquet and what we pay the male quartette, 
 which is unquestionably the best one in the city. A large 
 number of the men seem to be very much interested in the 
 class, and do a great deal of work, and to this fact I at- 
 tribute the success of the class. We have various commit- 
 tees who look after the membership, who call on the sick, 
 who attempt to find employment for the unemployed, who 
 take care of the social functions, and who look out for the 
 program of the general exercises on Sunday. 
 
 That the character of the teaching will rise 
 with the growing intelligence of the teachers, 
 goes without saying. The days of the uniform 
 lesson are, let us hope, numbered. Lessons must be 
 graded to the capacity of the scholars. The present 
 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND TWENTIETH CENTURY 245 
 
 prospect is for three courses instead of one, fol- 
 lowing the classification of the school. There 
 may be a danger that in the revulsion from the 
 old hortatory methods of teaching we may go to 
 an opposite extreme and become too scholastic. 
 It was against this that so broad-minded and ac- 
 curate a scholar as Dr. John A. Broadus found it 
 necessary to protest : " The so-called inductive 
 method of study will answer for college students 
 and a few Bible classes, but most pupils and most 
 teachers will never make anything of it." And 
 certainly the minute study of the words of Scrip- 
 ture, the finding of concealed or unobserved 
 truths by the close scrutiny of tenses and cases 
 which perplexed Phillips Brooks' mother in the 
 preaching of the new school of evangelicals of 
 her day, will perplex much more than it will profit 
 the ordinary scholar in a Sunday-school class. In 
 the Sunday-school we deal not with processes so 
 much as with results. The teacher's main aim 
 should be moral and spiritual rather than intel- 
 lectual. Not that any one of these should be 
 rigidly separated from the others. No such dis- 
 tinction exists in fact. Faith and practice are 
 complementary, the two sides of the same shield, 
 and the reason is never ignored in the arguments 
 and appeals of the Christian religion. The text- 
 book in the Sunday-school is the Bible, and " the 
 ultimate aim of the teaching is the knowledge of 
 
246 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 Christ, Christian experience, personal salvation." l 
 The school stands or falls, not by the completeness 
 of its apparatus, its intellectual ability, the per- 
 fection of its organization, the popularity of its 
 teachers, the social position of its scholars ; no, but 
 by its yielding results which would have satisfied 
 Jesus himself ; by the measure in which it responds 
 to his command, "Suffer little children to come 
 unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." 
 It was this distinctly religious purpose in the school 
 system of the Hebrews which constituted its 
 strength, giving so deep a meaning to the saying 
 of one of the rabbis : "The Almighty prefers the 
 breath of children at school to the smoke rising 
 from the temple's altars." This it is also which has 
 made the catechism so important an element in 
 the national life of Scotland, of Germany, of New 
 England, and of many other lands. The chief 
 end of the catechism was not reached until the 
 soul was won for God. And just here it is that 
 the main work of the minister needs to be done. 
 He must sow with eternity in view. I have just 
 said that the text-book in the school has to be the 
 Bible. By this I mean the Bible, and not selec- 
 tions from it or' notes upon it. The demand for 
 cheaper Bibles with which in its early years the 
 Sunday-school Union of England and Wales be- 
 
 Demarest, "Presbyterian Review," 1901, p. 130. 
 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND TWENTIETH CENTURY 247 
 
 sieged the Bible Society, is only to be understood 
 when we remember that a Bible was supposed to 
 be necessary to each scholar. In England this 
 was certainly the rule through the first half of the 
 nineteenth century. When by and by the lesson- 
 leaf was introduced it was considered a sign of 
 an ill-prepared teacher that he brought it with him 
 into the class. We have fallen on other times in 
 this respect, and the very perfection and beauty 
 of our Sunday-school notes, issuing from many 
 publishing houses and creating large vested pecu- 
 niary interests, has tended to let the comment 
 usurp the place of the book itself. A writer al- 
 ready quoted, in pleading for reconstruction in the 
 Sunday-school, does not put the wound thus in- 
 flicted on the Bible in the house of its friends too 
 strongly when he says : l 
 
 The use of lesson leaves very generally so sets the Bible 
 itself in the background as seriously to prevent familiarity 
 with it as a whole, with the reference of its different parts 
 to one another, and with the immediate setting and signifi- 
 cance of the passage under study. Not only is the Bible 
 itself thus too little in practical use, but the tearing of a 
 few verses from it inevitably forbids the mind's emphasis 
 and remembrance of them in scriptural oneness. It would 
 be so in the study of any text-book. 
 
 The Bible must be restored to its place in the 
 school, and it must be given a chance to be heard. 
 
 1 Demarest, p. 1901. 
 
248 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 The charge is brought against the service of pub- 
 lic worship in many churches that it has ceased to 
 be scriptural in thought and expression. This is 
 much to be regretted. The question has lately 
 been raised whether to-day the Bible is as gener- 
 ally familiar to us as it was to the English people 
 in the days of Shakespeare. The vast number of 
 references in his plays, direct or indirect, to its 
 words and characters and incidents proves that 
 the great body of those who saw them performed 
 caught at once the allusions to the Bible in which 
 they abound. The study of the Bible itself, the 
 habit of committing its great passages to memory, 
 the practice of comparing scripture with scripture 
 by a ready use of parallel verses, all this needs to 
 be revived, and the Sunday-school is one place 
 where it can be done. Dr. John Clifford, of Lon- 
 don, sounds a note which, without creating a panic, 
 should certainly put us on our guard when he 
 says : l 
 
 We must get our young people to understand the incal- 
 culable value of the Bible to the religious life and general 
 well-being of the nation, to its order and progress, to its 
 liberty aud greatness. The Bible has made us. Our Refor- 
 mation sprang out of that book. It was the Bible preached 
 by Wycliffe and his poor priests which inspired that re- 
 volt against papacy which issued at length in our departure 
 from Rome and in the ascent of the British people to free- 
 
 1 " Sacerdotalism and Sunday-schools," p. 14. 
 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND TWENTIETH CENTURY 249 
 
 dom of conscience and to sovereignty in the life of the 
 world. 
 
 What is true of England is certainly true of 
 America also. The discovery of childhood, it has 
 been affirmed, was the greatest discovery of the 
 nineteenth century. This is only a rhetorical way 
 of putting the truth which Dr. H. Clay Trumbull 
 sets before us more soberly when he says : 
 
 Jesus Christ not only gave children a place in his king- 
 dom, he gave them the chief place. He did not say that 
 if a child grew up to manhood, having kept on improving, 
 he might come to understand God' s truth ; he did say that 
 the only way in which a mature man could understand this 
 truth was in getting back to his child way of thinking. 
 That this was not a mere figure of speech is shown by his 
 having a real flesh and blood child before him when he 
 said it. This has been a hard saying for apostles and theo- 
 logians and preachers generally to realize the truth of ; but 
 they have been making a good start the past century. There 
 is hope of them — the most childlike. 
 
 Up to the close of the eighteenth century many Chris- 
 tian ministers really had the idea that the chief business 
 of the church, by the command of the Master, is to preach 
 to grown-up persons, instead of to teach pupils in the 
 church school, and they worked along in the line of that 
 erroneous idea. Even if, at that time, ministers occasion- 
 ally tried preaching to children, they usually failed to come 
 up to a child's apprehension. Teaching children by proper 
 modes of teaching was hardly attempted on any exten- 
 sive scale. 
 
 No sweeping arraignment of the Sunday-school 
 
25O THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 can be just. To it, in the main, we owe it that 
 childhood has come to its own ; that the young 
 life of the community has been nurtured and 
 trained heavenward ; that the Young Men's Chris- 
 tian Associations have sprung into existence in 
 every civilized land ; and that in this country alone 
 half a million young men study the Bible in its 
 classes every year ; that the Christian Endeavor 
 Societies belt the world ; that the life of the home, 
 the family, the community has been lifted heaven- 
 ward. This unpaid enterprise can be placed side 
 by side with any system of secular schools, and 
 not fear by the comparison. To-day it is the most 
 conspicuous triumph of the voluntary system in 
 the service of Christ and the church. For this 
 reason, and because what is good should always 
 aim to be better, the Sunday-school ought with 
 the new century to go up higher. If it is to keep 
 in touch with the era of thought and action on 
 which we have now entered, it must do so. No 
 words of mine can impress too strongly on the 
 minds of my readers, lay and ministerial, the 
 grandeur and the solemnity of the obligation 
 under which we live as servants of Jesus Christ 
 to the children of our church. The Talmud says : 
 " Jerusalem was destroyed because the instruction 
 of the young was neglected." A holier temple 
 than that which fell before the torch of Titus is 
 the shrine which we are to guard. The late Bishop 
 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND TWENTIETH CENTURY 25 I 
 
 Creighton, not thinking how near he was to the 
 close of his career, sang on the threshold of the 
 year in which he died : 
 
 Oh ! earlier shall the roses blow, 
 In after years, those happier years ; 
 
 And children weep, when we lie low, 
 Far fewer tears, far softer tears. 
 
 Oh ! true shall boyish laughter ring, 
 Like tinkling chimes in happier times ; 
 
 And merrier shall the maidens sing, 
 And I not there, and I not there. 
 
 The children's future became the thought of 
 all others most insistent in his mind. The greatest 
 contribution to the unborn years that a Christian 
 minister can make he considered to be this, to live 
 for the children who should so soon occupy our 
 place. Our best and strongest thoughts and words 
 fall into the hearts of the children and young 
 people who gather about us ; and because the boy 
 is very weak who dares entirely outgrow his boy- 
 hood when he comes to be a man, there they 
 remain, growing with his growth, strengthening 
 with his strength, safeguards, by God's blessing, 
 against evil, sources of inspiration, fountains of 
 water springing up into everlasting life, like " the 
 hymns of dear old Doctor Watts," of which in his 
 old age Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote : " They 
 thrilled me when a babe, and will mingle, I doubt 
 not, with my last wandering thoughts." 
 
252 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 In bringing this discussion to a close, I desire 
 to do so on a note as broad as the theme itself, 
 when looked at in all its aspects, warrants. We 
 have seen that the roots of the Sunday-school lie 
 far back in the early years of the human family. 
 The work of Robert Raikes and his comrades was 
 a revival rather than a creation. From the tent 
 of Abraham beneath the oak at Mam re ; from the 
 divine recognition, earlier yet, of the family as the 
 center of all civil and religious life, sprang the 
 system of Christian nurture in which the Sunday- 
 school is only one factor. Never is this thought 
 of the divine sanction for the family relationship 
 absent from the heart of the patriarch, from the 
 song of the psalmist, from the promise of the seer, 
 or from the prayer of the patriot. Listen to it as 
 it welds together the training of the family with 
 the prosperity of the nation i 1 "That our sons may 
 be as plants grown up in their youth ; that our 
 daughters may be as cornerstones, polished after 
 the similitude of a palace : that our garners may 
 be full, affording all manner of store ; that there be 
 no complaining in our streets. Happy is that 
 people, that is in such a case : yea, happy is that 
 people, whose God is the Lord." The Hebrew 
 theocracy in its prime insisted on the religious 
 training of the young people, both at home and 
 
 1 Ps. 144 : 12. 
 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND TWENTIETH CENTURY 253 
 
 in the school, and even when Jerusalem fell, tradi- 
 tion has preserved for us the number of schools 
 in the sacred city as four hundred and eighty. 1 
 With more probability the most profound of Jew- 
 ish medieval scholars traces to the neglect of the 
 education of the children the decline and over- 
 throw of the theocracy itself. The lesson which 
 the reformers of the eighteenth century spelled 
 out from the slums of English cities and the shame 
 of English villages, is a lesson to which every ad- 
 vance in national education has only added new 
 emphasis. I mean that the religious training of 
 the children, whether under the monarchy or the 
 republic, is no business of the State, but must be 
 undertaken by the church of Christ. For this 
 training each minister is, within the sphere of his 
 own influence, responsible. It is not the will of 
 his Father in heaven that one of these little ones 
 should perish, that one should grow up without 
 the knowledge of his love and care. The same 
 pity which stirred in the manly heart of Robert 
 Raikes and in the gentle bosom of Hannah More 
 should stir within the soul of the Christian min- 
 ister. 2 The Sunday-school has ceased to be the 
 property of any one class, and nov/ belongs, as 
 does the public school, to every family in the com- 
 munity. The note of the true democracy is 
 
 1 Edersheim, "Sketches," p. 135. 
 2 Dale's " Life," p. 235. P. Brooks' "Addresses," p. 503. 
 
2 54 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 sounded here as it ought to be. " The rich and 
 the poor meet together, and the Lord is the maker 
 of them all." 1 
 
 It has been asserted that the time in which we 
 live is specially the age of the young ; and Emer- 
 son quotes a witty physician who, remembering 
 the hardships of his own youth, said : 2 "It is a 
 misfortune to have been born when children were 
 nothing and to live till men were nothing." And yet 
 what the men shall be ten or fifteen years hence 
 depends on what the children are now. And the 
 children and the young people will be very largely 
 what we make them. Addressing myself espe- 
 cially to the rising ministry, I would say : Believe 
 me, brethren, standing on the threshold of your 
 Christian ministry, you can afford to neglect almost 
 anything sooner than the families of your congre- 
 gation and the classes in your school. Beside the 
 chair of the aged or the bed of the dying you will 
 touch the springs of memory, and there is a wealth 
 of experience to be gained in such ministries ; but 
 when you address yourself to this great task of 
 Christian nurture, you are surrounded by the 
 pleasures of hope. You " speak to the bright 
 daylight creatures of trust," you face and influence 
 a future of untold possibilities, you lay a molding 
 hand on the slumbering forces of the new century 
 
 1 Prov. 22 : 2. 2 Emerson's "Lectures," p. 307. 
 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND TWENTIETH CENTURY 255 
 
 the like of which this world has never seen be- 
 fore. 
 
 Bliss is it in this dawn to be alive, 
 
 But to be young is very heaven. 
 
 To yourselves it will be a welcome relief, turn- 
 ing from the mingled experiences of the pastorate, 
 from the man old and hardened in sin, from the 
 man who bears 
 
 The emptiness of ages in his face, 
 
 And on his back the burden of the world, 
 
 from these and so many others who sadden or 
 shadow your heart, to pass into the springtime of 
 hope and enthusiasm as you labor with the young 
 people in your congregation. 
 
 I offer congratulations on the prospect of this 
 ministry to the home circle and the Sunday-school. 
 About us as about the Master may the children 
 gather in instinctive love ; to us as to him may 
 the young man hasten to learn how to inherit eter- 
 nal life ; may we, as was the Lord himself, be 
 encircled by a band of ardent and devoted souls 
 eager for work in the kingdom ; and when the last 
 account shall be made, may it be ours to rise with 
 many a star in the crown of our rejoicing and to 
 say, " Behold, here am I and the children whom 
 the Lord hath given me." 
 
GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Alleine, Joseph, a forerunner of 
 the Sunday-school, 55. 
 
 America, Sunday-school in, 69, 157. 
 
 American Baptist Publication So- 
 ciety, its growth, 90. 
 
 American Sunday School Union, 
 its origin, 70, 89. 
 
 Arnold, Thomas, his influence on 
 boys, 42. 
 
 Authority, of Bible, 3. 
 
 Bacon, Francis (Lord), on value 
 of catechism, 200. 
 
 Baldwin : on early conversion, 39 ; 
 his custom of kissing children 
 after service, 110. 
 
 Baraca Union, 207. 
 
 Baptism, infant. 108. 
 
 Baxter, Richard, on value of teach- 
 ing, 45. 
 
 Beecher, H. W. : on value of influ- 
 ence, 112; on injudiciously in- 
 fluencing children, 126 ; on serv- 
 ices unattractive to children, 
 131, 134; and Doctor Tyng, 141 ; 
 on Sunday-schools, 141, 160: on 
 teaching children, 177 ; on influ- 
 ence of minister on children, 
 184. 
 
 Beecher, Lyman, on religious con- 
 dition of New England before 
 founding of Sunday-schools, 226. 
 
 Bell, Andrew, his pupil-teacher 
 system, 77. 
 
 Bible: and the child, 3-45; as 
 guide to minister, 3 ; children 
 in, 3 ; a book of precepts as well 
 as examples, 12 ; lack of expo- 
 sition of, among Puritans. 34 ; 
 
 in the Sunday-school, 95, 177, 
 216; its purpose, 206. (See New 
 Testament; Old Testament.) 
 
 Bible-class, for young men, 204. 
 
 Bible-schools: among Jews, 14, 
 252 ; their increase during the 
 Exile, 15. (See Sunday-school.) 
 
 Bonar. Dr. A. A., his experience 
 in addressing children, 144. 
 
 Books: for children, 118, 172. (See 
 New England Primer.) 
 
 Borromeo, Cardinal, his Sunday- 
 schools, 54. 
 
 British and Foreign Bible Society, 
 its origin, 64. 
 
 British and Foreign School So- 
 ciety, its origin, 78. 
 
 Broadus. Dr. J. A., against induc- 
 tive method of teaching, 245. 
 
 Brock, W., on change of religious 
 thought, 237. 
 
 Brooks, Phillips, on value of help- 
 ing children, 196. 
 
 Browning, Mrs., quoted, 112. 
 
 Burns, quoted, 6. 
 
 Bushnell, Horace: on family 
 unity, 10 ; on Christian nurture, 
 42 ; on infant baptism 108 ; on 
 teaching children empty formu- 
 las, 121 : on preaching to chil- 
 dren, 139 ; on questions of young 
 men, 206. 
 
 Carey, his influence on awakening 
 of eighteenth century, 52. 
 
 Carroll, Lewis, on children, 227. 
 
 Carus-Wilson. Mrs., on God's feel- 
 ing for children, 145. 
 
 Catechism : in medieval times, 23 ; 
 
 257 
 
258 
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 in New England, 29, 34, 35, 194, 
 201 ; its connection with relig- 
 ious life, 35, 5G ; in the Reforma- 
 tion, 56 ; its use in the Sunday- 
 school, 94, 200. 
 
 Chalmers, Thomas : his influence 
 on awakening of eighteenth 
 century, 52; quoted, 164; his 
 appreciation of the Sunday- 
 school, 217, 225. 
 
 Channing : on having faith in 
 children, 32 ; on teaching, 176 ; 
 on the danger of Sunday-schools, 
 181. 
 
 Character of Sunday-school teach- 
 ers, 170. 214, 241. 
 
 Charles, T., his work, 63. 
 
 Children : the Bible and, 3-45 ; 
 necessity of training, 5 ; Hebrew 
 training of 6-16, 107, 111, 115, 190, 
 198 ; home training of, 6, 43, 107 ; 
 in New Testament, 16-22; love 
 of Jesus for, 17 : medieval train- 
 ing of, 22, 131 : Puritan training 
 of, 24-30; emotional life of, 30, 
 40: not naturally corrupt, 31; 
 conversion of, 32, 33, 36, 118; 
 nurture of, 39 : their depravity 
 in eighteenth century, 50; rela- 
 tion of minister to, 109-147 ; 
 stages in development of, 114 ; 
 consecration of, 115 ; books for, 
 118, 172; their training after con- 
 version, 122 ; their influence on 
 church elections, 123 : as critics, 
 124 ; injudicious organization of, 
 126 ; should be brought to church 
 early. 129 ; unfitness of ordinary 
 church service to, 131 ; demand 
 variety in church service, 133; 
 special address for, 135 : service 
 for, 136 ; sermon for, 138 ; duty 
 of church to elevate, 171 ; their 
 love of knowledge, 177 ; impor- 
 tance of reaching, 218. 
 
 Church : influence of Sunday- 
 school on, 21, 34, 35, 158, 159, 221, 
 227 ; hymns for, 134 ; should sup- 
 
 port Sunday-school, 161 ; its re- 
 lation to home, 191. 
 
 Clarke, D., on value of catechism, 
 194. 
 
 Clifford, Dr. John, on study of 
 Bible, 248. 
 
 Consecration, of children, 115. 
 
 Conversion : of children, 32, 33, 
 36, 118 ; inadequacy of Puritan 
 conception of, 33. 
 
 Corruption, natural, of children, 
 31. 
 
 Cox, Dr. Samuel, his sermons for 
 children, 147. 
 
 Crafts, W. F., on teaching evangel- 
 istic methods, 182. 
 
 Creighton, Bishop, quoted, 251. 
 
 Criticism, of children, 124. 
 
 Cuyler, Doctor, on importance of 
 reaching young men, 204. 
 
 Dale, R. W., on relation of church 
 and home, 191. 
 
 Demarest. W. H. S. : on Sunday- 
 school reform, 232 ; on retaining 
 young people, 238; on the aim 
 of teaching, 245 ; on use of Bible 
 in Sunday-school, 247. 
 
 Doddridge, Philip : on teaching 
 children, 29 ; his attitude toward 
 revivals, 49 ; his influence on 
 awakening of eighteenth cen- 
 tury, 51. 
 
 Dods, Dr. Marcus, on the purpose 
 of the Bible, 206. 
 
 Drummond, Henry : on religion 
 of boys, 120 ; his inquiry con- 
 cerning early religious impres- 
 sions, 222. 
 
 Duty : of parent to child, 7, 43, 107 ; 
 of minister to Sunday-school 
 (see Minister). 
 
 Edersheim : on the essence of 
 Hebrew religion, 13 ; on training 
 of Hebrew children, 14. 15, 111, 
 190: on parental obligation in 
 Mosaic law, 107 ; use of Bible in 
 Jewish schools, 178. 
 
GENERAL INDEX 
 
 259 
 
 Education, secular: in England 
 in nineteenth century, 78 ; its 
 influence on Sunday-school, 79. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan : on child con- 
 version, 33 ; his influence in 
 awakening of eighteenth cen- 
 tury, 51. 
 
 Eighteenth century : Sunday- 
 school in, 49-73 ; morality of, 49 ; 
 religious awakening in, 51. 
 
 Elections, church, unduly influ- 
 enced by children, 123. 
 
 Eliot, George, quoted, 111. 
 
 Ezra, as a teacher, 43. 
 
 Family: history rooted in, 6; re- 
 ligious aspect of, 6. 
 
 Farrar, Dean, on influence of 
 Raikes, 187. 
 
 Frazer, Prof., on influence of min- 
 ister on young, 124. 
 
 Germany, Sunday-school in, 109. 
 
 Goldsmith, his picture of the vil- 
 lage pastor, 110. 
 
 Goodell, C. L., an ideal Sunday- 
 school pastor, 213. 
 
 Gordon, A. J., on church amuse- 
 ments. 192. 
 
 Granville, as an example of eigh- 
 teenth century morality, 50. 
 
 Green, J. R., on the awakening in 
 the eighteenth century, 52. 
 
 Green, S. G. : on conducting a 
 preparation class, 181 ; on the 
 minister in the Sunday-school, 
 209; on emotional excitement, 
 217. 
 
 Gulick : on growth of British Sun- 
 day-schools, 91 ; on present re- 
 ligious condition of colleges, 93 ; 
 on size of Sunday-school classes, 
 243. 
 
 Guthrie, his childlikeness, 113. 
 
 Heber, his childlikeness, 146. 
 Hebrews, their training of chil- 
 dren, 6-16, 107, 111, 115, 190, 198. 
 
 Hill, Rowland, his Sunday-school, 
 63. 
 
 Hodder, on early nineteenth cen- 
 tury, 83. 
 
 Holmes, O. W., on Watts' hymns, 
 251. 
 
 Home : training of children in, 
 6, 43, 50, 107 ; influence of Sun- 
 day-school on, 191 ; its relation 
 to Sunday-school, 224. (See Fam- 
 ily.) 
 
 Horn-book, 93. 
 
 Howe, Julia Ward, her answer to 
 Sumner, 9. 
 
 Hubbell, W., on growth of his 
 men's Bible class, 244. 
 
 Hudson, M. A., on the Baraca 
 Union, 207. 
 
 Hymms : of Watts, 55, 61, 138, 251 ; 
 of church, 134 ; for Sunday- 
 school, 137. 
 
 Ireland, Sunday-school in, 71. 
 
 Jehoshaphat, his system of bibli- 
 cal instruction, 43. 
 
 Jesus : on the necessity of child- 
 likeness, 6 ; his childhood, 16 ; 
 his love for children, 17-20; a 
 model for the minister in his 
 relation to children, 19; his in- 
 fluence on children, 147. 
 
 Judson, Edward : on child con- 
 version. 36 ; his definition of 
 Sunday-school, 152; on the kin- 
 dergarten, 169 ; on pastoral work 
 of Sunday-school teachers, 183. 
 
 Kindergarten, in Sunday-school, 
 169. 
 
 Kirk, E. N., on former method of 
 training children, 25. 
 
 Lancaster, Joseph, his pupil- 
 teacher system, 78. 
 
 Larcom, Lucy, on sermons unin- 
 telligible to children, 134. 
 
 Lessons, uniform, 99. 
 
 Letter-box of minister, 127. 
 
26o 
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Library of Sunday-school, 118, 172. 
 Lindsay, T.,his Sunday-school, 55. 
 Longfellow, quoted, 40. 
 Luther, on influencing children, 
 218. 
 
 Manning, Cardinal, on influen- 
 cing children, 218. 
 
 Mather, Cotton, his class for chil- 
 dren, 118. 
 
 Men, young: Bible class for, 204, 
 244 ; importance of reaching, 204 ; 
 their questions, 206; their Baraca 
 Union, 207. 
 
 Middle Ages, training of children 
 in, 22, 131. 
 
 Millet, influence of early training 
 on, 41. 
 
 Minister: his guide the Bible, 3 ; 
 his model, 19 : his function in 
 medieval times, 22; must not 
 think children corrupt, 31 ; his 
 view of child conversion, 35 ; his 
 lasting influence on children. 42; 
 his relation to his young people, 
 109-147 ; as friend of children, 
 109; as pastor of children, 115; 
 his visitation of the young, 116 ; 
 value of long pastorate to, 124; 
 his unconscious influence on 
 children, 121 ; should keep in 
 close touch with young con- 
 verts, 127, 223; his letter-box, 
 127 ; as preacher to children, 
 128, 134, 138; his public prayer, 
 133 ; his relation to the Sunday- 
 school, 153-184 ; as pastor of the 
 Sunday-school, 159; his relation 
 to Sunday-school officers, 163 ; as 
 adviser to teachers, 165 ; must 
 supervise teachers. 167 ; must ex- 
 ert an intellectual" influence on 
 teachers, 174 ; his normal class, 
 174; his preparation clnss, 179; 
 his spiritual influence on teach- 
 ers, 181 ; should often meet offi- 
 cers and teachers, 181 ; benefit 
 of Sunday-school work to, 183 ; 
 
 in the Sunday-school, 187-228; 
 his moral influence in the 
 school, 190 ; may indirectly pro- 
 mote civic purity, 192 ; his influ- 
 ence on community, 195 ; should 
 attend Sunday-school, 198, 209; 
 his part in exercises of Sunday- 
 school, 198 ; should teach in 
 Sunday-school, 203 ; his class for 
 young men, 204, advantages of 
 Sunday-school teaching to, 207; 
 essentials to success in Sunday- 
 school work of, 210; must work 
 for spiritual welfare of Sunday- 
 school, 214; must keep promi- 
 nent the subject of religious 
 decision, 215; should teach can- 
 didates for church-membership, 
 223 ; a unifying influence be- 
 tween home and school, 224 ; a 
 unifying influence between 
 church and school, 226; must 
 sympathize with change of relij 
 ions thought, 238; lives for the 
 future for caring for children 
 251. 
 
 More, H. ; her influence on awak 
 ening of eighteenth century, 
 52; and Macaulay, 53; her life 
 and work, 61-68 ; parochial char 
 acter of Sunday-school of, 152. 
 
 Morley, J., on Puritan theocracy 
 53. 
 
 New England Primer : its influ 
 ence, 26 ; its Puritan character 
 26-29 ; its view of sin, 27 ; ele 
 ment of fear in teachings of, 27 
 
 28 ; lack of emotional appeal in 
 
 29 ; quoted, 26, 27, 28. 
 Newton, John, his influence on 
 
 awakening of eighteenth cen- 
 tury, 51. 
 
 Newton, Richard, on preaching 
 to children, 140. 
 
 Nineteenth century, Sunday- 
 school in, 77-104 ; secular educa- 
 tion in England in, 73. 
 
GENERAL INDEX 
 
 26l 
 
 Normal class, conducted by min- 
 ister, 174. 
 
 Nurture, Christian : origin of term, 
 39; beginning of, 40; necessity 
 of, 41. (See Children ; Sunday- 
 school.) 
 
 Officers of Sunday-school : rela- 
 tion of minister to, 163, 181 ; need 
 of good, 241. 
 
 Organization, of young people, 
 126. 
 
 Owen, John, on the catechism, 
 202. 
 
 Parent : his duty to children, 7, 
 43, 107 ; is always a teacher, 10 ; 
 mistaken ideas of obligation of, 
 31. 
 
 Pascal, ou the supremely good 
 book, 146. 
 
 Pattison, S. R., on the religion of 
 children, 122. 
 
 Paul: on children. 20, 21, 40; his 
 public teaching, 21. 22. 
 
 Phelps. Austin : on lack of expo- 
 sition in early Sunday-schools, 
 34 ; on character, 170. 
 
 Philo, on Jewish training of chil- 
 dren, 14, 111. 
 
 Prayer, public, of minister, 133. 
 
 Preparation class, conducted by 
 minister, 179. 
 
 Puritan training of children: in- 
 fluence of medieval teaching 
 upon, 23 ; its dictatorial nature, 
 24 ; its sternness, 25-30; its influ- 
 ence on Sunday-school, 30. 
 
 Puritans: their training of chil- 
 dren (see above) ; their idea of 
 conversion, 33 ; their theocracy, 
 53. 
 
 Raikes, Robert: quoted, 15; his 
 influence on awakening of eigh- 
 teenth century, 51, 54 ; as origi- 
 nator of Sunday-school, 56, 188, 
 196 ; his life and work, 57-61 ; on 
 acquiescence of clergy in Sun- 
 
 day-school movement, 155 ; early 
 appreciation of, 156, 193; his 
 monument, 187; his handling 
 of children, 235. 
 
 Reed, Charles, on opposition to 
 early Sunday-schools, 154. 
 
 Reformation, Protestant: influ- 
 ence of medieval teaching re- 
 garding children upon, 23; its 
 Puritanism, 33 ; its appreciation 
 of the catechism, 56. 
 
 Religious Tract Society, its origin, 
 63. 
 
 Revivals, their evils largely due 
 to wrong methods, 36; connec- 
 tion of Sunday-school with, 216. 
 
 Richter, Jean Paul : on influence 
 of parents, 10; on the beauty of 
 childhood, 170. 
 
 Robertson, Dr., on application of 
 moral in story, 145. 
 
 Sabbath Evening School Society, 
 its origin, 70. 
 
 Schauffler, A. F., on training 
 teachers, 179. 
 
 Scotland, Sunday-school in, 70. 
 
 Sermon: should attract children, 
 134 ; for children, 138 ; instruct- 
 ive element in, 145. 
 
 Services, for children, 136. 
 
 Short, Geo., on character of 
 teacher, 214. 
 
 Singing: should attract children, 
 134,137. (See Hymns.) 
 
 Smith, Adam, on value of Sunday- 
 school, 71. 
 
 Society, American Baptist Publi- 
 cation, its growth, 80. 
 
 Society, British and Foreign Bible, 
 its origin, 64. 
 
 Society, British and Foreign 
 School, its origin, 78. 
 
 Society of Christian Endeavor: 
 its good influence, 192; its rela- 
 tion to Sunday-school, 215. 
 
 Society, Religious Tract, its origin, 
 63. 
 
262 
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Society, Sabbath Evening School, 
 its origin, 70. 
 
 Spurgeon : on child conversion, 
 39; on keeping young men in 
 Sunday-school, 205 ; on the duty, 
 of the minister to visit his Sun- 
 day-school, 209. 
 
 Stanley, Dean : human element 
 in preaching of. 143 ; criticism 
 of, 176. 
 
 Stock, Thomas, his Sunday-school 
 work, 61, 62. 
 
 Sumner, Charles, and Julia Ward 
 Howe, 9. 
 
 Sunday-school : among Hebrews, 
 14, 252 ; its increase during exile, 
 15 ; evolution of modern, 15 ; 
 during apostolic times, 21 ; as 
 the nursery of the church, 21, 
 159, 221, 227 ; in medieval times, 
 22, 23 ; opposition to. 33, 70, 154, 
 157, 226 ; lack of exposition in 
 New England, 34 ; its influence 
 on modern church, 31. 35, 158 ; its 
 aim, 43. 245 ; in eighteenth cen- 
 tury, 49-73 ; its inception. 54 ; ori- 
 gin of modern, 57; indifference 
 toward early, 62, 63 ; immediate 
 results of its establishment in 
 eighteenth century. 68-73 ; its 
 origin in America, 69, 157 ; in 
 Scotland, 70; in Ireland, 71; 
 influence of early, 71; its part 
 in religious awakening of eigh- 
 teenth century, 72 : change 
 in character of, 73; in nine- 
 teenth century, 77-104 ; its de- 
 cline in early nineteenth cen- 
 tury, 79 ; its recognition by 
 Church of England, 80: effect 
 of decline of evangelical party 
 upon, 81 ; influence of industrial 
 growth upon, 83: beginning of 
 unpaid teaching in. 85; presents 
 in, 85, 86, 203: its revival in 
 Gloucester, 86; bettor organiza- 
 tion of, 87 : first Convention of 
 workers in, 89 ; statistics con- 
 
 cerning, 91 ; improvement of 
 teaching in, 93, 168, 244; cate- 
 chism in, 94, 200; Bible in, 95, 
 177, 246 ; lesson series for, 99 ; its 
 influence on nineteenth century, 
 103 ; its origin in Germany, 109 : 
 its library, 118, 172 ; defined, 151 ; 
 of earlier times compared with 
 that of to-day, 151, 196; the 
 modern, 153; relation of minis- 
 ter to, 153-184; its early simplic- 
 ity, 153 ; continuity of, 158 ; 
 not the children's church, 160; 
 should be supported by the 
 church, 161 ; efficacy better than 
 numbers in, 169; its kindergar- 
 ten, 169; importance of charac- 
 ter in teachers of, 170, 214, 241 ; 
 its wider mission, 171 : minister's 
 relation to, teachers, 174 ; prepa- 
 ration for teaching in, 189, 242; 
 its great danger, 181 ; monthly 
 meeting of teachers of, 181 ; the 
 minister in, 187-228; three im- 
 pelling forces of early. 188 ; its 
 reforming power, 190; its influ- 
 ence on the home, 191 ; its 
 influence on civic purity, 192; 
 its national influence, 193 ; pun- 
 ishment in, 194; young men's 
 Bible class of, 204 ; as a trans- 
 forming agency, 208 ; essentials 
 to success of minister in, 210; 
 its connection with revivals, 
 216 ; is not in rivalry with the 
 home, 224 ; is not in rivalry 
 with the church, 226; in the 
 twentieth century, 231-255 ; must 
 keep in tcuch with the times, 
 232 ; must respond to demands 
 upon it, 233; must agree with 
 prevailing sentiment, 234 ; must 
 sympathize with changing 
 thought, 236; must avail itself 
 of progressive intelligence, 240; 
 separate classrooms in. 210; 
 need of good officers in, 241 ; 
 new methods in, 241 ; size of 
 
GENERAL INDEX 
 
 •63 
 
 classes in, 213 : its world influ- 
 ence, 249. 
 
 Sunday-school Union : its origin, 
 63, 87; its doctrinal limitation, 
 87; its publications, 88. 
 
 Sunday-school Union, American, 
 its origin, 70, 89. 
 
 Talleyrand, his advice against 
 zeal", 49. 
 
 Talmud: on home training, 50; 
 its rules regarding training of 
 children, 190, 237 ; on national 
 importance of training chil- 
 dren, 250. 
 
 Teachers in Sunday-school : 
 wages paid to early, 84; begin- 
 ning of unpaid, 85; improve- 
 ment of, 93, 168, 244 ; importance 
 of character in, 170, 214. 241 ; re- 
 lation of minister to, 174; nor- 
 mal class for, 174 ; three things 
 essential to, 176; preparation 
 class for, 179, 242; monthly 
 meeting of, 181 ; as assistant pas- 
 tors, 182 ; must sympathize with 
 changing thought, 238 ; need of 
 good, 241. 
 
 Tennyson, quoted, 128, 129. 
 
 Testament, New, on training chil- 
 dren, 16-22. 
 
 Testament, Old, on training chil- 
 dren, 6-16. 
 
 Thackeray, his appreciation of 
 singing of children, 137. 
 
 Thring, his debt to Sunday-school 
 teaching, 242. 
 
 Timothy, our first example of 
 Christian nurture, 20. 
 
 Training: See Children ; Teachers. 
 
 Trotter, Doctor, on English Sun- 
 day-schools in middle of nine- 
 teenth century, 97. 
 
 Trumbull : on Hebrew training of 
 children, 14, 15, 19S ; on Jesus as 
 the model teacher, 19 ; on apos- 
 tolic teaching of children. 21, 
 21 ; on child-conversion, 32 ; on 
 
 the catechism, 35, 200; on re- 
 ligious character of early nine- 
 teenth century, 79; on Sunday- 
 schools in Germany, 109 ; on 
 good texts for sermons to chil- 
 dren, 142; on early Sunday- 
 schools, 153 ; on opposition to 
 early Sunday-schools, 154 ; on 
 growth of Sunday-school move- 
 ment, 157; on indirect influence 
 of Sunday-school, 195; on So- 
 ciety of Christian Endeavor, 
 215 ; on modern growth of regard 
 for children, 235 ; on importance 
 of childlikeness, 249. 
 
 Twentieth century, Sunday-school 
 in, 231-255. 
 
 Tyng, Stephen : and Beecher, 141 ; 
 on value of Sunday-school work, 
 141 ; on relation of minister to 
 Sunday-school, 210 ; his Sunday- 
 school, 211. 
 
 Visitation of children by minis- 
 ter, 116. 
 
 Waldenses, use of Bible by, 178. 
 
 Walpole, R.. his maxim, 49. 
 
 Watchwords of Sunday-school 
 movement, 188. 
 
 Watts, Isaac, his hymns, 55, 61, 
 138, 251. 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, on duty, 3. 
 
 Wesley, John : his influence on 
 awakening of eighteenth cen- 
 tury, 51 ; on child conversion, 
 52; on talking , with children. 
 117; on associating with chil- 
 dren, 138; his sermon for chil- 
 dren, 147 : on growth and value 
 of Sunday-schools, 188, 216; on 
 Sunday-school teachers, 241. 
 
 White, Gilbert, as an example of 
 morality of eighteenth century, 
 50. 
 
 Whitefield, his influence on awak- 
 ening of eighteenth century, 51. 
 
 Wilberforce: his influence on 
 
264 
 
 GENERAL JXDEX 
 
 awakening of eighteenth cen- 
 tury, 52; on English village life 
 before founding of Sunday- 
 school, 225. 
 Wordsworth, quoted, 113, 204, 255. 
 
 Xavier, on influencing children, 
 218. 
 
 Zinzendorf, as a preacher to chil- 
 dren, 138. 
 
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