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SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 lolngtrajpli. 
 
 REV. ALFRED ^TAYLOR, 
 
 PASTOR OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CUUBCH, 
 BRISTOL, PA. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 By JOHN S. HART. LL. D. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 NO. 9 CORNUILL. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, 
 
 By henry HOYT, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The author of the following Sketches, is widely 
 known, — first, as a successful Sabbath School Mis- 
 sionary ; secondly, as a Pastor, who, in his own church, 
 has given special attention to the cultivation of this 
 department of the field of ministerial labor; and, 
 lastly, as a writer, who has most happily "photo- 
 graphed," for the use of others, the results of his own 
 observation and experience. His pictures are so life- 
 like as to have caused some almost ludicrous mistakes; 
 persons of whom the author had never heard, and liv- 
 ing in various and widely distant States, often imagin- 
 ing themselves to have sat for the portraits ; and in 
 some instances, sending angry complaints to the editor 
 about the supposed personalities. As these papers all 
 appeared originally in the ^'■Sunday School Times ^J I 
 
IV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 have liad a good opportunity of judging both of their 
 merits and of their acceptance with the public ; and I 
 think I am safe in sayhig, that no series of articles, 
 that has appeared in that paper, has attracted more 
 attention among Sabbath School men, or been more 
 generally approved, or whose republication has been 
 more frequently called for. They deserve to take 
 their place among the permanent literature of the 
 cause. The volume which contains them is one which 
 ought to finds its way upon the table of every Sabbath 
 School man, and of every friend of Sabbath Schools. 
 
 John S. Hart. 
 Philadelphia^ January, 1864. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 STJFEPlX:i>TTEIsriD EHSTTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 The Fidgety Superintekdent 9 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 The Heavy Superintendent • 14 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 The Consequential Superintendent 19 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Slovenly Superintendent 24 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Successful Superintendent 30 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Heedless Teacher 37 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 The Shallow Teacher 43 
 
 CHAPTER Vm. 
 The Abgdmentaiive Teacher 48 
 
Vl CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 The Inexperienced Teacher 53 
 
 CHxlPTER X. 
 The Dull Teacher 59 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 The Wearisome Teacher 65 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 The Unconverted Teacher 70 
 
 CHAPTER Xm. 
 The Inconstant Teacher 77 
 
 CHAPTER XrV. 
 The Disagreeable Teacher 83 
 
 CIUPTER XV. 
 The Uneasy Teacher 88 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 The A3IIABLE Teacher 94 
 
 CHAPTER XVn. 
 The Regularly Late Teacher 99 
 
 CHAPTER XVm. 
 The Traditional Teacher 105 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 The Excellent Te.4.cher Ill 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 The Mischievous Scholar 117 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 The Lazy Scholar 123 
 
 CHAPTER XXn. 
 The Precooioub Scholar 127 
 
CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 CHAPTER XXm. 
 The Rebellious Scholar 133 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 The Careless Scholar 139 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 The Too Big Scholar. 144 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 The Scholar who does not Learn 149 
 
 CHAPTER XXVn. 
 The First-Rate Scholar 155 
 
 CHAPTER XXVin. 
 Sunday School Speech IMaking 160 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 The Pompous Speaker .' 166 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 The Long-Winded Speaker 171 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 At the Convention 177 
 
 CHAPTER XXXn. 
 The Empty jVIan 185 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIH. 
 The Dull Speaker — 191 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 The Talking Superintendent 197 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 The Stuffed Children 203 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 Thb Peripatetic Bore 215 
 
Viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVn. 
 The Apologetic Speaker 221 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVm. 
 The Untimely Speaker 228 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 The Ridiculous Speaker 234 
 
 CHAPTER XL, 
 In the Pulpit 241 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 The Truly Eloquent Speaker 248 
 
 CHAPTER XLH. 
 **And the Speech pleased the Lord". 255 
 
SUPERINTENDENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Fidgety Superintendent 
 
 U4 HIS person is constitutionally uneasy. 
 VL^ He is in a stew at home, at his place of 
 business, and wherever else he goes. He 
 never was thoughtfully calm for five minutes 
 at a time. He unwittingly puts into a stew 
 those with whom he associates or has business. 
 It would be well if, in putting on his Sunday 
 clothes, he could clothe himself with a garb 
 of quiet dignity, but he cannot. So he brings 
 his e very-day manners and customs with him, 
 as he comes to the discharge of his official 
 duties in the Sunday School. His entrance 
 into the school-room introduces a general 
 
10 THE FIDGETY SFPERIXTENDENT. 
 
 odor of disquietude and restlessness. He 
 seems to have been shaved with a dull razor, 
 or bitten by venomous insects. Probably 
 both. As he constantly boils over on the 
 subject of punctuality, he is careful not to 
 be after the time for the opening of school. 
 But he hurriedly bolts into the school-room 
 just as the clock is on the strike, and as hur- 
 riedly arranges his affairs, so that the opening 
 of the school may at once proceed. 
 
 His opening exercises are as when a can of 
 fermented preserves is opened. Great ebuli- 
 tion ; little orderly propriety. His ways are 
 different. Sometimes a hymn, a chapter, a 
 prayer. Sometimes a hymn, a prayer, a chap- 
 ter. Sometimes no chapter, sometimes no 
 prayer. Generally without the care in se- 
 lection and arrangement which is desirable. 
 Always lacking in that spirit of earnest de- 
 votion which should mark every religious 
 exercise. The school is opened, or rather 
 torn open, in such a manner as to jar the re- 
 ligious feelings of all right-minded teachers. 
 
THE FIDGETY SUPERINTENDENT. 11 
 
 The exercises of study are due, but the 
 impetuous official has a notice to give, or a 
 new reo'ulation to announce. He rinjys the 
 bell with violence, and failing to gain the 
 attention he desires, thumps on the desk with 
 a stick till enough noise is made to cause 
 everybody to look and listen. The notice 
 or regulation is an unimportant one, which 
 might have been otherwise disposed of. The 
 Library duties, contrived as awkwardly as 
 possible, are then attended to. Five adjutant 
 superintendents, under the name of secreta- 
 ries, then march round, attending to the roll, 
 which our fidgety friend might as well do 
 himself, but for the fact that he does not see 
 how one man can do so much work. 
 
 The school is fairly set in motion. Not the 
 stately and dignified motion of the well 
 freighted and balanced ocean-steamer, but the 
 nervous wriggling of the little unballasted 
 skifi", which a flaw of wind may upset at any 
 moment. A constant buzz is heard when the 
 superintendent moves round. Not the buzz 
 
1'2 THE FIDGETY SUPERINTEXDENT. 
 
 of the busy bee, children industriously study- 
 ins: and recitino: ; but somethinsr more like 
 the buzzing of a family of hornets, as he goes 
 from class to class, stimulating teachers and 
 scholars with some ever new species of worry. 
 The boys are a special plague to him. The 
 girls constantly minister to his vexation. As 
 for his teachers, never were such an inefficient 
 set known to be in any one school. The ven- 
 tilating apparatus distresses him. The ar- 
 rangement of the shutters and blinds requires 
 his unremitting attention. He flutters at the 
 stove, and disturbs the school by making a 
 noise w^ith the poker. He bothers the libra- 
 rian until that officer is on the point of resign- 
 ing. The sexton is his natural enemy. 
 
 The fidgety superintendent has no lack of 
 rules and regulations. In fact, he has too 
 many ; enough for several Sunday Schools. 
 He has so many that it is impossible to en- 
 force a quarter of them. Some of them con- 
 flict with others. Most of them are the pro- 
 duct of his own unassisted wisdom. Some 
 
THE FIDGETY SUPERINTENDENT. 13 
 
 of them have been extemporized for particu- 
 lar occasions. For instance, when a boy (not 
 too able bodied) has behaved badly, the school 
 is reminded of the rale that all such boys so 
 behaving, shall be made an example of, by 
 being temporarily imprisoned in the coal-cel- 
 lar. With strong cries and great hustling, 
 the evil-doer is thus made an example of, the 
 bigger boys wishing that he had tried it on 
 them, that they might see whether bo}^ or su- 
 perintendent vfould go to that dimly lighted 
 place of punishment. The school is thrown 
 into confusion. Superintendent declares that 
 among such a set it is impossible to keep or- 
 der, and that the school is rapidly going to 
 destruction. So it is. And if the teachers 
 value the school, and think it worth saving, 
 the best thing they can do is to call a special 
 meeting, unanimously request Mr. Fidgety to 
 consider himself put out, and then elect a 
 wiser and more placid man in his place. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Heavy Superintendent. 
 
 u,aE is a good man, but very cliill. A man 
 ^i of considerable ability in some things. 
 iS'ot necessarily an old man, though some- 
 times chronologically exempt from active ser- 
 vice. He means well. He wants to do as 
 well as he knows how, for the weitarc of the 
 school. He has the respect and affection of 
 the minister and good people of the church. 
 He is a respectable man, and a respectable 
 superintendent. But he puts the children to 
 sleep. The Sunday School slumbers under 
 his ponderous administration. 
 
 He leads the school along in one old rut, 
 the same rut that it always has travelled in. 
 The old rut is worn not wide, but deep. So 
 deep that the superintendent stands in it up 
 to his eyes and ears. He can neither see 
 
THE HEAVY SUPERINTENDENT. 15 
 
 nor hear what is gohig on outside of it. It 
 would be impossil>le for him to drive out of 
 it. The school sings the same hjanns, learns 
 the same lessons, prays the same prayers, 
 uses the same books, that it did twenty years 
 ago. These met the requirements of that day, 
 and why should they not of the present ? If 
 any teacher, scholar, or friend suggests an 
 improvement or alteration in any of the old 
 established modes of conducting afiairs, he 
 is met with the serious, apprehensive face of 
 this solid man, so suggestive of the peril the 
 school would run by stepping out of the path 
 of ancient precedent, that he is at once struck 
 with a deep sense of his audacity in suggest- 
 ing that which if carried out, would have hur- 
 ried the whole concern to disgraceful ruin. 
 
 The school is a small one. The scholars 
 are those who have been born in it, or have 
 naturally wandered into it. Most of them 
 go from force cf habit. They have been told 
 it is right to go to Sunday School. They do 
 not go because they are interested. There is 
 
16 THE HEAVY SUPERINTENDENT. 
 
 nothing to excite especial interest in the 
 childish mind. They are tolerably well be- 
 haved, orderly, stagnant children. There is 
 no missionary effort, no lively energy in the 
 school. Some exhuberant young converts 
 once tried it, but the heavy head went to 
 the pastor, and asked him if he thought they 
 had better, and he thought they had better 
 not, and so they wilted into submissive in- 
 activity. 
 
 The con2fre2ration are aware of the existence 
 of this school. They know it in two ways. 
 They see the children coming out of it when 
 church begins ; and they have the opportuni- 
 ty of contributing something to the yearly 
 collection which is taken up for its expenses. 
 This is all they know about it. The children 
 are not numerous enough to make a disturb- 
 ance, nor the expense great enough to neces- 
 sitate a large collection. It is an inoffensive 
 Sunday School. 
 
 This heavy superintendent is regular and 
 punctual in all that he does. He has never 
 
THE HEAVY SUPERINTENDENT. 17 
 
 been late. He has never been flurried in the 
 performance of his duty. He never foiled to 
 write up his record-book neatly with ink, and 
 yet without blots. His absence or irregulari- 
 ty would be as quickly noticed as would the 
 absence or want of perpendicularity of the 
 church steeple. Departure from his usual un- 
 ruffled dignity would be as novel as the crack- 
 ing of a joke by the pastor in the pulpit. 
 
 In conductiDg the exercises of the school, 
 our friend is stately and solemn. The prayer 
 at the opening is fifteen minutes long. Al- 
 though efibrts have been made to keep the 
 children in devotional attitude and silence 
 during its continuance, they have been at- 
 tended with only partial success. But the 
 heaviest of all exercises is when the good man 
 makes "a few remarks," commencing with 
 *' My dear young friends." If the " remarks " 
 are prolonged as they generally are, many of 
 the " dear young friends " have to be waked 
 up at their close, and even some of the young- 
 er teachers yield to the general feeling of 
 
18 THE HEAVY SLTERINTENDENT. 
 
 heaviness. These symptoms of weariness 
 fail to ruffle the composure of the speaker, or 
 to bring the "remarks" to a close a moment 
 before their natural expiration. 
 
 The time of usefulness of this respectable 
 old seventy-four ship-of-the-line has run out. 
 A less clumsy craft, even though of less 
 depth, and lighter equipment, would be more 
 available for the work of the present day. 
 Let our fossil superintendent either go out of 
 service, as a well-used and time-worn monu- 
 ment of the past, or else let him get himself 
 razeed, pitch overboard his weighty old 
 smooth-bores, and rig himself with all the 
 modern rifled improvements, and iron-clad 
 sides. Then, in the Master's strength, he 
 will be able not only to sail in the shallow 
 waters where the enemy of souls is to be met, 
 but to send into his sides such telling shots, 
 as will cause the school to give thanks to God 
 for the new efficiency with which they com* 
 mence in earnest to " fight the good fight of 
 faith." 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 The Consequential Superintendent. 
 
 |E is an elder or vestryman of the church. 
 A well-to-do merchant, a judge of the 
 supreme court, or a bank cashier. He has 
 railroad stock in his safe, and money to his 
 credit in bank. Lives in a fine house, drives 
 excellent horses, and sits in the front pew, mid- 
 dle aisle, into which his family come regularly 
 ^VG minutes after the minister has commenced 
 service. For these reasons, and not on ac- 
 count of any particular fitness for the post, 
 this gentleman has been elected superintend- 
 ent of the Sunday School. Very great is the 
 honor which he has conferred on the church 
 and Sunday School by his acceptance. In the 
 " brief remarks " which he made on the occa- 
 sion, he told them that they must not look to 
 him for any great amount of labor in the duties 
 
 19 
 
20 THE CONSEQUENTIAL SUPERINTENDENT. 
 
 connected with the administration of the school. 
 The school should have his influence and his 
 sympathy. 
 
 Prior to the election of this superintendent, 
 the school had been somewhat run down. The 
 former superintendent was a plain young man, 
 pious, but lacking in those qualifications which 
 w^ould enable him to make his Sunday School 
 a first-class institution in the eyes of the con- 
 gregation. The school needed influence, sym- 
 pathy, and a long pocket. 
 
 Our consequential superintendent has come 
 up nobl}^ to the relief of the school's embar- 
 rassments. Feeling his own credit and char- 
 acter involved, he has paid for the boo]i:s 
 bought on credit eighteen months ago, and for 
 the stoves purchased last winter. He has 
 also removed the annoyance caused by the 
 duns of the coal dealer for his little bill, the 
 fuel represented by w^hich was consumed last 
 winter. But with this liberality comes a new 
 embarrassment, worse than mere debt. Tlie 
 genlieman considers that he has a moral 
 
THE CONSEQUENTIAL SUPERINTENDENT. 21 
 
 mortgage on the school. The kindness he 
 has done it can never be repaid. He makes 
 no secret of the success of his efforts to save 
 it from roin. In fact, he seems to own the 
 whole establishment. It has his influence and 
 his sympathy. So have the ser^^ants in his 
 kitchen and the horses in his stable. And he 
 consults the teachers about as much on the 
 business of the school as he consults his ser- 
 vants or horses on the conduct of his house- 
 hold affairs. 
 
 He is tolerably regular and punctual in his 
 attendance. When he is late the school re- 
 spectfully waits for him. When he is absent, 
 somebody else takes his place. Nobody ven- 
 tures to susrsrest to him that he should mend 
 in this respect, for everj body knows that a 
 man of his influence has so much to attend to 
 during the week, which must be properly at- 
 tended to, that it is impossible for him to 
 attend to anything properly on the Sabbath. 
 Besides, suggestion would give offence to 
 him, which would be impolitic. He might 
 
22 THE CONSEQUENTIAL SUPEKINTENDENT. 
 
 remind the unreasonable people who find 
 fault, that it is a great favor for him to come 
 at all. 
 
 His manner, while on duty, is the manner of 
 a brigadier general. He is not only the 
 superintending overseer of the flock commit- 
 ted to his charge, but he is driver and com- 
 mander. If he is a large man with a full bass 
 voice, this sets well on him, and produces a fine 
 impression on those who come in to visit the 
 school. If he is a little man with a squeaky 
 voice, it is very ridiculous. The teachers 
 would prefer a less dictatorial manner. The 
 scholars feel that whatever sympathy he may 
 profess to have for them, they cannot get up 
 much for him. 
 
 And the Sunday School feels that it has 
 made a bad bargain. It has looked at all the 
 man's qualifications except the right ones, in 
 making selection of him as head ofiicer. He 
 was put in to compliment him. How shall 
 he be got out ? Pastor, teachers and friends, 
 put their heads together to invent a way The 
 
THE COXSEQUE^nTIAL SUPERINTE3SDENT. 23 
 
 way seems as hard to find, and as profitless 
 when found, as the Northwest Passage. The 
 debt of gratitude due him for extricating the 
 school from its pecuniary difficulties, stands 
 as a great iceberg in the way of removing him. 
 It will not do to hurt his feelings. He will 
 leave the church. The church will lose his 
 influence, his sympathy, and his pew rent. 
 That would ruin the church. The only 
 feasible suggestion made for getting rid of 
 him, is to wait till he dies. And that seems 
 a slow way. But the school, in terror of the 
 great man, toils on under his unhappy tyranny, 
 year after year, growing weaker and more 
 disordered, like the dyspeptic who persists in 
 living on indigestible food ; until at last, when 
 the change is made by death or voluntary re- 
 tirement, what is left of the unfortunate 
 school is so enfeebled and rickety, that the 
 work of rebuilding has to be done almost 
 from the foundation. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Slovenly Superintendent. 
 
 jST Saturday night he omitted to wind 
 his watch. The house clock is off duty 
 by reason of similar omission. There is no 
 time-piece in the house that can show what 
 o'clock it is. So he is a little behind time in 
 coming into school. With toilet partially 
 made, breakfast not quite eaten, and family 
 prayers omitted for want of time, he moves 
 along to his work, one moment hurrying be- 
 cause he is late, the next moment slackening 
 his steps, reflecting that as he has been punc- 
 tual for two consecutive Sundays, it is no 
 matter if he is late to-day ; the school cannot 
 begin before he gets there. "I forgot to 
 wind my watch last night," is the apologetic 
 remark to the knot of teachers and scholars 
 awaiting him at the door. " Why couldn't 
 
THE SLOVENLY SUPERINTENDENT. 25 
 
 he remember about his watch ? " is the almost 
 audible thought of the hearers of the lame 
 apology. 
 
 Our friend is a good natured, easy soul. 
 He is willing to have tilings done right, if 
 anybody will do them right. He is not dis- 
 pleased when they go wrong. He says he 
 makes the best of it, and is not going to be 
 worried about what he calls the minor matters 
 of life. His religion is a sort of slip-shod 
 religion. In all his affairs he is down at the 
 heels. There is no arrangement in his count- 
 ing room or his family. His children rise 
 when they please, get their meals " when it is 
 convenient," hoist their clothes on without 
 much regard to neatness or regularity ; and 
 the only thing in which they are all regular, is 
 their late attendance on the means of grace. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that the Sunday 
 School which is officered by the slovenly man, 
 is a model of neatness and good order. It 
 partakes of his spirit of inefficiency and lack. 
 There sits a class of seven boys, crowding to 
 
26 THE SLOVENLY SUPERINTENDENT, 
 
 look over two testaments. One dog-eared 
 hymn book is the whole musical apparatus of 
 another class of five well-grown children. 
 Yonder class has been without question books 
 for a month. That class has for a year 
 borrowed catechisms from its next neigh- 
 bor. The records of several classes have for 
 weeks been kept on soiled slates, because the 
 superintendent " really forgot," each week to 
 get the new class books which he had been 
 promising for some time. One class studies 
 in Mark, another in Hebrews, another in 
 Ezekiel. Each teacher is obliged to try to 
 speak louder than all the other teachers, so as 
 to be heard above the general hum. Hence 
 the general hum is so great that everybody 
 interferes with everybody else. There is no 
 system, no neatness, no order. The whole 
 school is at loose ends. The good-natured 
 superintendent says that he never had an}'- gift 
 for keeping order in school. Xobody oilers 
 to contradict him in this opinion. 
 
 The record book which is kept by this man, 
 
THE SLOVENLY SUPEKINTENDENT. 27 
 
 looks as if one of the younger classes had 
 been using it for a copy book. There are 
 strokes, pot hooks, crosses, smears, and 
 blots. The first page was kept with some 
 neatness. He blotted the second, and then 
 lost his ambition to keep the book nicely. 
 The drawer in his desk contains several dis- 
 used record books, put out of service on ac- 
 count of the many blots and blunders contain- 
 ed in them. The slovenly superintendent 
 often gives notice from the desk, that the 
 teachers should be more punctual and regular, 
 and that the scholars must be more orderly 
 and obedient. But it is like the fabulous pater- 
 nal crab, who exhorted his son to go straight 
 instead of crooked. The precept is so barren 
 of example as to carry no force with it, and, 
 like most of this officer's laws and regula- 
 tions, it is a dead letter. They all know that 
 they ought to do better ; so he, too, knows 
 that he ought to mend in almost all his vrays. 
 "Didn't think " is at the bottom of all this 
 well-meaning man's errors. He did not mean 
 
2S THE SLOVENLY SUPERINTENDENT, 
 
 to be untidy, to have a disorderly school or a 
 slatternly record book, to be late, to let his 
 watch run down, or to be generally slovenly. 
 But he fails to be systematically thoughtful 
 about these duties, and continual short- 
 comings bring forth the ever recurring ex- 
 cuse, "I forgot," or amplified, "I really for- 
 got all about it." 
 
 The time of teaching is over. The bell is 
 rudely jangled to cause the learning to stop. 
 No intelligent questioning about the lesson, 
 nor even an announcement of next Sunday's 
 lesson, for each class studies (or omits to 
 study) the lesson of its own selection. But 
 there are sundry notices to be given out, and 
 they serve for closing exercises. Mr. Sloven- 
 ly announces that there will be a prayer-meet- 
 ing on Wednesday and lecture on Friday and 
 monthly concert on Monday and the annual 
 pic-nic on Thursday and the funeral of Aman- 
 da Jones this afternoon all to commence at 
 half past seven o'clock until further notice. 
 
 Of course the teachers remember all these. 
 
THE SLOVENLY SUPERINTENDENT. 29 
 
 No matter, he has given them out, and that ia 
 all he has to do with it. The school is then, 
 not exactly dismissed, but rather dispersed. 
 Slovenly goes to his home, intending to make 
 a resolution to institute a general reform. 
 But his good intentions do not come to a head. 
 He forgets them. He blunders on in the 
 same old way, and the school blunders and 
 stumbles along with him, and they will con- 
 tinue to blunder and stumble and forget to- 
 gether, so long as they both shall live. 
 
CHAPTEE Y. 
 
 The Successful Superintendent. 
 
 'If^E is a good superintendent, and there- 
 fore successful. A man of intelligence 
 and of some degree of information. He was 
 not elected because of his being a judge, an 
 elder, a deacon, or a bank president, nor be- 
 cause he is the oldest, the youngest, the most 
 popular, or the best looking man in the 
 church. The teachers chose him because of 
 his fitness for the duties of the office. When 
 he was elected, he did not consume half an 
 hour of the precious time of the meeting, in 
 poor apologies and regrets at not being able 
 " to perform in a proper and satisfactory man- 
 ner, the laborious and responsible duties of 
 the high station and important position in 
 which, by their unanimous and most compli- 
 mentary action they had placed him." Nor 
 
THE SUCCESSFUL SUPEEINTENDENT. 31 
 
 did he suggest, (all the while meaning to ac- 
 cept,) that Mr. Fidgety, Mr. Heavy, or one 
 of the other candidates who did not get a 
 single vote, could fill the office better than he 
 could. Pie went at it like an honest man and 
 a Christian. 
 
 Regularly and with punctuality has he per- 
 severed in the work. He keeps sound over- 
 shoes and a good nmbrella, and is not com- 
 pelled to stay at home on rainy days. You 
 can set your watch by his opening and dis- 
 missal of the school. He does not forget that 
 the whole body of teachers, old and young, 
 will come late if he is late, and that if he is 
 punctual they will all, excepting two or three 
 incorrigibly heedless ones, be punctual too. 
 
 When he arrives at school, it is under- 
 stood that he has come with a definite 
 purpose, and not to let things straggle along 
 the best way they can. With courteous firm- 
 ness he goes about the business of the school. 
 He, as pleasantly as possible, corrects what is 
 wrong, according to the best of his ability. 
 
32 THE SUCCESSFUL SUPERINTENDENT. 
 
 By some apparent magic he smooths down 
 the crust}^ teacher, and quiets the turbulent 
 one. He has succeeded in briu^'ino- to nauijht 
 the plans of Mr. Books, the Librarian, who 
 in two years has invented fifteen new w^ays of 
 keeping the library, each worse than its pre- 
 decessor. He has quieted ]Mr. Whimsick, the 
 singing man, who bought all the new flash 
 tune-books as soon as published, and insisted 
 that the school should sing them all through. 
 And yet he keeps all these people in a good 
 humor. The boys and girls love him, even if 
 he is a pretty strict disciplinarian. They 
 know that if they are good scholars, disci- 
 pline will not be exercised on them. 
 
 He is neat in his ways. You can examine 
 the record of the school since his election, 
 and find a well-kept and correct history of 
 its transactions. There is a general air of 
 tidiness, and absence of boisterous doings, 
 throu<?hout all the affairs of the school. The 
 whole concern goes like w^ell-oiled clock 
 work. 
 
THE SUCCESSFUL SUPERINTENDENT. 33 
 
 Not many speeches are heard from the lips 
 of this superinteudent, but whenever he opens 
 his mouth he says something worth remem- 
 bering. He does not talk against time, nor 
 utter great swelling words when he has noth- 
 ing to say. When a friend or stranger 
 visits the school, burdened with a speech 
 which must be delivered, he endeavors to 
 choose between the man who will instruct 
 the children and the one who will only utter 
 long strung nonsense. Sometimes, however, 
 he makes a mistake, and allows Mr. Windy- 
 wordy to have his say, but is carefuj not to 
 invite him again. 
 
 As a good railroad conductor understands 
 everything about his train, from driving the 
 engine to oiling the car- wheels, and can give 
 wise directions to those whose duty it is to 
 attend to these things, so our superintend- 
 ent can preside, keep order, teach any class 
 that may be without a teacher, look after the 
 library, do the singing, and even take the 
 place of the sexton in case of necessity. Not 
 
34 THE SUCCESSFUL SUPERINTENDENT. 
 
 that he does all these at once, or any one of 
 them in a way, or at a time to interfere with 
 others in the discharge of their duty. But he 
 can do them all, and the teachers and scholars 
 know it, and the knowledge does not hui-t 
 him in their ej^es. 
 
 If he were not a man of prayer, he would 
 find it impossible to attain this excellence. 
 JBut he is in the habit of constant and earn- 
 est praj^er. Not only are his pu'hlic prayers 
 well uttered, and edifying to those who are to 
 join in them, but they come from his heart, 
 and God hears them. In his private devo- 
 tion the school is often the subject of his 
 ^petitions. He prays that the children may 
 be converted, that the teachers may with 
 humble faithfulness do their duty, and that 
 he may have God's grace and guidance to 
 enable him to be faithful in what he has to 
 do. The spirit of prayerful earnestness is 
 infused into all he does. Persevering energy 
 takes him and the school safely through many 
 difficulties which might otherwise cause a 
 
THE SUCCESSFUL SUPERINTENDENT. 35 
 
 wreck. His school prospers. The neighbor- 
 ing schools and churches call it a model 
 school, and ask for instructions as to the pe- 
 culiar system by which it is managed. They 
 hardly believe when they are told that there 
 is no wonderful hocus-pocus about it, but 
 that it is only a school conducted with prayer- 
 ful zeal, order and simplicity, by a band of 
 wise and faithful teachers, under a good super- 
 intendent. 
 
TEACHERS 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Heedless Teacher. 
 
 S this gentleman's rule is to dismiss his 
 
 ([Vy business from his mind, out of business 
 hours, so he forgets on Sunday night that 
 there is such an institution as the Sunday 
 School, and such a special field of labor as 
 his own class ; nor does he again think of 
 either until the following Sunday morning at 
 a quarter before eight o'clock. At that time 
 he is dreamily waking from his fourth morn- 
 ing nap, having spent the time since sunrise 
 in a series of sleepings, wakings, and slow 
 gymnastics on the bed, in the manner of Dr. 
 .Watts's sluggard. The " door on its hinges " 
 
 87 
 
38 THE HEEDLESS TEACHER. 
 
 shuts with a hang^ when the thought dawns 
 on the sleepy man's brain that this is the day 
 on which he has to go and teach the Sunday 
 School class. And the time has almost come. 
 He has an hour and a quarter to dress, shave, 
 find and study the lesson, eat breakfast, have 
 family prayers, and run to school. The list 
 of duties is long, for so short a time, so he 
 pauses a while to consider which he will do 
 and which he may leave undone. He con- 
 cludes toilet and breakfast to be works of ne- 
 cessity. The rest may take their chance. 
 Ashe hastily attends to his toilet duties, he 
 remembers how many things he has forgotten 
 during the week which he really had intended 
 to do. He was going to visit those boys in 
 Crook alley, to look for three or four new 
 scholars, to inquire into the meaning of a hard 
 passage in last Sunday's lesson, on which 
 some of the boys had bothered him ; and gen- 
 erally to turn over a new leaf. But it Avas 
 too late now. He will not spoil his breakfast 
 by doing them, or even thinking much about 
 
THE HEEDLESS TEACHER. 39 
 
 them. He will let them go this time, and try 
 to do better next week. 
 
 Clothes being put on, and hot coffee swal- 
 lowed, the heedless man is off to the scene of 
 his labors, neglecting much that ought to be 
 done at home. He goes rapidly, but yet is 
 late. He is so often late that when he comes 
 early the boys say there is going to be rain. 
 He comes in while the hymn is being sung, 
 and instead of w^aiting quietly by the door, he 
 marches in (he has new boots) and takes his 
 place in his class, pleasantly saluting each of 
 the boys, and telling them he is glad to see 
 them. The superintendent ought to abate 
 this nuisance by locking the door. 
 
 Our teacher is entirely unprepared in the 
 lesson. He knows where it is, because he re- 
 members where last Sunday's was, by the boys 
 having stumped him on that hard question. 
 So with triumphant air of knowledge, he 
 makes believe that he has studied it. He 
 turns promptly to the right chapter, and asks 
 the boys if they know it. It is hard to cheat 
 
40 THE HEEDLESS TEACHEE. 
 
 boys, though, and these boys, finding him 
 out, begin to make fun of him to each other. 
 Alter he has asked ail tlie questions in large 
 print, the boys put several questions to him 
 which he cannot answer. He is forced to the 
 confession that on account of the great press 
 of business on him — indeed this has been the 
 busiest week of his life — he was not able to 
 do his lesson that justice which should have 
 been, done to it. But, as he considers Bible 
 study a great privilege, he will be certain to 
 be well posted on the lesson for next Sunday. 
 In what he calls the minor matters of 
 his class, this teacher is exceedingly slack. 
 The class-record book he looks on as very un- 
 necessary ; and as to putting down the num- 
 bers of library books which the boys take 
 home, he thinks it is useless trouble. The 
 question of the wisdom of trying to keep some 
 order in the class does occasionally occur to 
 him, but he cheerfully dismisses it, as beneath 
 the thought of one who has the great interests 
 of gospel teaching to attend to . If he would 
 
THE HEEDLESS TEACHER. 41 
 
 attend to the great interests, his heedlessness 
 with the little interests might find some excuse. 
 But he does not attend thoroughly to anything. 
 He has no system, except the system of letting 
 things look after themselves. 
 
 With all his heedlessness and inefficiency, 
 he believes, in his simplicity, that he is a first 
 rate teacher. Go to him with any suggestion 
 as to mending his ways, and he says it is a 
 very good one, and that he always does that 
 way himself. He can expound by the half 
 hour how things ought to be done. In this 
 he often talks empty nonsense. But he thinks 
 it is very wise talk, and mistakes the respect- 
 ful attention of his wearied hearers for con- 
 viction of the truth of what he says. 
 
 It is an open question in the school whether 
 to ask this teacher to stop teaching, or to try 
 to rectify him. Rectification will involve 
 almost making him over again from the begin- 
 ning, undoing the work, thoughts, and habits 
 of many years' standing, while turning him 
 out would be short work. They do not want 
 
42 THE HEEDLESS TEACHER. 
 
 to hurt his feelings. But one good brother 
 goes kindly to him to tell him of his short- 
 comings, and to try to set him right. Mr. 
 Heedless listens to him for a moment, then 
 draws himself up with dignity, and tells the 
 brother that he sees he is not appreciated at 
 that school, and that there is a better Sunday 
 School in the next street anxious for his ser- 
 vices. He will go there, he believes. Off he 
 goes, in high dudgeon, to the better Sunday 
 School in the next street, where somebody 
 once complimented him to make him stop 
 talking high sounding nonsense, and where he 
 erroneously believes he is wanted. 
 
 No Sunday School wants a heedless teacher. 
 
CHAPTER YII. 
 
 The Shallow Teacher. 
 
 ^ HIS teacher takes his place in his class 
 Vi/ in a state of great mental poverty. He 
 is troubled to know how he shall spin out his 
 little stock in trade, so as to make of it a 
 sufficient show to persuade his scholars that 
 he is a profound student. He has, in a num- 
 ber of instances, succeeded in passing for 
 quite a good Biblical scholar. The longer he 
 keeps up the appearance, however, the great- 
 er is the effort. Sometimes it almost crushes 
 him in the performance of his duties, and 
 makes him very nervous and anxious. 
 
 His learning is made up of a heavy dose of 
 Question-book, and a thin skimming of several 
 commentaries which he has at home. This is 
 taken in very hurriedly. He calls it his pre- 
 paration. It would be wiser to call it a lack 
 
44 THE SHALLOW TEACHER. 
 
 of preparation. It is entirely unavailable for 
 all purposes for which Christian teaching is 
 used, and answers only for the purpose of 
 deceiving himself and trying to deceive 
 others. 
 
 As he enters the school, he congratulates 
 himself that the session will not be very long, 
 that the superintendent will consume part of 
 the time in the opening and closing exercises, 
 and (he hopes) a speech ; that the librarian 
 must spend some of the time in his perform- 
 ances : and that, after all^ if all the teachers 
 were thoroughly examined, some might turn 
 out to be as shallow as himself. When the time 
 for teaching actually commences, he feels as if 
 the time for his public execution has arrived. 
 Nevertheless, he determines to be as brave as 
 he can be, to look wise and not go beyond 
 his depth. With the air (as much as possi- 
 ble) of a theological professor, he begins to 
 make the most of the little stock of undigest- 
 ed material which he lias in store. He ex- 
 poses in rapid succession, as nearly as he can 
 
THE SHALLOW TEACHER. 45 
 
 remember them, the views of each commenta- 
 tor on the passage in hand. Having a little 
 smattering of the Greek language, he indulges 
 the boys with remarks on " the way it is in 
 the original,^^ his explorations of " the origi- 
 nal " being confined to the words printed in 
 Greek characters in Scott's Commentary. 
 One of the large boys, who studies Greek at 
 school, and is of an inquiring turn of mind, 
 asks him a question designed to bring forth 
 more light on the precise meaning of a Greek 
 word, and finds, to the great discomfort of all 
 concerned, that teacher's vaunted knowledge 
 does not extend so far. Teacher is inwardly 
 angry, but dared not rebuke the lad for doing 
 what it was perfectly natural he should do. 
 He thinks he will get ahead of all such boys 
 by picking up a little Hebrew, which he can 
 certainly quote without fear of molestation. 
 He had better take care. Some studious 
 boy will learn the crooked characters and fly- 
 speck points, even faster than he will, and 
 will give him trouble. 
 
46 THE SHALLOVr TEACHER. 
 
 In his manner, this teacher is somewhat 
 pomj)ous and externallj^ wise. He talks so 
 loud as to be heard by all the classes which 
 are neighbors to his own. As he feels his 
 defects, he sees the importance of passing for 
 a profound man in the eyes of his fellow 
 teachers. He uses long words, sometimes 
 rightl}^, sometimes very much out of place. 
 He generally makes a stir and fuss with his 
 teaching, very much like the commotion 
 made by the last two or three inches of water 
 running out of the bath-tub. 
 
 Thouofh the session is not lono^, he is done 
 before it is time to close the school. He has 
 asked all the questions, and given a little un- 
 satisfactory information about them. What 
 next? He does not know. The boys are 
 glad to hear no more from him, for he has 
 not interested them. He has nothing more 
 to say; no application to make, no religious 
 remarks to ofibr. He sits and looks at the 
 boys, while the boys gape round the room, or 
 annoy tlie. next classes by talking to each 
 other. 
 
t:he shallow teacher. 47 
 
 If advice Would not bn thrown away on this 
 shallow person, he might be told that it is as 
 hard to counterfeit bank-note engraving as to 
 work honestly for bank notes ; that the 
 amount of trouble and nervous energy ex- 
 pended on the external show of learning, 
 would be better spent in actual study ; that 
 he would do well to explore his Biblical 
 helps, instead of skimming on their surface ; 
 and that he ma}^ let his little stock of Greek 
 and HebrQw go for the present, instead of 
 making a paltry exhibition of them, which will 
 only disgrace him. But he is not fond of ad- 
 vice. He thinks, in common with most other 
 shallow people, that he knows as much as 
 anybody. 
 
 Keader, are you a shallow teacher ? 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Argumentative Teacher. 
 
 fN early life, this teacher was a prominent 
 member of a debating society in a rural 
 neighborhood. He exercised his gifts largely 
 in the discussion of abstruse and incompre- 
 hensible subjects, and made a powerful im- 
 pression on himself as to his abilities in this 
 branch of literary labor. As he advanced in 
 years, he became a debating society himself, 
 habitually presenting and answering argu- 
 ments, entertaining himself, but making him- 
 self very disagreeable to people who have not 
 such an argumentative turn of mind. 
 
 He is not an ill-natured man, yet those who 
 meet with him judge that he is, from his 
 fondness for opposing the views of every- 
 body else. He suggests subjects for what he 
 calls conversation. It is soon discovered that 
 
 48 
 
THE ARGUMENTATIVE TEACHER. 49 
 
 by conversation he means argumentative dis- 
 cussion. He introduces controversy into his 
 conversation when there is no necessity for it. 
 When he takes his stand on an idea, he thinks 
 that everybody else has wrong notions on the 
 subject. This would not be so bad, but he 
 goes further. He puts down every body 
 whose views differs from his own, as his mor- 
 tal enemy. 
 
 It is not to be expected that this teacher 
 will feed his little flock with the pure *milk 
 of the Word. His teaching is an exercise in 
 semi-religious polemics. Instead of instruct- 
 ing his scholars, he gets up arguments with 
 them, and calls it Biblical criticism. Instead 
 of making the way of salvation plain to them, 
 he suggests to them the difficulties which 
 cluster about some of the knotty points of 
 Scripture, telling them that if they succeed 
 in clearing away these difficulties, they will 
 be first rate critics. He bothers their minds 
 about whether the Israelites were right or 
 wrong in helping themselves to the portable 
 
50 THE ARGUMENTATIVE TEACHER. 
 
 property of the Egyptians ; about where the 
 materials for the Tabernacle came from ; 
 about the size of Solomon's household, and the 
 style of Elijah's chariot of fire. He would 
 have them settle accurately the amount of 
 wine that Timothy was to take with his water, 
 the nature of the evil done to Paul by Alexan- 
 der the coppersmith, and the exact number of 
 feet and inches of the stature of Zaccheus. All 
 these things may be well to know, and it is 
 right to study them ; they are only side dishes 
 to the gospel feast with which our youth must 
 be fed. But our teacher makes them the sta- 
 ple of his instruction, stuffing the boys with 
 an immense amount of controversial head- 
 knowledge, and forgetting much of that which 
 is necessary to salvation. Gospel simplicity 
 is unknown to him. Whatever of doctrine he 
 teaches must be presented subjectively, then 
 objectively, then from some particular stand- 
 point. 
 
 At the teacher's meetings, this teacher is a 
 nuisance. The fervent interest which he has 
 
THE ARGUMENTATIVE TEACHER. 51 
 
 in the school, brings him out on the stormiest 
 evenings. The other teachers wish he would 
 stay at home, but no rain, snow, cold, or 
 other unpleasant state of weather, hinders him. 
 He is not always in time for the religious ex- 
 ercises of the meeting, but is on hand when 
 the business is brought up. He has some- 
 thing to say on every subject that comes be- 
 fore the meeting. And he is apt to say it in 
 such a way as to cause unpleasant fervor. The 
 views and " brief remarks " which he offers, 
 the discussions and ventilations of different 
 opinions to which he gives rise, consume an 
 important part of the time of the meeting. 
 He is possessed of considerable information ; 
 sometimes it is right, sometimes wrong. But 
 no matter what the subject under discussion, 
 whether of vital doctrine or of the correctness 
 of his watch, he is always positive that he is 
 right, incontestible evidence to the contrary 
 notwithstanding . 
 
 In the varied round of Sunday School du- 
 ties, this man sometimes finds himself at a 
 
52 THE ARGIBIENTATIVE TEACHER. 
 
 Sunday School convention. He is most at 
 home at the convention where an obtuse com- 
 mittee has selected a dozen topics for discus- 
 sion, of such a nature in themselves as to call 
 forth expression of great diversity of senti- 
 ment, and so bunglingly stated as to befog 
 the minds of the delegates about what they 
 mean. There let our friend have full swing 
 for his oratorical and controversial powers, 
 and the whole convention may fancy itself 
 present at a session of his original rural debat- 
 ing society. It is this kind of man who does 
 mischief at a convention, and brings dircredit 
 on the enterprise. 
 
 This is not a useful teacher. He is so much 
 a man of argument that he is not a man of 
 prayer. He spends so much time on polem- 
 ics, that he has none left in which to speak to 
 his boys about the value of their souls. Nor 
 will he be useful until he changes his ideas 
 and his habits. He must stop being a de- 
 bating society, and remember that he is a 
 teacher of the gospel. Then he may do some 
 
CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 The Inexperienced Teacher. 
 
 YOUNG man or young woman, not 
 very far removed from boyhood or girl- 
 hood, fresh from the Bible-class and boarding- 
 school. A young person of excellent inten- 
 tions, but of such limited experience, and of 
 such slender acquaintance with the things of 
 the world, or of the Sunday School, that the 
 good intentions fail of development into prac- 
 tical usefulness. 
 
 The inexperienced teacher goes to his work 
 with very little understanding of its duties or 
 responsibilities. An earnest call has been 
 made for teachers. All who can teach are 
 invited to come and fill up the gaps in the 
 school. Our young friend thinks he can 
 teach. It looks easy. The older teachers 
 seem to get along well, and he does not see 
 
 53 
 
54 THE INEXPERIENCED TEACHER. 
 
 why he should not get along as easily as they. 
 So he offers himself, and his services are 
 thankfully accepted. His mind is filled with 
 the thought of great activity and usefulness. 
 Off he goes to his new labors, feeling that he 
 has already done great things, surmounted ob- 
 stacles, and accomplished victories. He is 
 like the city-bred merchant who buys a hun- 
 dred acres in the country, expecting at once 
 to succeed handsomely in farming, because 
 the previous owner of the property always had 
 good crops. As the citizen finds that he has 
 practically to learn much that he never knew 
 before, about seed-time and harvest, shovels 
 and pitchforks, so the teacher soon learns that 
 he is very ignorant about how to do that which 
 is before him. He has even to learn how to 
 use the appliances which are to help him in 
 his work. He is in a novel and embarrassing 
 position. He asks the boys how their old 
 teacher used to teach them. Although they 
 know just how he taught, and would like to 
 be taught again in the same way, they are 
 
THE INEXPERIENCED TEACHER. 55 
 
 unable synoptically to explain how it was, and 
 the teacher fears that they are stupid, because 
 they do not tell him. What is he to do with 
 such a dull set of boys ? He has formed no 
 plan for teaching ; it never occurred to him. 
 Before long the boys begin to draw mental 
 comparisons between him and their former 
 teacher, whom they loved and esteemed very 
 highly. They conclude that the new teacher 
 is a booby. This diminishes their respect for 
 him, and increases the difficulty which he has 
 in governing them. Symptoms of disorder 
 are visible in the class, and, as soon as the 
 neighboring classes are disturbed, certain old 
 gentlemen and ladies, who have taught in 
 Sunday School since they were of his age, 
 look with reproving countenances at the source 
 of the disorder. Their solemn looks convey 
 the idea that they mean to say that the young 
 man never should have been brought into the 
 school, for he knows nothing about teaching 
 or keeping order. The superintendent fears 
 that he has made an unfortunate error in ac- 
 
56 THE INEXPERIENCED TEACHER. 
 
 cepting his services, and the young teacher 
 himself, finding that teaching is not as easy as 
 it looks to be, and that he has failed in the 
 attempts which he made at the exercise of 
 authority among his youthful charge, heartily 
 wishes himself out of the scrape. He goes 
 home with a heavy heart, and is nervous when 
 he thinks of the prospect before him. 
 
 This teacher has some talent for teachings 
 but his difficulty is that it is yet undeveloped 
 Like a raw recruit who goes into battle, and 
 fails to shoot any of the enemy, because hft 
 does not know how to handle his gun rightly, 
 so our raw teacher is ignorant about taking 
 aim so as to send the shafts of gospel truth 
 home to the hearts of his scholars. His abili- 
 ties must be developed by the kind training of 
 those in the school who are older than he is. 
 A little unkindness, or unnecessary reproof, 
 may snub him, and nip his usefulness in the 
 bud. The stately Bible-class teacher should 
 remember that forty years ago he was just 
 Buch a young man, just as inefficient, just as 
 
THE INEXPEEIENCED TEACHER. 57 
 
 green, just as inexpert in Biblical criticism. 
 The superintendent must bear in mind that it 
 is his duty to take hold of such youthful help- 
 ers, and show them how to do their work. 
 If he has not the gift for such instruction, it 
 is a sign that he should vacate the office of 
 superintendent. 
 
 Especially in the teachers' meeting this 
 young teacher can pick up useful information. 
 
 The teachers' meeting should be held not 
 only once a month, for business or prayer, but 
 every week, for prayerful and diligent study 
 of the lesson. If the most inexperienced will 
 attend such a meeting regularly, and will 
 diligently try to profit by what he hears, he 
 will become better fitted for his duties than 
 if he prepares his lessons in a corner. And 
 if the older teachers will make it their busi- 
 ness to help the young ones along, instead of 
 staying away from the study-meeting because 
 their learning is so great that they need no 
 more, they will do much to help on the gene- 
 ration of young teachers who must fill their 
 
58 THE INEXPERIENCED TEACHER. 
 
 places when they die or become superannu- 
 ated. 
 
 God bless our young, raw, inexperienced 
 teacher ! Go on, young friend, and take cour- 
 age. " Let no man despise thy youth.'* 
 '* Study to shew thyself approved unto God, 
 a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, 
 rightly dividing the word of truth." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Dull Teacher. 
 
 CEN years ago this person took charge of 
 a Sunday School class, having for his 
 capital a reasonable amount of Scriptural 
 and general knowledge, which he had gained 
 in the ordinary walks of educational experi- 
 ence. Since that time, his perceptive and 
 progressive faculties have been asleep. He 
 has gained nothing ; has made no progress ; 
 is no better as a teacher than he was the day 
 he first sat with his class. 
 
 Not only is he no better than when he be- 
 gan, but he is not so good. As a locomotive 
 left standing, even under cover, for ten years, 
 will not only fail to accomplish the amount of 
 travel expected of such a machine, but will 
 become rusty and incapacitated for work, so 
 the dull teacher is found to have rusted and 
 
 59 
 
60 THE DULL TEACHEK. 
 
 got somewhat out of gear, during the time in 
 which he has not been adding to his stock of 
 knowledge. The knowledge itself has be- 
 come rust-eaten. The well of his learning 
 has been so often and so thoroughly pumped 
 dry, that there is nothing in it. 
 
 Hence, he is a dull teacher. Trying to 
 pump up something from where there is 
 nothing, always was dull work. Standing 
 by, and looking or listening, while the opera- 
 tion is being performed, is duller work still. 
 He would raise a crop of very dull boys, only 
 that the superintendent has occasionally 
 changed his scholars. 
 
 Dull teacher feels no very lively interest in 
 his class. His interest is not sufficient to stir 
 him to punctuality. He frequently comes in 
 with the air of a laggard, ten minutes after 
 the school has begun. He takes his seat with 
 a yawn of regret, which appears to be partly 
 for coming late, and partly because he has to 
 come at all. Yawning is contagious, so the 
 boys yawn too. Another yawn or two, and 
 
THE DULL TEACHER. 61 
 
 the lesson is commenced. The boys plod 
 through the reading, verse by verse, of the 
 chapter. When they mis-call the hard names, 
 he does not correct them. If a boy misses 
 the right verse, and reads the wrong one, he 
 takes no notice of it. The only irregularity 
 that attracts his attention, is when five boys in 
 succession read the same verse, which they 
 sometimes do for fun. Then his v/rath rises 
 at them. 
 
 His method of impai-ting information is to 
 ask all the questions in the question-book. 
 This is done with not quite so much interest 
 as is manifested by the examining physician 
 of a life-insurance company, when he asks 
 you the list of questions in reference to your 
 age, health, and prospects for a long life. 
 The only difi*erence is, that the physician 
 seems to feel some interest, while the dull 
 teacher manifests none. Each question brings 
 an additional feeling of heaviness into the 
 class. The boys see their teacher's counte- 
 nance as unmoved as if made of putty, and 
 
62 THE DULL TEACHER. 
 
 feel that it makes very little difference how 
 they answer. If they know their lessons 
 well, no objection is made. If they come 
 entirely unprepared, teacher does not seem 
 to be very sorry. There is a total absence of 
 all stimulus to improvement. 
 
 Still, this teacher attempts something which 
 looks like trying to interest the boys. After 
 the dull round of questioning is over, there is 
 considerable time left. This he occupies in 
 his way of telling a story. His way is to 
 select from the " children's column " of the 
 dullest religious paper he can find, the very 
 heaviest and longest article. This he reads 
 to the boys. His reading is as dull as he is 
 himself The boys are not interested. They 
 attend to everything else that is going on in the 
 school. He reads on, whether they will 
 listen or not. That is their own look out, and 
 not his. Presently the superintendent's bell 
 tinkles, while he is in the middle of a sen- 
 tence. School is to be closed. No matter 
 where he breaks off. He is not particularly 
 
THE DULL TEACHER. 63 
 
 interested in it. The boys not at all. They 
 would just as lief stop there as go on to the 
 end. He rolls the paper up and thrusts it in- 
 to his pocket, and his teaching exercise is 
 over. He does not consider whether or not 
 he has accomplished anything. The thought 
 of accomplishing anything never occurred to 
 him. 
 
 Now, what is the use of having such a prosy 
 plod as this man put to work to teach chil- 
 dren the way of life ? Do you want to have 
 your boy in his class? No, nor would I put 
 mine under his care. We want the teacher 
 who is wide awake, whose interest prompts 
 him to continual acquisitions of fresh infor- 
 mation, that he may impart it to his scholars ; 
 whose love for souls is so great that no sacri- 
 fice is spared in doing his work ; whose de- 
 voted energy manifests itself in cheerful en- 
 deavors for the good of his class, and of the 
 school ; whose eyes sparkle with delight when 
 he sits down to engage in the performance of 
 his Sabbath-day exercises. To such a teach- 
 er we gladly and hopefully send our children. 
 
64 THE DULL TEACHER. 
 
 Good-bye, Mr. Dull Teacher, Go away, 
 or turn over a new leaf. We don't want you 
 in our Sunday School. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 The "Wearisome Teacher. 
 
 fT is tiresome business to be near this man 
 while he is giving instruction to his boys. 
 He is a man of industrious and inexhaustible 
 patience. He thinks that everybody else 
 ought to be as patient as he is. He grieves 
 over the depravity of the present generation, 
 as he notices the general indisposition to give 
 heed to his prolonged remarks. To sit in his 
 class and be regularly taught by him, is even 
 heavier than to be an occasional bystander. 
 
 This teacher cannot be accused of slighting 
 his work. His preparation is made at home 
 with great research and ponderous labor. He 
 has all sorts of commentaries and other helps 
 into which he explores deeply. He takes in 
 a large store of knowledge. If he had a 
 mental hydraulic press, by which this could 
 
 65 
 
66 THE WEARISOME TEACHER. 
 
 be condensed, he might become a very inter- 
 esting and profitable teacher. But he cannot, 
 or does not condense. He must give his 
 hearers his stock of kiK)wledge in undiminish- 
 ed volume. 
 
 When he takes his seat in his class, he be- 
 gins to act the preacher. His boys are his 
 congregation. His chair becomes a pulpit, 
 one of the old fiishioned kind, with toad-stool 
 column underneath, and sounding board over- 
 head. His teaching is sermonic discourse. 
 It has heads, divisions, sub-divisions, and so 
 forth. It continues until a stop is put to it 
 by the closing of the school, and would con- 
 tinue longer if time were allowed for it. His 
 arguments are good. His logic unexception- 
 able. His applications tolerably fair. He 
 sufiers nothing to interrupt him, except dis- 
 orderly conduct on the part of some wearied 
 boy. When this occurs, he digresses, to de- 
 liver a lecture of fiftoen minutes on the shame- 
 fulness of doing what the boy has done. 
 After the first three minutes of this exercise 
 
THE WEARISOME TEACHER. 67 
 
 have passed, the boy forgets what the teacher 
 is talkmg about. But the teacher, with se- 
 rious face and monotonous tone of voice, 
 keeps on. He means well. He has no in- 
 tention of doing otherwise than his duty de- 
 mands. The effect of his teaching is rather 
 to tire than to instruct ; to displease rather 
 than to interest. 
 
 It sometimes happens that the long-winded 
 man is not the deep student and careful read- 
 er that our friend above mentioned is. He 
 may be an empty headed person. When this 
 is the case, his tediousness is more difficult to 
 be borne with than that of the scholarly teach- 
 er. Mr. Empty Head comes with really noth- 
 ing to say, but with a great store of words to 
 express himself with. He turns on the stream 
 of his volubility, and allows the vapid stuff to 
 have continual flow, until he brings up against 
 something which quenches it, generally the 
 ringing of the bell for the closing of r^chool . 
 He seems to be wonderfully interested in what 
 he says. The difficulty is, that he cannot in- 
 
68 THE WEARISOME TEACHER. 
 
 terest anybody else. He is not disturbed by 
 that, however. He is too obtuse to see that 
 his boys think him a great bore. He says the 
 session is too short. They grieve over its too 
 great length. The surrounding teachers look 
 with astonishment to see how continuously 
 the man talks, all the while saying not much. 
 
 When a speech is to be made, and nobody 
 else is on hand to make it, Wearisome is put 
 on the stand. As these occasions seldom 
 occur, he makes the most of them. He talks 
 against time, against patience, and often 
 against common sense. He occupies three- 
 quarters of an hour in saying what in many 
 instances could be condensed into ten minutes, 
 and in many others need not be said at all. 
 It is fatio'uino' work to listen to his " few re- 
 marks." 
 
 Public prayer is sometimes led by him. 
 Forgetting the beautiful brevity of the Lord's 
 Prayer, the petition of drowning Peter, and 
 of the thief on the cross, he thinks (if he 
 thinks at all) that he will be heard for his 
 
THE WEAEISOME TEACHER. 69 
 
 much speaking, and keeps on for twenty 
 minutes. The prayer gets to be so much hke 
 a speech that the hearers forget that it is 
 prayer. They grow very tired of it. 
 
 Lest I shouki fall into the same error with 
 the long-winded man, and prolong this article 
 to too great length, I close with three brief 
 rules for the tediously disposed : 
 
 1. BE SHORT. 
 
 2. BE POINTED. 
 
 3. CONDENSE. 
 
 Follow these, and your weary boys will 
 freshen up like corn in a pleasa/it shower, 
 after a long drought. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Unconverted Teacher. 
 
 Y Friend — I will not write about you, 
 but to you. Your position is a strange 
 conibination of privilege, responsibility and 
 danger. You need a message spoken in your 
 ear. Give prayerful attention. 
 
 What are you doing? You are teaching 
 young people the way of everlasting life. 
 You are telling them that there is a heaven, 
 and that there is a hell ; that they must spend 
 eternity in the one or the other. You are 
 showing them how to gain heaven, and how 
 to escape hell. Your instructions are based 
 on the Bible, which you thus accept as the 
 inspired revelation of God's will. Whether 
 your teaching is thorough or not, the fact 
 that you teach at all, is evidence that you 
 know of the existence of an omnipotent God, 
 
THE UNCONVERTED TEACHER. 71 
 
 of his revealed word, of the future reward of 
 the righteous, and punishment of the guilty. 
 You know that only by faith in Jesus Christ 
 you can be saved, for you have often told your 
 scholars so. 
 
 Strange inconsistency I You tell them of 
 the way on which you have never set out. 
 You speak to them of heaven and hell, when 
 you seem not to care in which your eternal 
 abiding place shall be. You teach them the 
 Bible, but its promises have never yet been 
 found precious to your soul, and its warnings 
 to flee from the wrath to come, have never 
 had your attention. You tremble, perhaps, 
 as you reflect, (if you ever reflect,) that the 
 God, of whose omnipotence you tell them, is 
 powerful to destroy you in an instant. You 
 reject the only Saviour, the acceptance of 
 whose free mercy you are urging on your 
 children. 
 
 What is the effect of this on your scholars ? 
 They do not believe what you tell them. 
 They have sense enough to know that there 
 
72 THE UNCONVERTED TEACHER. 
 
 is something wrong. Perhaps they do not 
 suspect your sincerity, but they cannot under- 
 stand, why, if you warn them to flee from 
 coming wrath, you should not yourself lay 
 hold on eternal life. If you were skating 
 with them, and should point out to thera a 
 certain jDortion of ice as too weak to bear 
 them, and should then go over the very por- 
 tion yourself, they would not believe there 
 was danger there. You cannot persuade 
 them that a certain article of food is un- 
 wholesome or poisonous, so long as you eat 
 of it. They will be apt to follow you, and to 
 do the things which you do, especially the 
 bad and foolish things. And so long as you 
 pursue the road to hell, it will be difficult ihv 
 you to make them believe that the road to 
 heaven is better for them to walk in. 
 
 Are you not in a strange and contradictory 
 position ? It will not mend the matter to say 
 that you are teaching only for form's sake. 
 That would be inexcusable trifling. 
 
 You are living as the men lived who work- 
 
THE UNCONVERTED TEACHER. 73 
 
 eel for Noah. As every stroke of their work 
 on the ark only added to their knowledge of 
 the coming deluge, and of the necessity of 
 speedy repentance, so each lesson you giv^e, 
 adds to your responsibility, your knowledge 
 of the truth, and your sin in rejecting Christ. 
 They did their work well on the vessel which 
 saved Noah's household, and yet were lost. 
 You may be, outwardly, a good teacher, and 
 yet, if you will not accept Christ, you will 
 lose your soul. It must have added to the 
 misery which these men felt, drowning, while 
 Noah floated off in safety, to know that they 
 had worked on the ark which saved him, and 
 yet had no interest in it, or benefit from it. 
 So, if at the last day you stand on the left 
 side of the Judge, your wretchedness will only 
 be the greater, as you remember that 3^ou 
 helped to build up Christ's kingdom, having 
 no part or lot in the matter yourself. 
 
 But do not be discouraged. Do not, in vain 
 despair, give up your class, and stop your 
 efibrts to do good. You may have done some 
 
74 THE UXCOXVEPwTED TEACHER. 
 
 good already. God ma};^ have taken the point- 
 less arrows of truth, which you have sent out 
 in ignorant unbelief, and made them sharp 
 and quick to the conversion of some soul. 
 The lessons you are teaching, will, if you but 
 apply them to j^ourself, do you some good. 
 Stop and ask yourself, " What am I doing ? " 
 Trying to show these children how to be Chris- 
 tians. " Had I not better be a Christian my- 
 self?" When you get that far, stop again, 
 and ask God, for Christ's sake, to make you 
 a Christian. Then go to your class, and see 
 with what earnest zeal, with what living ener- 
 gy, you can tell them how to be Christians. 
 " Whereas I was blind, now I see," will be 
 your glad testimony to them, as you point 
 them to the mighty Saviour who can remove 
 the scales of error and i2:norance from the 
 eyes of the sightless sinner. 
 
 Unconverted teacher ! What are you going 
 to do ? Do you mean to keep on in your dan- 
 gerous and deceptive position ? I can hardly 
 believe you are a wilful hypocrite. K you 
 
THE UNCONVERTED TEACHER. 75 
 
 were, you probably would uot have begun to 
 teach. But yon are thoughtless. You don't 
 care whether you are saved or not. Of course 
 your concern for the salvation of your scholars 
 cannot be very deep. If you have positively 
 resolved that you will always be thoughtless 
 and careless and impenitent, out of the school 
 with you, as soon as possible ; for you are in- 
 creasing your own condemnation, and drag- 
 ging souls with you down to hell. But if you 
 intend, in God's strength, to live a new life, 
 keep on, and God bless you in the' good work, 
 and strengthen you, that you may win many 
 souls to a knowledge of the truth. 
 
 Unconverted teacher ! You have lived un- 
 converted long enough. Dedicate yourself 
 noiv to God's service. Not merely with a 
 common resolution, made in your own strength, 
 and soon broken m your own weakness ; but 
 a covenant, a consecration, a surr(;nder, a 
 giving away of your whole powers, time and 
 talents to God. That only will make you 
 happy and useful. Only with such a conse- 
 
76 THE UXCON VERTED TEACHEK. 
 
 cration can you hope to be saved, and to save 
 others. 
 
 " Lest that by any means, when I have 
 preached to others, I myself should be a 
 castaway." 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The Inconstant Teacher. 
 
 S a fine-looking carriage-horse, just doc- 
 tored up to be sold, starts off with great 
 speed, proudly prancing, and with impatient 
 champing of the bit, so this teacher commenc- 
 es his duties with much outward demonstration 
 which appears to promise excellent results. 
 As the gay horse, after he has been driven a 
 few miles, suddenly becomes tired, and shows 
 symptoms of a desire to go no further, so, 
 when the novelty of teaching in Sunday 
 School has worn off, and the fact is realized 
 that there is actually some hard work connect- 
 ed with it, the unstable person's efforts relax. 
 He wants to stop and take breath. The good 
 intentions and resolutions with which he has 
 stimulated himself to action, have ceased their 
 working, and he must stop till he can get up 
 
78 THE INCONSTANT TEACHER. 
 
 some more. He is a broken- winded teacher. 
 His intentions in beginning the work were 
 good. He knew that he onght to teach in the 
 Sunday School, and he felt that he could do 
 it. His determination w^as that no stormy 
 weather should keep him from his work, that 
 he would alTvays be punctual, and that his 
 class duties should be conducted with neatness 
 and regularity. He resolved that he would 
 never go unprepared to his class. To this 
 end he spent a considerable amount of money 
 in buying books and maps to help him in his 
 study of the Scriptures. He turned over 
 several new leaves in the administration of 
 the afiairs of the class, each of which he con- 
 sidered to be an improvement on the w^ays of 
 the previous teacher. He won the love and af- 
 fection of his scholars ; for he gave them plenty 
 of reward tickets, and one evening invited 
 them to his house to tea. He sang wdth all his 
 miglit,^^ 
 
 *' In all my Lord's appointed ways. 
 My jomuiey I'll pursue, 
 Hinder me not, ye much loved saints. 
 For I must go with you." 
 
THE INCONSTANT TEACHER. 79 
 
 The other teachers were pleased with his 
 earnestness. They congratulated him on his 
 success, and he congratulated himself. 
 
 But, after the pleasant freshness of the 
 Sunday School has passed, and the congratu- 
 latory part of the work is over, it appears to 
 our teacher that teaching is harder work than 
 he at first thought it to be. The labor of pre- 
 paration is different from the pleasure of 
 looking at new books and arranging them on 
 the shelves. The trouble involved in regu- 
 lar attendance on school is greater than ho 
 thought it would be. His scholars do not all 
 at once become Christians. Nor do they spend 
 the time and care on their lessons which he 
 thinks they ought to. Nor do they even give 
 very thoughtful attention to what he tells 
 them. He is discouraged. He comes late. 
 A rainy Sunday keeps him at home. What 
 is the use in his getting his feet wet, just for 
 those dull boys? A friend comes to spend 
 Sunday with him, and he stays at home to en- 
 ertain him, or ffoes with him to hear the flash 
 
80 THE INCONSTANT TEACHER. 
 
 preacher at the other end of the town. 
 It does not occur to him to provide a substi- 
 tute for his class, or even to tell the superin- 
 tendent that he will not be there. The class 
 may look out for itself. How did it get along 
 before he was there ! He soon becomes very 
 irregular, and presently stays away altogether. 
 He still says that he loves the Sunday School, 
 and that his interest in it is unabated, but 
 when asked to return to his post, he begins 
 to enumer-ate some twenty reasons why he 
 cannot, all of which should be honestly con- 
 densed into, " I don't want to." 
 
 He is one who, having put his hand to the 
 plough, looks back. He is Lot's wife, look- 
 ing again for the pleasant things of Sodom. 
 The good seed which was sown in his heart 
 sprang up suddenly, " because he had no 
 deepness of earth." The sun scorched it, 
 and, having no root, it withered awa}^ If 
 the superintendent has many such teachers in 
 his school, he has to keep a large reserve 
 corps, an extra set of hands, to supply their 
 
THE INCONSTANT TEACHER. 81 
 
 lack of service when they feel more like stay- 
 ing at home than coming and doing their 
 work. Such a teacher is no advantage to the 
 school. He puts his plough in the furrow, 
 and leaves it for somebody to stumble over. 
 He becomes a pillar of salt, not to be used 
 for seasoning, but to be a monument of in- 
 constancy. The fewer such retrospective 
 ploughmen and Lot's wives we have in our 
 Sunday Schools, the more prosperous we shall 
 be. 
 
 " Ye did run well ; who did hinder you ? '* 
 Inconstant teacher, you hindered yourself. 
 You "ran imcertainly," and so ran off the 
 track. You fought " as one that beateth the 
 air," and so accomplished no victory. Con- 
 sider your ways. When you are ready to 
 run with patience, as well as with a little 
 stimulated zeal, the race that is set before 
 you, "looking unto Jesus, the author and 
 finisher of our faith," and not to the strength 
 of your own resolutions, come back again 
 into the school, and all hands will cheerfully 
 welcome you to your return to duty. 
 
82 THE Il<fCONSTANT TEACIIEK. 
 
 The magnificent carriage-horse may start 
 off finely, and travel gaily for a while ; hut if 
 his first mile is travelled in three minutes, it is 
 no proof that he will go twenty miles in an 
 hour. For good, hard, steady, reliable work, 
 give us the solid, patient animal who works 
 in the dray, even if he is a little of a plod. 
 
 "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye 
 steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the 
 work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that 
 your labor is not in vain in the Lord." 
 
CHAPTER XIT. 
 
 The Disagreeable Teacher. 
 
 ^/^r HIS teacher has no positive hatred for 
 ^^ his scholars, but nevertheless manages 
 to inflict on them a considerable amount of 
 discomfort and worry. He looks on them as 
 members of an evil and perverse genera- 
 tion, and, though the object of his teaching 
 them is to reclaim them from their evil and 
 perversity, he prefers to look on what they 
 are, and what he is sure they will continue to 
 be, rather than on any improvement of con- 
 dition to which he might lead them. He does 
 not expect that they will ever become good 
 boys, or smart scholars. And if any of them 
 should happen to brighten up and learn 
 something, it might cause him some uneasi- 
 ness, because it would take away that much 
 
84 THE DISAGREEABLE TEACHER, 
 
 of reason for groaning and being disagreea- 
 ble. 
 
 When he meets his scholars in the class, a 
 large part of the burden of his discourse to 
 them, is of the great interest he feels in them, 
 the trouble to which he has put himself to 
 come and teach them, and the solicitude he 
 feels, that notwithstanding all these, they 
 will turn out to be good-for-nothing boys. 
 But he throws it up to them so often, and so 
 unpleasantly, as to lead the hopeless good- 
 for-nothings to doubt the great interest, and 
 to wish he would spare himself the trouble 
 which he seems to grudge. 
 
 The time for teaching is spent partly in 
 actual teaching, but principally in speaking to 
 the boys on the subject of their various errors 
 and short-comings. If this were pleasantly 
 and kindly done, a reasonable amount of it 
 would be wise ; for the olSject of teaching is 
 to correct that which is wrong. But he does 
 it in such a way as to discourage the boys, 
 and to extino'uish their ambition to mend 
 
THE DISAGREEABLE TEACHER. 85 
 
 their incorrect ways. Instead of encouraging 
 them, he exhibits their errors in such a way 
 as to make them beUeve they are so far wrong 
 that there is no use of tr3dng to do right. He 
 tells them that he cannot understand how 
 they ever learned so many bad things and 
 ugly ways. 
 
 In teaching, his method is peculiar. It 
 seems to be calculated rather to vex its 
 victims than to impart useful information to 
 young learners. The idea of " speaking the 
 truth in love," he does not understand. He 
 puts the questions to his scholars very much 
 as a smart lawyer questions a witness when 
 he wants to confuse him, and make him con- 
 tradict his own testimony. There is a tone 
 of sarcasm in each question which foreshadows 
 the blunder which the lad will probably make 
 in answering, and tiie vindictive benevolence 
 with which the teacher will set him right. He 
 is fond of sliowing off his great acuteness, and 
 ability to make corrections. The teaching 
 is often interrupted with short digressive 
 
86 THE DISAGREEABLE TEACHER. 
 
 lectures, beginning with "there now, sir," or 
 "3^011 stupid." The boys are so used to these, 
 that they fail to give the attentive regard to 
 them that they might, if the lectures were any 
 novelty. He is roused by their want of at- 
 tention, to pronounce them rare instances of 
 brainless stupidity. "This is the fifteenth 
 time I have told you of this, sir; what do 
 you expect will become of you if you are so 
 heedless and so wicked ? " Boy does not know 
 what will V;ecome of him, but expects that it 
 will be something very bad ; possibly he will 
 be hung, or his sentence commuted to impris- 
 onment for thirty years. In which latter 
 event, he hopes that the teacher and himself 
 will not be confined in the same cell, lest they 
 should tire of each other's company. The 
 boys do not love their teacher very much. 
 One rude young person goes so far as to call 
 him Old Crusty. 
 
 In his intercourse with the other teachers, 
 ]Mr. Disagreeable is not very pleasant. lie 
 does not like their wa3's, and intimates that 
 he has not much coutidcuce in their ability 
 
THE DISAGREEABLE TEACHER. 87 
 
 to teach or to administer discipline. He finds 
 fault with them, and picks flaws in them in 
 various ways. He complains that he is not 
 popular among them, and wonders what can be 
 the reason. 
 
 When he goes home he always has some- 
 thing to say against the superintendent, whose 
 rules he does not like. One day the superin- 
 tendent locked the door during the opening 
 exercises, to avoid disturbance by late comers. 
 That very day Mr. Disagreeable was behind 
 time. He rattled at the door, then went off 
 and did not show himself for three Sundays. 
 
 There is no telling how much abuse the su- 
 perintendent received at his hands during 
 that time. Finally he swallowed his wrath 
 and returned to his class. He says the super- 
 intendent is a tyrant, and ought to be put 
 out. Would be willing to serve as superin- 
 tendent himself, if the teachers would only 
 elect him. But they will probably not vote 
 for him. 
 
 This man needs a little sweetening. Then 
 he may become a good teacher. 
 
CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 The Uneasy Teacher. 
 
 W HE teacher who bears this title is related 
 ^<J^ to " The Fidgety Superintendent," whom 
 he likes very much, and in whose w^ays he 
 follows. He has a large and prominent ner- 
 vous system, to which he frequently alludes, 
 and which gives him and everybody about 
 him a great deal of trouble. He has no set-. 
 tied rule of order, but does his w^ork accord- 
 ing to the notion w^hich happens to possess 
 him. He has a great many notions. Some 
 of them are very strange. 
 
 Sometimes he comes to school early. He 
 spends the time previous to the opening exer- 
 cises in impetuous bother. Instead of calmly 
 preparing for the work which is before him, 
 he scolds one boy, praises another, and en- 
 gages in conversation with a third. Some- 
 
THE UNEASY TEACHER. 89 
 
 times he is late. Then, with the air of one 
 whose breakfast has been poorly cooked or 
 imperfectly served, he rushes in during the 
 time of the opening prayer. He is so un- 
 mindful of the comfort of his fellow-teachers, 
 that he makes a disturbance as he enters the 
 school-room. It does not occur to him that 
 he could do otherwise. He says he does the 
 best he can in respect to all the branches of 
 his duty. And perhaps he honestly thinks he 
 does. But other people think he could be im- 
 proved upon. 
 
 The commencement of his labors is to put 
 his class in a stir. He begins to do several 
 things at once. Finding the lesson, arrang- 
 ing the library books, inquiring after absent 
 scholars, and saying good morning to those 
 who are present, making marks in the roll- 
 ]3ook, and hearing one or two boys recite 
 verses which they have learned, are heaped 
 on each other in promiscuous confusion. The 
 affiurs of the day are at once in a taftgle. He 
 has so much to do. How will he ever get 
 
90 • THE UXEASY TEACHER. 
 
 through it ? Pie thinks he is a very Li])orioiis 
 man. So he is, but he spends more than half 
 his labor for nothing, and so accomplishes 
 much less than he would if he were to ex- 
 change his habits of disquietude for coolness 
 and tranquillity. 
 
 When he is seated in the class, and has 
 begun his teaching, suddenly the thought oc- 
 curs to him that he must confer with the su- 
 perintendent, the librarian, or with some 
 other teacher. The topic on which he seeks 
 to give or receive advice is one of such impor- 
 tance in his mind that it must be attended 
 to immediately. It would have been well 
 had he so ordered his afiairs as to avoid flut- 
 tering about the room in school time. But 
 he did not think in advance. -Off he starts, 
 tellinsr his scholars he will be back in a min- 
 ute. Knowing ho will be gone for sometime, 
 they improve the opportunity thus given them 
 for disorderly entertainment. He finds the 
 official to whom he would talk, engaged in 
 other duties,. and interrupts him without even 
 
THE UNEASY TEACHER. 91 
 
 stopping to ask him if he wants to be inter- 
 rupted. The errand generally turns out to 
 be a very trifling one. The superintendent 
 sometimes has to give him a hint to go back 
 to his place by announcing from the desk that 
 he wishes the boys in Mr. Uneasy's class 
 would stop making such a noise. Teacher 
 sometimes returns at once to his post of duty, 
 sometimes looks at the class, says ho does not 
 think they are making much noise, and goes 
 on talking. If every teacher would thus in- 
 dependently tramp round the room, the effect 
 on the school would be same as would be the 
 effect on the army of the Potomac, if all its 
 officers were to spend their time at the hotels 
 of Washington, instead of on duty. 
 
 His habits of thought and study are so rest- 
 less that he never fixes his mind on one sub- 
 ject long enough to master it. He takes some 
 trouble to prepare himself for his class, but 
 instead of thoroughly learning any one lesson, 
 he skims over a number of things remotely 
 connected with what he is going to teach 
 
92 THE UNEASY TEACHER. 
 
 about, aud so collects a considerable amount 
 of unfinished bits of preparation. Instead of 
 the literary and religious feast which he 
 should spread before his pupils, he gives them, 
 as it were, an under-done lunch, in which 
 there is great variety, but not much that is 
 good or digestible. Of course, they receive 
 but slender nourishment. He jumps at a con- 
 clusion, on matters of doctrine or history, 
 instead of calmly making up his mind. If 
 one opinion seems to him to be wrong, he at 
 once precipitates himself into another, with- 
 out pausing to examine into the merits of 
 either. He is as apt to be wrong as to be 
 right. 
 
 So in matters of teaching and discipline. 
 He has his hobb}^, his mania, his forte. Gen- 
 erally one at a time, and only for a little 
 while. To-day, punctuality is his great idea. 
 To-morrovr, it Yvill be loud singing, and he 
 may be ten minutes behind time. Soon he 
 makes a great point of the duty of 'Adping 
 your feet on the door-mat, as you come into 
 school, and his punctuality and music are 
 
THE UNEASY TEACHER. 83 
 
 both laid aside. Sometimes he will teach 
 nothing but catechism, sometimes only cer- 
 tain verses of Scripture, on which he trains 
 the boys like so many parrots. But neither 
 one of these continues to be his hobby for 
 any great length of time. 
 
 Uneasy teacher wants to change his class. 
 He has had it throe months. It is the fifth 
 class he has had in two years. He thinks 
 that he and his boj/s are not adapted to each 
 other. If he had other boys, he thinks he 
 might do better with them. The boys want 
 another teacher, too. They are a little tired 
 of him, and it is no wonder. Their weariness 
 of him is a matter of encouragement to his 
 successor. The superintendent indulges him 
 as he has indulged him before. Hoping that 
 this will be the last time, he gives him what 
 he asks for. But his course with the new 
 class is the same as before, fluttering, fussi- 
 ness, restlessness, disquietude, impatience. 
 He needs thorough reform himself. He must 
 be changed, not his class. He wants a new 
 " nervous system." 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The Amiable Teacher. 
 
 HE goes to her class with a heart full of 
 love for the work that is before her, and 
 of -warm interest in each individual scholar 
 whom she is to teach. Her love is contagious. 
 The girls are glad she has come. They con- 
 sider it a privilege to be allowed to be in her 
 class. They do not loiter outside the door 
 till the singing is done, or make a disturbance 
 during the time of prayer. Her amiability 
 photographs itself in their pleasant faces. No 
 matter how plain her personal appearance 
 may be, the children think she is the prettiest 
 lady they ever knew. And if she has a beau- 
 tiful face, her sweet temper and lovely dispo- 
 sition make it so much the more handsome. 
 She is the most popular teacher, and her clas3 
 the most popular class, in the whole school. 
 
THE AMIABLE TEACHER. 95 
 
 111 the opening exercises, this lady's class is 
 a refreshing sight. When the Bible is read, 
 each girl has her Bible in her hand, and 
 attentively follows the reading. It is because 
 the teacher sets the example. In time of 
 prayer, they with her assume the customary 
 attitude of devotion. When the hymn is 
 sung, she succeeds in making them join in it, 
 in which Mrs. Sour, whose class is near by, 
 utterly fails. The reason of her success in 
 this is, that she not only tells the children to 
 sing, but encourages them by letting out the 
 full power of her own sweetly tuned voice. 
 She prefers this method to that of Mrs. S., 
 who says, "There, you, you never sing at all; 
 I don't see what has got into you, that you 
 wont sing; don't you like singing?" Of 
 course they don't like her kind, and never 
 
 will. 
 
 The amiable teacher is a jewel in the way 
 of imparting instruction fronii the Bible. She 
 not only knows her lesson, but makes her 
 scholars know it. The instruction is so 
 
96 THE AMIABLE TEACHEK. 
 
 pleasantly given that it is a matter of mutual 
 surprise when the hour of teaching closes. 
 
 These girls love the Bible. It is not asso- 
 ciated (as in the case of Mrs. Sour's chil- 
 dren,) with cross looks, sarcastic remarks, or 
 calling them stupid and idle when they will 
 not learn it. The* children are led, not 
 driven. They are coaxed, not punched. 
 They are made to understand that the Bible 
 is indeed an interesting and delightful book, 
 and not a dreary task, to learn which is 
 miserable punishment. 
 
 She has a happy knack of correcting what 
 is wrong in her scholars. She does not hit 
 them on the head, nor crack their knuckles 
 with a stick, in order to show them the error 
 of their ways. Nor does she worry- them 
 with long-winded sermons when a few kind 
 and pointed words will answer the purpose 
 better. Here is a very dull child vrhoni some 
 injudicious teacher w^ould exasperate by call- 
 ing a " stupid little thing." True, she can- 
 not give the child brains, but she has a happy 
 
THE AMIABLE TEACHER. 97 
 
 faculty of making the most of what little 
 brains are there. The consequence is that 
 tlie child is learning something. The girl, 
 who is now number one in the class, used to 
 be rude and impudent. But rudeness and 
 impudence hid themselves before the example 
 of amiability, and the girl is now ambitious 
 to conduct herself in a Christian manner. 
 
 Amiable teacher visits her scholars. Her 
 visits are as when bright sunshine lights up 
 the house. Father and mother and girls and 
 boys are all glad when she comes, and sorry 
 when she goes. A word of kind sympathy 
 with the sick child and of good cheer to the 
 anxious mother, a gentle rebuke to the father 
 for not coming to church, a help or two in 
 the hard lesson which the boys are studying, 
 a little prayer in season. Her visit is spent 
 in trying to do them some good, rather than 
 in complimenting and flattering them, and 
 telling them how wise and handsome they all 
 are. If she leaves a tract or a little book, it 
 is not thrust at them with a "there, take that, 
 
98 THE AMIABLE TEACHER. 
 
 you siuner," 1)ut it is left with such a charm- 
 ing word of persuasion as to make sure that 
 they will both look into it and read it. 
 
 The other teachers hold this excellent 
 woman in very high estimation. Her kind 
 disposition has endeared her to them as Avell 
 as to her scholars. They want to be as suc- 
 cessful as she is. If they follow in her ways, 
 they will be astonished at their success, and 
 at the ease with which it is accomplished. 
 They will see that it is not only the beautiful 
 and delicate lady who can impart instruction 
 with gospel coui-tesy and Christian grace, but 
 that even the great-fisted, six-feet-high man, 
 with coarse voice and broad shoulders, can, 
 if he will, live a life and do a work, which 
 will be a plain and practical sermon from the 
 text, "For my yoke is easy, and my burden 
 is light." 
 
CHAPTEE XYII, 
 
 The Regularly Late Teacher, 
 
 Yjl HIS gentleman may be expected to make 
 ^'^^ his appearance at the door of the Sunday 
 School from five to ten minutes after the ex- 
 ercises have commenced. He bolts in, as if 
 he had come on an important errand which 
 must be attended to in great haste. He 
 bounces into his seat, and salutes his scholars 
 who are present, which adds to the disturb- 
 ance he has already made. He thinks it is no 
 matter whether he comes late or early. It 
 would put him to some extra trouble to arrive 
 always in season. He thinks that his work 
 does not suffer by his tardiness. He says he 
 does the best he can. If he is rebuked for his 
 bad habit, he says that we are all sinners, and 
 that he will settle this matter with his God. 
 He thinks it is very unreasonable in the super- 
 
100 THE REGULAELY LATE TEACHER. 
 
 iiitendeut to begin the very minute the clock 
 strikes. A few minutes' grace should be al- 
 lowed for the accommodation of those who 
 prefer to come late. It is still more unrea- 
 sonable for anybody to find fault with him, or 
 to sii^2,est that he misjht break himself of this 
 objec tionable habit. He cannot see why those 
 w^ho suggest and find fault, should not mind 
 their own business, and let him alone. In ad- 
 dition to being regularly late at school, he and 
 his family are regularly late at church, to the 
 great annoyance of the minister and congre- 
 gation. 
 
 When he is cornered, in debate on the sub- 
 ject, he has an ingenious way of putting the 
 blame on somebody else. Sometimes on the 
 cook ; sometimes on the rest of the family, who 
 would stay in bed too long ; sometimes on the 
 fire, w^hich would not burn ; sometimes on the 
 baby, who cried three-fourths of the night; 
 sometimes on the house-clock, or his own 
 watch, both of which time-pieces ran down, 
 and obstinately refused to wind themselves up. 
 
THE REGULARLY LATE TEACHER. 101 
 
 Sometimes his boots were not blacked in time ; 
 sometimes an old friend just retm-ned from 
 China, selected that particular day and hour 
 to call and see him ; sometimes he neglected 
 the preparation of his lesson till the time 
 when he should have been putting on his hat 
 and coat. The ftict is, that he has no good 
 excuse, and never had ; but he persuades him- 
 self, and tries to persuade other people, that, 
 by reason of the various things which he calls 
 excuses, it would be impossible for him to be 
 regularly in time at the opening of the school. 
 Some fresh cause of tardiness seems to hap- 
 pen to him every day, each one about as 
 weak as the one which preceded it. 
 
 If the real reasons of this man's lateness were 
 to be inscribed upon his back, one morning 
 he would be found labelled, " Didn't think ; " 
 another, " Don't care ; " another, " Slept too 
 long;" and another, "Let his watch run 
 down." He has not sufficient interest in Sun- 
 day School or church to take the little amount 
 of forethought and trouble necessary to insure 
 
102 THE REGULARLY LATE TEACHER. 
 
 his punctuality. If he is a bank cashier or 
 book-keeper, he is at his post in time, every 
 day in the week. Why? He has an idea (a 
 correct one too) that he may be turned out if 
 he is given to tardy habits there. But he gets 
 no pay for coming to Sunday School or church, 
 and he knows that nobody will turn him out. 
 A railroad train is announced to start at 
 nine o'clock. At two minutes past that hour 
 you arrive at the station, carpet bag in hand. 
 You hear the rumble of car wheels in the 
 distance, and see the clouds of smoke which 
 the departing engine is sending from its chim- 
 ney. The bystanders laugh at you when you 
 remark to them that your breakfast was not 
 cooked in time, or that you didn't think the 
 thing would go so soon. They offer you no 
 consolation in consideration of your having 
 missed your passage. The Sunday School, 
 which is not conducted with at least the sys- 
 tem of a railroad, is not good for much. The 
 superintendent can no more wait, while Mr. 
 Tardy eats his breakfast, than the railroad 
 
THE REGULARLY LATE TEACLLER. 103 
 
 conductor can stop lor him to pack his trunk. 
 On the strike of the clock (and the clock must 
 he right) the exercises begin. The door 
 should be locked during the opening exercis- 
 es, in order that Mr. Tardy and his relations 
 may have the privilege of standing out in the 
 cold, instead of disturbing those who have 
 taken the pains to come early. This will 
 mend the bad habit as soon as any other 
 course. Try it, superintendent, if you have 
 any regularly tardy ones among your teach- 
 ers or scholars, and let us hear from you as 
 to your success. 
 
 The good superintendent of a good Sunday 
 School has no occasion for the services of a 
 Mr. Tardy, and politely declines them when 
 they are offered. He knows that the man who 
 cannot exercise enough self-denial to come 
 regularly and punctually to school, will never 
 accomplish much in teaching children the way 
 of life. Tardy must think beforehand what 
 he is going to do ; must wind his watch regu- 
 larlj^, and set it correctly ; must give up his 
 
104 THE r.EGULAELY LATE TEACHER. 
 
 sloveuly ways and careless habits, and he 
 may then be a very useful man. Until he re- 
 forms he is of very little use, and the little 
 good he does is counterbalanced by the dis- 
 turbance he makes. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The Traditional Teacher, 
 
 fN the Sunday School where this man's 
 
 labors are put forth, things are done some- 
 what differently from the way in which they 
 were done in the school to which he formerly 
 belonged, and where he was brought up. His 
 attachment for former customs is so great that 
 it seems to be a prominent part of his creed. 
 He is distressed at any introduction of what 
 he calls novelty. He thinks it is wrong. He 
 is as particular about doing his work exactly 
 as he did it twenty-five years ago, as any 
 Chinaman is about wearing his garments after 
 the precise pattern of those of his forefathers. 
 When his course is objected to, he says that 
 he has always got along to his entire satisfac- 
 tion, in his accustomed ways, and that it is 
 therefore unnecessary to change them. He 
 
106 THE TRADITIOXAL TEACHEE. 
 
 decliDes investigatiDg to see whether or not 
 his work would have been better done, had 
 he been willing to improve by the suggestions 
 and discoveries of other people. 
 
 In whatever he does, therefore, he is 
 governed not so much by the excellency of 
 his way or belief, as by the fact that he was 
 taught so to do or believe when he was 
 young. He was taught, indeed, many excel- 
 lent things ; some not so excellent ; but he 
 believes that none of them can be improved 
 upon by any modern inventions. His very 
 religion itself is the result of inheritance 
 from his parents and grandparents, rather 
 than of careful investigation and conviction 
 for himself. It is none the less true on that 
 account, but the force of its truth on his mind 
 is not such as to enable him, in every emer- 
 gency to give a " reason for the hope that is 
 in him." 
 
 In boyhood this person received his Sunday 
 School education, sitting on a semi-circular 
 bench. Consequently he is much disturbed 
 
THE TRADITIONAL TEACHER. 107 
 
 by the action of the furniture committee, who 
 propose to introduce square forms into the 
 new buildino:. He is sure thoy will never 
 answer the purpose. Years ago the teachers 
 meeting was held on Tuesday evening. Now 
 it is held on Thursday, that evening being 
 more convenient to most of the teachers. 
 Oui;^iend never comes without a sigh at the 
 departure from the good old ways of former 
 years. The librarian of former times had a 
 musical gift, and used to raise the tunes. 
 The present librarian is no musician, but the 
 superintendent happens to be able to fill his 
 place. Mr. Traditional cannot see why that 
 officer should bemean himself by doing what 
 the subordinate officer formerly did. And 
 he is further annoyed by the change in the 
 selections of hymns and tunes. The hymns 
 used to be all long or common metre, with 
 wofully plain tunes to match. These of the 
 present day are made up of one long line 
 and three short ones, followed, perhaps, by 
 three long lines and a short one. The modern 
 
108 THE TRADITIOX.VL TEACHER. 
 
 tunes seem to him to be objectionably merry 
 and trifling. (Some of them are, by the way.) 
 The fact that the children unite more vocifer- 
 ously than of old in the use of these hymns 
 and tunes, is to him only an evidence of the 
 shockiogly depraved sensationalism of the 
 present generation. 
 
 In his teaching, it is evident that his^ock 
 of knowledge is exactly what was taught 
 him in his youth by his respected teacher, 
 and by his pastor, the Rev. Dr. Bother. It 
 was all good in its day, but has since failed 
 to keep up with the progress of Biblical 
 criticism. His idea of Noah's ark is that it 
 was like the high-peaked, sharp-nosed imita- 
 tion of it which are on sale in the toy shops. 
 It never occurred to him to examine the sixth 
 chapter of Genesis, to see if the vessel could 
 possibly have been made of any such shape 
 and proportions. Teaching about the psalms, 
 he calls them all the "Psalms of David," 
 forgetting, or never having learned, that 
 some of them were evidently written five 
 
THE TRADITIONAL TEACHER. 109 
 
 liuudrcd years after David was dead. In 
 illustrating the " eye of the needle " through 
 which the camel with difficulty passed, he 
 makes it the literal eye of the literal needle, 
 generally " a fine cambric needle, boj^s," in- 
 stead of the " needle's eye " in the city wall. 
 The boys think that the rich man would 
 indeed have a hard time of it, getting to 
 heaven. When he tells about Paul at the feet 
 of Gamaliel, the idea received by the boys is 
 that of a very small and youthful Paul sitting 
 on a little stool before the wise teacher of 
 the law, who sits on a high and stately chair. 
 He omits in illustrating the parable of the 
 Good Samaritan, to say that the oil was 
 poured into the sufferer's wounds, and the 
 wine into his mouth. The boys get the idea 
 that the wine with the oil was poured into 
 the wounds, which would have made the poor 
 fellow additionally uncomfortable. 
 
 This teacher would be a very useful man, 
 if he would only build upon his good foun- 
 dation. The foundation laid in youth and in 
 
110 THE TRADITIONAL TEACHER. 
 
 by -go lie years, is good as far as it goes. Bat 
 a cellar can never be let for a family tene- 
 ment, if there is no superstructure to it. It 
 must be built up, story after story, till it be- 
 comes a house. Then it will rent. Our Tra- 
 ditional friend must remember that with all 
 tlie objectionable novelties of late years, there 
 are many good ideas and practices worthy of 
 his attention. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The Excellent Teacher. 
 
 ANY sheets of paper would be con- 
 sumed in fully describing the charac- 
 ter and habits of this useful Christian. Let it 
 suffice for the present to take a hasty glance 
 at him. It will be a pleasant task. 
 
 The place to find him during school hours, 
 is at his post of duty. He loves his work so 
 well that he makes his arrangements before- 
 hand to be regular and punctual. He does 
 not let his watch run down, does not lag in 
 bed two hours later on Sunday morning than 
 on other days, nor does he forget his prepara- 
 tions till so late an hour that he has to run 
 with dangerous speed lest he should be tardy 
 at school. 
 
 It is a pleasure to watch him while he is 
 at work. No cross words, no sour looks, no 
 
112 . THE EXCELLENT TEACHER. 
 
 sarcastic speeches, mar the eiijoymciit which 
 the scholars feel in receivinar instructiou from 
 him. The youngsters love to be taught hy 
 him. Not because the teaching is all sugar- 
 plums and cai\dy, but that with the sweets of 
 kind manner they take in sound instructiou 
 and gospel education. When he asks them 
 questions, it is not to chuckle over their ig- 
 norance of the answers, or to prove that they 
 are indolent dunces, but to draw out what 
 knoAvledge they have, and to pave the way 
 for improvement in that in Avhich they are 
 deficient. "Speaking the truth in love," is 
 his motto. He gives them pure, sound, un- 
 diluted gospel, and gives it in such a way as 
 to make them relish it, and hunger and thirst 
 for more. 
 
 It need not be supposed that the kindness 
 which this teacher shows to his class, prevents 
 him from enforcing discipline. He knows 
 that one of the kindest acts he can perform 
 for them, is to show tlicm what they do wrong, 
 and how to do it riglitl}'. Mr. Spoon, who 
 
THE EXCELLENT fEACIIER. 113 
 
 tGp.clies the class near by, does not believe in 
 exercising discipline on children, for fear of 
 hurting their feelings, and making them dis- 
 like him. Consequently his class is generally 
 in an uproar. Not so with the class of Mr. 
 Excellent. It is a model of decent behavior ; 
 and the boys have more respect and affection 
 for their teacher than Mr. Spoon's boys will 
 ever feel for theirs. 
 
 Excellent teacher is a man of enterprise. 
 While he has great respect for our forefathers 
 who compiled and used the " New-England 
 Primer," he does not believe that that good 
 book should be the principal staple of teach- 
 ing to the youth of the present day. He loves 
 and respects the hymns, question books, re- 
 ward tickets, and other helps, which were 
 used when he was a small boy ; yet, in the 
 present day of progress he would no more 
 confine himself to these, than he would go 
 from Boston to Washington by stage instead 
 of in the rail-road cars. Whatever is offered 
 in the way of improvement, he examines ; ac- 
 
114 THE EXCEIJ.FXT TEACHER. 
 
 ceptiog it if good, rejecting it if of the style 
 of many of tiie catch-penny things which de- 
 signing inventors and pa])lishers palm ofl* on 
 the unsuspecting, as necessary and important 
 aids to their work. 
 
 When work is to be done, this teacher is 
 the man to do it. lie does not shirk his share 
 of labor, expense, or responsibility. He docs 
 not consent to be placed upon a committee 
 merely for the glory of it, with the under- 
 standing that the other members shall do the 
 Avork, or that they shall all leave it undone, 
 and then report "progress," as many commit- 
 tees do. He looks on this as a species of dis- 
 honesty and craftiness, which is disgraceful to 
 any professor of religion. 
 
 He is courteous in his dealings with his 
 fellovf -teachers. He loves them, and makes 
 them love him. More than this, he supports 
 the authorities of the school, and of the church. 
 You never hear him groaning or muttering 
 over some regulation which he does not like, 
 or at some action of the superintendent which 
 he would prefer to have otherwise. 
 
THE EXCELLENT TEACHER. 115 
 
 Of his habits of visiting the scholai;s and 
 their parents, of his methods of dealing with 
 cross and rebellious children, of his studious 
 preparation for his class duties, of his neat- 
 ness and order in doing his work and in keep- 
 ing his books, a volume might be written. 
 One other trait in his character need only be 
 mentioned. " Behold he prayeth." His prayer- 
 ful spirit of devotion is the basis of all his ex- 
 cellence. He prays, as he labors for the con- 
 version of every boy in his class. He is sat- 
 isfied with nothing less than this. Faithful, 
 earnest, intelligent, arduous in his devotion 
 to his work, he hopes on, labors on, prays on, 
 encouraged now and then by seeing hopeful 
 conversions ; discouraged sometimes by their 
 absence ; but always trusting in the promise 
 of the Lord of the harvest, to whom he looks 
 for continued and final blessings on all his 
 labors. 
 
 . Teacher ! is the standard high ? Climb up 
 to it. Do not pull it down, that your ascent 
 may be easier. The better the reward, the 
 
116 THE EXCELLENT TEACHER. 
 
 more worthy of wiuning. The higher the 
 calling, the more glorious the excellence of 
 {Attaining it. 
 
SCHOLARS. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The Mischievous Scholar. 
 
 ^ HE object of orcliuaiy teaching is to 
 So^ make some improvement in the condi- 
 tion of those who are taught, and to add to 
 their stock of general information. The 
 object of Sunday School teaching is, in 
 addition to this, to correct all evil ways, and 
 lead the pupil into the path of everlasting 
 life. In order that we may teach wisely, it 
 is necessary that we have a thorough under- 
 standing of the material we have to work 
 upon. If the children who come to be taught 
 are perfect in all their ways, they need no 
 teaching, and may be sent home to be good 
 
118 THE MISCHIEVOUS SCHOLAR. 
 
 examples to the neigli])oring children. If 
 they are deficient, ignorant, or naughty, we 
 must try to give them such instruction and 
 correction as will conquer their faults and 
 overcome their ignorance. But we must not 
 deal with them at random. The physician 
 who blindly administers half a dozen reme- 
 dies of difierent kinds, and for different 
 diseases, all the while guessing to find out 
 what is the matter with the patient, is apt 
 to make bungling work of it, and, if the 
 disease is serious, to make a job for the un- 
 dertaker. The skilful physician finds out, to 
 the best of his ability, what is the matter with 
 the sick man, and then wisely administers the 
 proper remedies. 
 
 It is as much the duty of teachers to study 
 the character of their scholars, that they may 
 know how to teach them, and what to teach, 
 as it is the doctor's duty to find out what is 
 the matter with his patient before committing 
 to paper the medico -canine Latin which tells 
 the apothecary what nauseous mixture to 
 bottle up for the sufferer's relief. 
 
THE MISCHIEVOUS SCHOLAR. 119 
 
 Let us, then, with this view — namely, what 
 is the matter with them, and how shall we 
 treat them — summon a few of our scholars 
 to stand in a row for their likenesses. And 
 first, as the lad is a little uneasy and restless, 
 let us dispose of 
 
 THE MISCHIEVOUS SCHOLAR. 
 
 He is not a positively vicious boy, yet his 
 desire for practical fun develops itself in 
 such a way that those who are annoyed by it 
 naturally think he is very bad. He goes to 
 Sunday School principally for the fun of it. 
 He has no religious understanding, and can 
 not discern things in a religious light. In- 
 struction seems to be wasted on him. Some 
 of the teachers shake their heads when his 
 name is mentioned, and say that he is a bad 
 boy. Others say that possibly something 
 may be made out of the fellow, yet. It is 
 true that his pranks are a great cause of dis- 
 turbance to the whole school. During prayer 
 time, he appears to be devoutly joining iu 
 
120 THE MISCHIEVOUS SCHOLAR. 
 
 tliG prayer, but is furtively amusing himself 
 by creaking the bench so as to make a noise. 
 The superintendent has offered a reward for 
 the boy who thus annoys the school, but no- 
 body can find out who it is. Sometimes he 
 waits outside during the opening exercises, 
 to make a noise by stamping in just as the 
 lesson commences. He generally comes with 
 entire ignorance of where the lesson is, or 
 what it is about, and pretends to manifest a 
 great desire for information on both these 
 points. The information given him generally 
 appears to be thrown away. He is not fond 
 of study. 
 
 He is sharp and quick, and is sure to catch 
 his teacher in a blunder, if teacher makes any. 
 He considers this a great triumph over the 
 teacher, and arranges the tune and manner of 
 his triumph so that the rest of the class th ill 
 know it. If the teacher comes late, this boy 
 will crow over it for a mouth, and come late 
 for several Sundays himself, that he may 
 have the enjoyment of pleading his teacher's 
 
THE MISCHIEVOUS SCHOLAR. 12 J 
 
 exiimple. In singing, he pretends that he does 
 not know the tune, hut is trying to learn it, 
 and makes such ludicrous attempts to learn, 
 that the other boys laugh, sometimes causing 
 the singing to break down, which amuses him 
 all the more. 
 
 This boy is apt to be a pest outside of the 
 Sunday School. He is not content with hiding 
 the superintendent's roll-book, putting ill- 
 smelling substances in the stove, and such 
 other bits of mischief as are confined to the 
 school, but he aims higher. He gets into 
 church. He ties the bell-rope up so high 
 in the steeple that the sexton cannot get it 
 down till after church time. The other day 
 he watched till the sexton should go into the 
 cellar for coal, and when in, turned the bolt 
 on him, and kept him there till church was 
 out. (The sexton and he are not good 
 friends.) Next Sunday he will probably tie 
 the handle of the organ bellows fiist, or per- 
 form some practical joke on the organist. 
 
 What is to be done with him ? " Turn him 
 
122 THE MISCHIEVOUS SCHOLAR. 
 
 out ! " says old Mr. Crusty, who forgets that 
 half a century ago he was very much such a 
 boy. " Give him a good talking to," says Mr. 
 Dull, who would probably lecture the boy 
 forty minutes, if he would stand still so long. 
 "Bear with him, and try him a while," says 
 the good superintendent. True, he is a 
 nuisance. The school might seem to be bet- 
 ter without him. But the energy and smart- 
 ness which now show themselves only in these 
 naughty doings, may be the foundation of that 
 which, if properly guided, may be a very 
 useful character. Turn him out, and he is 
 lost. Keep him, show him that you love him, 
 and he will gradually cease his pranks. Tell 
 him distinctly that his mischief is all wrong, 
 but do not crush him. He must be " caught 
 with guile." Have patience with him. 
 
CHAPTEE XXI. 
 
 The Lazy Scholar. 
 
 fN the morning he is a lag-a-bed. At noon 
 he stretches himself. In the evening he 
 gapes and yawns, and says he is tired. Of 
 course he is tired. The hardest work any- 
 body can have, is to have nothing to do. Our 
 young friend's difficulty arises not from hav- 
 ing nothing to do, but from being too lazy to 
 do anything. 
 
 What kind of a Sunday School boy does he 
 make? Poor enough. He comes sauntering 
 into school at about the same rate of speed as 
 the cows walk, when they are going home to 
 be milked. Only that he is not so punctual 
 as an orderly cow. He says that he and the 
 rest of the family had so much to do this 
 morning, that they could not get through it in 
 time. His teacher asks liim if they could not 
 
 123 
 
124 THE LAZY SCHOLAR. 
 
 have accomplished it all in time by getting 
 Tip earlier. He is startled at the novelty of 
 the idea, and thinks it might be a good thing, 
 but says, like all other lazy people, that he 
 does the best he can. (What a common ex- 
 cuse that is for people who are too lazy or too 
 stubborn to mend their ways !) 
 
 It would be unreasonable to expect this 
 young person to learn any lessons. He is so 
 hard at work, doing nothing, that he has no 
 time to study or think. He comes to school 
 entirely unprepared. He tells the teacher that 
 the lesson was so hard. Teacher asks him if 
 he looked to see how hard it was, and finds 
 that he did not. The consequence of this 
 habit of neglect of study is, that he knows 
 less about the Bible than a decent Zulu does. 
 
 As misery loves company, according to the 
 old proverb, so ignorance and indolence love 
 company. Lazy boy is not well pleased at the 
 smart, bright chap who always knows his 
 lesson, and promptly answers all hard ques- 
 tions. So he tries to corrupt the other boys, 
 
THE LAZr SCHOLAR. 125 
 
 and make them as idle as he is himself. If 
 he can put them up to any mischief, or induce 
 them to lounge outside of the school for half 
 an hour, instead of coming in punctually, he 
 thinks it is so much clear gain ; so much sav- 
 ed from the cause of religious education. 
 
 He has no habits of attention. He is some- 
 times civil and quiet while the teacher is 
 talking to him, but he does not heed. The 
 teacher might as well talk to a horse as to 
 this boy. A good dog would remember bet- 
 ter than the boy does. Boy does not thinh. 
 Never was in the habit of thinking. Does not 
 want to think. Does not see the use of giv- 
 ing attention. Cares not if he is as ignorant 
 ten years hence as he is to-day. And proba- 
 bly he will know as little then as now. 
 
 Is it not a thankless work to teach such a 
 boy ? And suppose you have a whole ckss of 
 them ? Better have a class of Newfoundland 
 dogs, or spaniels. The beasts would learn 
 more than the indolent boy. 
 
 What is he good for ? How shall we make 
 
126 THE LAZY SCHOLAR. 
 
 him learn anything? He wants rod sing, push- 
 ing, stimulating. But how shall we get into 
 him? He is covered with indolence as with 
 a garment ; even as thick a garment as the 
 allio^ator's hide. But even alligator has some 
 weak spots. So this slow boy ma}^ be acces- 
 sible to some varieties of reward or punish- 
 ment. Try him first on the reward. Not to 
 reward him for being idle. That would be 
 unprofitable and expensive. Perhaps he may 
 be induced to do something worthy of reward, 
 or at least of commendation. Lead him that 
 far, and it is a great step in his progress. 
 But, if no reward will move him, apply a 
 stimulant of the hornet's nest order to him ; 
 give him a good dose of it, and mahe him 
 move on. There is hope for him, if he is 
 properly treated. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The Precocious Scholar. 
 
 Vi HIS young gentleman is twelve years 
 ^^ old. At five, he knew by heart the 
 Sermon on the Mount, the first chapter of 
 John, and the one hundred and nineteenth 
 Psalm ; all without missing a word. At sev- 
 en, he did sums in the rule of three, and sev- 
 eral other rules. Now he knows by rote the 
 whole book of Isaiah, nearly all the New Tes- 
 tament, and a great many Psalms ; also a 
 great variety of addresses, dialogues, and 
 other semi-religious literature. The other 
 children look upon him as a miracle of wis- 
 dom. 
 
 He is pale, lantern-jawed, and stoop-should- 
 ered. His eyes have not the cheerful sparkle 
 that a boy's eyes should have. He does not 
 know how to shout, to run, to spin a top, to 
 
128 THE PRECOCIOUS SCHOLAR. 
 
 swim, or to row a boat. He aud his parents 
 regard all suoli exercises as the portion of 
 rude and naughty boys. In school and in so- 
 ciety he conducts himself with great decorum, 
 and is always a perfect gentleman in his man- 
 ners. He smiles pleasantly, when there is 
 occasion to smile, but you never hear his 
 voice ringing out in a hearty laugh. He sings 
 with gentility, and is master of several very 
 difncult tunes. 
 
 On anniversary occasions, (or, as they are 
 generally called now, exhibitions,) this boy is 
 exhibited as a premium article of scholarship. 
 He makes a speech, or rather, recites a piece, 
 sometimes a solo, sometimes .a diah^gue with 
 one or more boys. This exhibition of his 
 mnemonic and oratorical ability, gives great 
 pleasure to his relations, but others think it 
 ver}^ ridiculous. His parents think that this 
 display of talent at so early an age, will cer- 
 tainly make him a professor or a judge, Vv^hen 
 he shall be a man. The superintendent of the 
 Sunday School wishes that the parents would 
 
THE PRECOCIOUS SCHOLAR. 129 
 
 not crowd the boy forward on public occa- 
 sions, and is certain that their unwise forcing 
 will be the death of him, long before he is 
 big enough to fill the chair of the thinnest 
 professor. 
 
 The other boys have but little respect for 
 our precocious friend. Well do they know 
 that their stock of knowledge is inferior to 
 his ; but yet there is something about his 
 manner which repels rather than invites their 
 cordial good feeling. They have various 
 nick-names for him, some of which imply 
 their disregard for his attainments. One of 
 them is "Old Stilts." These annoy him very 
 much, and he lets them see it. Of course, 
 the more they see he is annoyed, the more 
 they try to vex him. The consequence is, 
 that they become to a great extent, enemies, 
 and the line between friendship and enmity 
 seems to be drawn as if between learning and 
 Ignorance. He gradually acquires the idea 
 that he is better and wiser than the other 
 boys, and that they are a company of shame- 
 less scape-graces. 
 
130 THE PRECOCIOUS SCHOLAR. 
 
 A word of advice may be in season to this 
 learned boy, his teacher, and the family of 
 which he is a member. The boy is on the 
 road to the sick bed, the insane asylum, or the 
 grave. 
 
 Turn over a new leaf. Enough learning 
 has been pumped into the poor creature to 
 last for several years to come. He wants ex- 
 ercise, recreation, and fresh air. He wants 
 less brain work, and more muscle work. 
 Don't take all his books away from him, for 
 that will make him very miserable. But take 
 all except two or three. Take him away from 
 school for a while, and put him on a farm. If 
 he can be made to work for his living, so 
 much the better. Make him rise early in the 
 morning, and retire early in the evening, after 
 a good day's work, and a light supper. Give 
 him a good straw-bed (the best thing a human 
 being can sleep on,) and see that the window 
 is so fixed that plenty of fresh air comes into 
 the room. If there is a pony on the premises, 
 teach him how to ride " bare back." Make 
 
THE PRECOCIOUS SCHOLAR. 131 
 
 him play as well as work. Make him laugh 
 as well as look solemn. Soon " Old Stilts '* 
 will be like other boys ; his cadaverous cheeks 
 will fatten and display a little rosy healthful- 
 ness. His step will have a boyish vigor in it. 
 He will forget his accomplishment of a few 
 hard tunes, and go singing all round the farm. 
 He will enjoy his life. Then, when you have 
 made him something like a boy should be, 
 start again. Give him a moderate course of 
 books, combined with a moderate course of 
 exercise. But see that the exercise does not 
 consist in solitary hours of swinging dumb- 
 bells, or climbing a pole in the dark garret. 
 That is a dismal business. Make it cheerful- 
 and social, and it will work the desired end. 
 
 What has all this to do with Sunday Schools ? 
 Simply this, that if we want to do good to the 
 souls of our children, we must see that the 
 earthly tabernacle in which the soul lives, is 
 in such tenantable order that the soul can 
 thrive m it. If professors, judges,' and min- 
 isters are to be raised up from our Sunday 
 
132 THE PRECOCIOUS SCHOLAR. 
 
 Schools, let us take care to raise up not lean- 
 fleshed, cadaverous prodigies of stufied wis- 
 dom, but men with healthy bodies and vigor- 
 ous minds, who shall be a credit to a nation 
 of freemen, and to the church of Christ. 
 
CHAPTEK XXIII. 
 
 The Rebellious Scholar. 
 
 T the time of the opening of school, he is 
 not in his seat. The teacher experiences 
 a feeling of relief on account of his absence, 
 and goes so far as to hope that he has taken 
 a notion into his head to stay away ; for he 
 well knows that if snch a notion has taken 
 possession of the boy, nobody can make him 
 come to school. So far as the order and com- 
 fort of the school are concerned, it would be 
 a good thing if he would not come at all. 
 But, as Sunday Schools are not only for the 
 orderly and pious, but for the unrighteous and 
 disobedient, we have to put up with him, and 
 throw open the door for him as well as for 
 the good boys whom he disturbs. 
 
 The teacher's feeling of relief at his absence 
 is of short duration. During the opening 
 
134 THE REBELLIOUS SCHOLAR. 
 
 prayer, a smart banging is heard at the door, 
 which gives notice of the rebellious disciple's 
 wrath at being locked out. The door being 
 opened in due time, in he strides, pounding 
 his heavy boots on the floor in such w^a}^ as 
 to announce to the whole school that he has 
 come, and is determined to annoy somebody. 
 The superintendent requests him, as he passes 
 in front of the desk, to make less noise. He 
 pauses for a moment, and looks defiantly at 
 the head of the school, making a face at him, 
 as much as to say, " Who are you ? " (The 
 superintendent is an amiable man, or he might 
 . thrash him.) On he pushes, and presently 
 reaches his seat, into which he descends with 
 the well-adjusted violence of a steam-ham- 
 mer. He frowns, pouts, and growls at who- 
 ever did him the injustice to lock him out. 
 He begins to abuse his teacher for having a 
 special grudge against him, and continues by 
 abusing the other boys for various matters, on 
 which there is a difference of opinion between 
 himself and them. His obstinate and disor- 
 
THE REBELLIOUS SCHOLAR. 135 
 
 derly conduct has made him a public charac- 
 acter and a public nuisance in the school. 
 
 He delights to make a disturbance. Up- 
 setting any of the teacher's plans he consid- 
 ers a feat worthy of any risk in performing. 
 Insulting the superintendent afibrds him great 
 pleasure. When a speech is made, especially 
 if it is a dull speech, he applauds violently 
 with his boots, sometimes adding a shrill 
 whistle, which he learnt from the boys at the 
 theatre. During the singing, he likes to con- 
 fuse the musicians by volunteering all sorts 
 of uncouth noises. He is beyond quiet mis- 
 chief. He would scorn sly pranks on the 
 officers of the school or his fellow-scholars, 
 preferring to set the whole concern at open 
 defiance. He defies them to make him be- 
 have himself, to convert him, or even to teach 
 him anything. He is determined to be trouble- 
 some, and determined not to learn. 
 
 Why then does he go to Sunday School? 
 Can it be a pleasure to him? The good 
 things of the Sunday School are no pleasure 
 
136 THE REBELLIOUS SCHOLAR. 
 
 to him. He goes because he cau misbehave 
 as much as he wants to. The only thing he 
 enjoys is his victory over law and order. 
 
 Would not the school be better without 
 him than with him? Yes, so far as that is 
 concerned, it might be wise to turn him out. 
 But the worse he is, the more he needs to go 
 to school. He needs the teachings of the 
 gospel. If anything ever will subdue his re- 
 bellious spirit, it will he the power of the 
 gospel working upon him. It is the interest 
 of the church and the community that he 
 should not grow up as he is. If he is turned 
 out of Sunday School, he will probably make 
 a straight road to the gallows. 
 
 What, then, is to be done with him? Go 
 and have a good talk with his parents, says 
 somebody. The difficulty there is that he has 
 got ahead of his parents, and they can do 
 nothing with him. They mourn over his 
 badness, but sadly shake their head« when it 
 is suggested that they should mend him. 
 They let him have his o^\'ll way when he was 
 
THE REBELLIOUS SCHOLAR. 137 
 
 a little boy, (which was exactly what he 
 wanted, and now wants,) and now they 
 cannot make him mind their way. They 
 thought they were so kind to him. They so 
 tenderly spared his feelings, instead of giving 
 him a sound switching when he was naughty. 
 
 Tame him. That is what must be done 
 with him. " Tame him? " says teacher ; " why, 
 I would rather try to tame a bison." Then he 
 must have another teacher. He needs a good, 
 kind, firm, able-bodied and able-minded 
 teacher, who will love him, yet hold him 
 with a strong hand. He must l)e tamed as 
 the great Rarey tames horses. Show him that 
 you love him, and are working for his good, 
 both of body and soul ; but let him under- 
 stand that you have entire control over him, 
 and that you mean to exercise it, if necessary. 
 As you are taming him, put in a little gospel 
 instruction from time to time, increasing in 
 amount as you get him tamer and tamer. 
 
 The boy will be an earnest boy, and when 
 he grows up, will be an earnest man. He will 
 
138 THE REBELLIOUS SCHOLAR. 
 
 probably be a very bad man, or else a very 
 good man. A very useful man, or a continual 
 nuisance. But it all depends on how he is 
 treated now. 
 
 Look well to him, teacher. With prayerful 
 patience, firmness and diligence, he may be 
 made a Christian. 
 
m 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 The Careless Scholar. 
 
 TTER indifference to everything that is 
 going on, is the most prominent charac- 
 ter of the young man who stands before us. 
 He is always satisfied, and offers no special 
 opposition to anything, good or bad. " Don't 
 care," is the rule of his life, so far as his life 
 goes according to rule. But he does not be- 
 lieve in rules |p.nd regulations of any kind, 
 thinking them rather a hindrance than a help. 
 Of course he is neither regular nor punctual 
 in his attendance at Sunday School. He does 
 not care whether he is early or late, whether 
 he is present or absent. He considers it no 
 disgrace to be habitually late, and no loss to 
 be absent for several Sundays at a time. As 
 he does not care whether he knows his lessons 
 or is ignorant of what they are about, he can- 
 
 139 
 
140 THE CARELESS SCHOLAR. 
 
 not be expected to devote much time to their 
 study. He loses his question-book, Bible, and 
 hymn-book, as he has no regular place to put 
 them in, and thinks it Avould be too much 
 trouble to provide such a place. He does not 
 care whether the teacher is pleased with him 
 or not, and so does not put himself out of the 
 way to do what teacher requires of him. He 
 does not value the good esteem of the other 
 scholars, even of those who are the most stu- 
 dious and orderly. The prosperity or failure 
 of the school, is a matter w^hich he does not 
 concern himself about, and it never occurs to 
 him that his good or bad conduct may make 
 the school better or worse. The fact that he 
 knows no more about the Bible now than he 
 did live years ago, does not trouble him, for 
 he considers it to be exclusively the duty of 
 the teachers and the minister to understand 
 about that. He does not see why they should 
 bother him with it. His duties to his parents 
 are performed in a negligent wa}^ which seems 
 to indicate that the parents have been some- 
 
THE CARELESS SCHOLAR. 141 
 
 what negligent in the use of the rod to make 
 him mind what was told him. Perhaps that 
 is the root of much of the diiliciilty. 
 
 His jiersonal habits are such as to make it 
 hard to get along with him. If he has a watch, 
 he frequently neglects to wind it, and, when 
 he does wind it, sets it by guess. If he would 
 wash his hands, he neglects to scrub the dirt 
 from them. When he puts on his garments 
 he does not give that thoughtfal attention to 
 strings, pins and buttons, that a careful and 
 tidy person does. He parts wdth his pocket 
 money in such a slip-shod manner, that he 
 never has anything to put into the missionary 
 box. When the box goes round, he says he 
 didn't think about it. When he sits down to 
 study his Sunday School lesson, which is very 
 seldom, he groans several times over the task 
 which is before him, then concludes that he 
 ■will postpone it till Saturday evening, and 
 take some exercise now, which he very much 
 needs. Of course he finds something else to 
 do on Saturday evening, or else he cannot 
 
142 THE CARELESS SCHOLAR. 
 
 find his books. His habits on Sunday are the 
 same as other days. In a year he has lost 
 half a dozen hymn books, and question books 
 uncounted. The books which he has on hand 
 are dog-eared, soiled, and broken-backed. 
 He says that it is not much matter how the 
 books look, if one only learns w^hat is inside 
 of them. (N. B. People who are slovenly in 
 keeping their books, seldom know a great 
 deal about what is in them.) 
 
 This lad is a very undesirable scholar in 
 every respect. Instruction seems to be thrown 
 away on him. The teacher may instruct, ex- 
 hort, expound, argue, an(? lend him good 
 books. He will not listen to what is said to 
 him, and when he takes books, it is only to 
 soil or lose them, or to return them unread. 
 In the latter case he often says they are very 
 interesting. He pretends to listen, and pre- 
 tends to read, but his mind is off on a butter-^ 
 fly buzz, while his outer man is in a position 
 of attention. Ask him to-day, what you told 
 him yesterday, and he has forgotten. He say a 
 
THE CAKELESS SCHOLAR. 143 
 
 the minister preached an uncommonly fine 
 sermon last Sunday, but ask him what it was 
 about, or where the text was, and you soon 
 discover that he knows nothing about it. 
 Send him on an errand, and before he is out 
 of sight he has forgotten the message you 
 gave him. And the worst of it is, that with 
 all his absent-minded thoughtlessness, he is 
 so pleasant and so polite, that you do not like 
 to box his ears, or treat him exactly as you 
 would treat the violently bad boy. But he is 
 really harder to deal with than the quarrel- 
 some and disorderly. 
 
 The sum of his arguments and excuses for 
 his various short-comings, is ^^ DidnH think. ^' 
 He thinks it is enough. Nobody else thinks 
 so, though. 
 
 I once heard an aged negro slave pray, after 
 sermon, "Oh, Lord, please to mind and make 
 us remember to try and not forget de word 
 of de gospel what we jist done listened to.'* 
 If the careless scholar will earnestly pray 
 such a prayer, and follow it up, there is hope 
 for him. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 The Too Big Scholar. 
 
 IHE is fast attaiuiiig the stature of man. 
 
 ^ Several preliminary liairs sprout on his 
 upper lip. His voice is no longer the squeak 
 of infancy, or the treble of boyhood, but is 
 changiug to a manly bass. He has cast aside 
 his former round jackets, and arrayed him- 
 self in a coat with amply flowiug skirts and 
 other indications of manhood. His head is 
 made uncomfortable by the presence of a 
 high -crowned hat, and his mind is disturbed 
 by fear of accident to the shining, silky sur- 
 face of the same. Some of the younger boys 
 have threatened to throw water upon it. As 
 he is passing through that very ticklish 
 period of life in which his full manhood may 
 be questioned, he is very particular about 
 
THE TOO BIG SCHOLAR. 145 
 
 having it understood that he is no longer a 
 bo J, but a 77han. 
 
 He makes up his mind that the surest way 
 of proving to the world that he is a man, is 
 to hold no more associations with boys. So 
 he seriously considers whether or not he can 
 afford to go to Sunday School any more. He 
 does not break off at once, for he has a 
 struggle with himself about it. He used to 
 love the school. He commenced in the infant 
 department. The gray-haired mother in 
 Israel, who was in the prime of life when he 
 was her three-year old scholar, often speaks 
 of what a good little boy he used to be. The 
 teachers under whose charge he was, while in 
 the larger school, feel kindly towards him, 
 and hope that he is not going to leave. And 
 he knows that he ought not to finish his re- 
 ligious education now. But the young men 
 with whom he keeps company sneer so much 
 at the school, that they have almost persuaded 
 him never to set foot within its doors again. 
 So he comes sometimes, and stays away some- 
 
146 TTIE TOO BIO SCHOLAR. 
 
 times, feeling quite ill at ease about it, de- 
 vising weak excuses for his absence, and 
 giving every reason but the real one. He 
 still retains a nominal connection with the 
 Bible class, of which he has been a member 
 for a year or two. But he and the Bible class 
 seem to be of little advantage one to the other. 
 He has grown in bodily stature, rather than in 
 Biblical knowledge, during his stay in it. 
 
 Is this young man to be saved, or to be 
 thrown overboard? Is he worth keeping, or 
 shall we frown at him, and induce him to 
 prefer staying away from school ? 
 
 We want him. We cannot afford to lose 
 him. There is work for him to do. " He do 
 any work?" says an unbelieving teacher. 
 The idea has obtained currency that the 
 young man is above work. He needs more 
 teaching than he has had, and especially the 
 kind of teaching which will show him how to 
 work. The teacher who will succeed in 
 making him learn anything more than he 
 already knows, will succeed in a very hard 
 task. Such teachers are scarce. 
 
THE TOO BIG SCHOLAK. 147 
 
 How and where shall we teach him ? 
 
 How ? Gather all such young persons into 
 a class by themselves, and put them under the 
 care of the kindest and most judicious man 
 that can be found. Not a long-winded man, 
 who will weary them with tedious preaching ; 
 not a dismal man, who will drive them away 
 with his doleful exhortations ; not an austere 
 man, who will shake his head, and make grim 
 faces at them; but a good, warm-hearted 
 Christian, a man of tact and enterprise. One 
 who remembers that he was once a young 
 man, passing through this critical state, will 
 do better than one of the stately sort, who 
 never was young. 
 
 Where? In a room by themselves. The 
 neatest, prettiest and most commodious room 
 'that can be had. If there is not one, build it 
 without a week's delay. You cannot invest 
 its cost in a more paying enterpjdse. Let it 
 be light and cheerful ; clean, comfortable and 
 attractive. A neat book-case, containing a 
 moderate libraiy, is indispensable. Furnish 
 
148 THE TOO BIG SCHOLAR. 
 
 the walls with good maps and charts, T\hich, 
 if the teacher understands using them, will 
 afford a ceaseless fund of proiital)le instruction. 
 In this private room of their own, they can 
 enjoy freedom from what is to them the irk- 
 some restraint imposed on little children. 
 They can sing their own hymns, and that as 
 noisily as they please. They can call them- 
 selves the men's class, if they like the name. 
 They can be saved from being nuisances to 
 the church people, whom they would other- 
 wise annoy by hanging around the doors, 
 gates, and curb-stones. They can be kept 
 from vicious associates, who would drag them 
 to ruin. And when they graduate from the 
 grown-up class, it will not be to break loose 
 from instruction and religion, and become 
 Sabbath vagabonds, but to re-enter as teach- 
 ers the same rooms in which they were for- 
 merly little boys, and in their turn to engage 
 in the good work of teaching youthful sinners 
 the way of salvation. 
 
CHAPTER XXYI. 
 The Scholar who Does Not Learn. 
 
 CHE lad is tolerably regular in his attend- 
 ance at Sunday School, and cannot be 
 complained of for disorderly or rebellious 
 conduct. In many things he is a pattern for 
 the other scholars. He seems to learn. He 
 often knows his lesson, or at any rate has a 
 sort of external acquaintance with it. On 
 special occasions, if a prize is to be struggled 
 for, he stru2:i?les, and sometimes wins. If a 
 public examination or exhibition is to be had, 
 he stuffs himself with sufficient knowledge to 
 stand very creditably in the eyes of the spec- 
 tators. He can commit by rote a great many 
 verses of Scripture, when it is necessary. So 
 he acquires a reputation for scholarly habits, 
 and thorough Biblical education. In connec- 
 tion with this, and on account of it, he as- 
 
150 THE SCHOLAR WHO DOES NOT LEAEN. 
 
 sumes a certain degree of superiority over the 
 boys who, not liaving been specially stufied, 
 omitted to win prizes, to speak speeches, or 
 to recite, with parrot-headed volubility, pro- 
 digious amounts of Scripture verses. 
 
 But, with all the show of learning, the 
 }^oung man really learns little or nothing ; 
 frequently nothing at all. Six months after 
 he has gained a prize, he has forgotten exact- 
 ly what the prize was for, even though it was 
 got after much cramming. He cannot recol- 
 lect what it was that was crammed into him. 
 Though he may learn several thousand verses 
 of the Bible, his shallow memory has not 
 taken hold of a single important truth or doc- 
 trine. Though he appears to give respectful 
 and even earnest attention to the preacher, 
 the preaching produces no more effect on him 
 than rain-water does on the feathers of a 
 healthy goose. 
 
 Look at him when he becomes a big boy ; 
 almost a man. He is going to leave the 
 school ; he is too old to be taught any more. 
 
THE SCHOLAR WHO DOES NOT LEARN. 151 
 
 He has been receiving instruction since he 
 was five years old. He ought to know some- 
 thing. Examine him. Ask the difference 
 between the Mosaic dispensation and the 
 Christian. " They didn't teach us that." Ask 
 some of the particulars of Jewish sacrificial 
 rites. He knows no more about them, than 
 he does of the religious ordinances of the 
 Digger Indians, nor does he care for one more 
 than for the other. See what he knows of 
 our Saviour's life and ministry. It is all a 
 blank. Ask him when Israel seceded from 
 Judah, and how many kings each nation had. 
 He never troubled himself about that either ; 
 didn't suppose it was important. The names 
 of the Apostles ? "I am not good at remem- 
 bering names." No ; he is not good at any- 
 thing. He has neglected his privileges ; has 
 despised his opportunities. He came to the 
 feast when the tables were spread with good 
 things, but left them there and went away 
 hungry and empty ; and he will continue in a 
 condition of mental and religious emptiness 
 
152 THE SCHOLAR WHO DOES NOT LEARN. 
 
 all his life, if he does not change his course. 
 Although he has beeu a regular and well be- 
 haved scholar, his disregard of instruction has 
 been as great as that of the boy who spends 
 his Sundays in skating, swimming, or going 
 for chestnuts. 
 
 What is the matter with him ? Simply one 
 thing. He lacks application. Instead of 
 studiously applying himself to what was be- 
 fore him, with a determination to master it, he 
 has been dreamily napping away the precious 
 hours of instruction, only waking up once in 
 a while to stretch himself and stuft* in a little 
 show of learning. He has supposed that the 
 machinery of the Sunday School would some- 
 how or other pound learning into him, in 
 spite of his absent-minded thoughtlessness 
 and wandering inattention. He expected to 
 wake up some day and find himself a well 
 instructed person. If he does not wake up, 
 the probability is, that he will be a dunce all 
 his life. 
 
 His condition has all along been one of 
 
THE SCHOLAE WHO DOES NOT LEARN. 153 
 
 passive reception. He has received much. 
 He has given nothing. He has had vast 
 heaps of instruction poured into him. He 
 has never poured any of it out on others. It 
 never occurred to him that he might make 
 use of his learnin2: as he went alonsr. It has 
 gone in at his ears and out at the top of his 
 head. Had it gone out by his mouth, some- 
 body might have been the better for it ; some 
 younger brother, or sister, or an ignorant 
 parent, perhaps. But it has all evaporated ; it 
 has been wasted, as fine perfumery is wasted 
 when care is not taken to cork the bottle. If 
 the bottle is well corked, and the perfumery 
 let out in appropriate quantities, it performs 
 its pleasant mission. If it is thoughtlessly 
 left open, or spilled on the ground, it fails to 
 accomplish that for which it was made. 
 
 All the instruction that can be thrust into a 
 boy will do him no good, except with careful 
 intellectual digestion. As food, swallowed 
 in large chunks and in such quantities as to 
 be impossible to digest, will ruin the physical 
 
154 THE SCHOLAE WHO DOES AOT LEARN. 
 
 constitution, so will undigested learning prove 
 to be only so much trash, clogging the mind, 
 and rendering it unfit for the noble and holy 
 purposes for which the Creator designed it. 
 " Fools despise wisdom and instruction." 
 
CHAPTEE XXVII. 
 
 The First-Rate Scholar. 
 
 E all love him. He is popular in the 
 school, and with all who knoM^ him. 
 We love him because he not only says, like 
 the heedless child, that he tries to do the best 
 he can, but because he really does try, and 
 tries in such a way as to succeed. He shows 
 that his kind of trying means going ahead, 
 and doing. 
 
 He comes to school regularly, not looking 
 all the time for weak excuses for staying at 
 home. His headaches and other diseases do 
 not come on, as is the case with some of the 
 other children, just in time to keep him from 
 school. And he so thoughtfully arranges his 
 matters at home, that he is in his seat a few 
 minutes before the time for the opening of 
 school. These few minutes are spent in some 
 
 155 
 
.156 THE FIRST-RATE SCHOLAR. 
 
 quiet preparation for the duties which are 
 before him, sometimes the choice of a library 
 book, sometimes a little refreshment of mem- 
 ory on the lesson of the clay. He takes no 
 part in the exercise which is engaged in and 
 enjoyed by some ill-bred boys, of tossing caps 
 and books at each other, till the teachers 
 come. 
 
 There is no mistaking what he has come 
 for. Not ta yawn, to idle, to disturb the 
 school, or to chat with his friends. But to 
 learn. He knows no other good reason for 
 coming to Sunday School. While he is in 
 school, he makes the most of his time. He 
 feels that he cannot ailbrd to lose a moment, 
 or an opportunity of picking up the smallest 
 piece of information. He does not look on 
 the work of gaining knowledge as a disagree- 
 able task, nor does he think he is doing a 
 smart thing in cheating the teacher out of a 
 recitation. With attentive ears and open 
 heart, he takes in the good word of instruc- 
 tion, trying to remember all that he is told. 
 
THE FIEST-RATE SCHOLAR. 157 
 
 It is, consequently, a pleasure to teach him. 
 Entirely different from the heavy work of 
 teaching the dull, stupid creature whose 
 thoughts are in the streets or fields, while his 
 absent-minded body is pretending to give 
 heed to what is being spoken. 
 
 The First-Rate Scholar makes some use of 
 his learning as he goes along. He reflects 
 that both his teacher and himself have spent 
 time and labor on it ; the one in preparing 
 and teaching it ; the other in receiving and 
 storing it away. So, instead of throwing it 
 away, or bottling it up for old age or posteri- 
 ty, he increases its usefulness by imparting 
 some of it to others. He likes to tell his sis- 
 ters and brothers what he knows. He has in- 
 troduced a great deal of Bible knowledge into 
 the family, has taught Johnny Stupid his 
 letters, and is teaching Bets}^ Dull how to read. 
 He finds that all this helps him, and makes 
 him enjoy better what he learns. 
 
 He uses his Bible well. He keeps a little 
 Bible in his pocket, and pulls it out in church 
 
158 THE FIRST-RATE SCHOLAR. 
 
 and in Sunday School, when the Bible is read 
 or referred to. Consequently he knows, (as 
 John Lag-a-bed in the next class does not 
 know,) exactly where to turn when a chapter 
 and verse are mentioned. He does not look 
 in the New Testament for the Minor Prophets, 
 nor in the Old for the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 He has not only acquainted himself with the 
 localities of chapters and verses, but the saving 
 truths which these chapters and verses teach, 
 have made a deep impression on his heart. 
 
 When he grows up, he will make a good 
 teacher. He is not of the sort of boys who 
 wander away from school as soon as they 
 think they are almost men. He loves the 
 school and its work so well that as soon as he 
 is old enough to teach, he will take hold of the 
 work, and do for other youngsters what has 
 been done for him during his youth. 
 
 Oh ! for more like him ! Teacher, you can 
 have them if you want them. Good teachers 
 will make good scholars. Not that every re- 
 bellious, stupid, indifferent child can be at 
 
THE FIEST-EATE SCHOLAR. 159 
 
 once turned into a model of diligence in learn- 
 ing, and excellence in deportment ; but that 
 patient, kind, judicious, prayerful labor with 
 even the hardest and dullest, will improve 
 them, and lead them on from carelessness and 
 ignorance to something of an approach to what 
 they ought to be. 
 
 Teacher ! up with the standard of teach- 
 ing ! It is not high enough. Let us not be 
 satisfied with merely going to our classes and 
 sitting there, year after year, accomplishing 
 nothing. Let us not be satisfied with the fact 
 that the children are willing to come and drone 
 through a certain amount of dull exercises, 
 flavored with a few thunder and lightning 
 hymns to relieve the monotony of it. But 
 let us work for a higher degree of excellence 
 in every branch of Sunday School attainment, 
 and above all, labor for nothing short of the 
 conversion to God of every child placed under 
 our care. 
 
SPEAKERS 
 
 CHAPTEK XXVni. 
 
 Sunday School Speech-Making. 
 
 Y\T HE business of making speeches to Sun- 
 ^£jJ clay School children, has risen in magni- 
 tude within the last few years, till it is now 
 one of the prominent adjuncts of juvenile re- 
 ligious education. Twenty years ago it was 
 comparatively a rare thing to hear an address 
 in Sunday School. The idea of showing polite- 
 ness to a visitor by inviting him to inflict a 
 talk on the school, without regard to his abil- 
 ity to interest the children, never then occur- 
 ed to superintendents. Once in a long while, 
 a missionary, just returned from the end of 
 the world, or some other place, would oiFer 
 
 160 
 
SUNDAY SCHOOL SPEECH-MAKING. 161 
 
 an account of what he had done and seen. 
 Occasionally the agent of some " cause " would 
 have a brief hearing. But the institution of 
 speech-making, as it now exists in our Sun- 
 day Schools, was then almost unknown. It 
 has gradually risen, and worked its way up 
 to such a degree of respectability and promi- 
 nence, that children have learned to look for 
 a speech from somebody, good, bad, or indif- 
 ferent, as a matter of course ; just as butter 
 is expected with bread, or sugar with tea and 
 coffee. It is especially within the last five or 
 six years, that this business has increased and 
 multiplied on our schools. 
 
 Making a speech to a company of Sunday 
 School children, is productive of good or evil, 
 according to whether the speech is good or 
 bad. A stirring, earnest speech, on the sub- 
 ject of their lesson, or on some subject con- 
 nected with it, may wisely be thrown in, at 
 almost any session. A speech which is on 
 no subject at all, or on something which calls 
 the youthful thoughts away from what they 
 
162 SUNDAY SCHOOL SrEECH-MAKING. 
 
 have been studying, is a nuisance which ought 
 to be abated. A wise man may rise at an 
 appropriate time, and offer some remarks 
 which may be productive of good ; some stu- 
 pid or silly orator follows him, and the chil- 
 dren forget all that the good man told them. 
 Or, when the children have finished the ap- 
 pointed time for study, and are ready to go 
 home, some tedious speech-maker mounts the 
 platform, and lets his thoughts loose for the 
 space of half an hour. The thought of inter- 
 esting his hearers, has not occurred to him. 
 All he cares for is that he may have a hear- 
 ins:. All that his wearied hearers care for is 
 that he may get done as soon as possible, and 
 let them go home. Of course such a speech 
 is nothing but a nuisance. 
 
 The principal object of speech-making, is 
 supposed to be to do the children some good, 
 and so to glorify God. But the hearers of 
 one hundred Sunday School speeches, might 
 well wonder if ninety of them were delivered 
 with any object in view ; or, if the speakers 
 
SUNDAY SCHOOL SPEECH-MAKING. 163 
 
 had any object, what it was. One speaker 
 may utter a deUghtfiil string of talk, made up 
 of stories and illustrations. It interests the 
 children, and, at first thought, would seem to 
 be a useful address ; but when you try to di- 
 gest it, the stories seem to be without point, 
 and the illustrations not brought in for the 
 sake of illustrating anything in particular. 
 Another speaker spends his time in saying 
 things to make the children laugh. He suc- 
 ceeds in that, for children are easily amused, 
 and will sometimes laugh if the speaker only 
 makes a funny face at them. It would not ])e 
 a great calamity if some able-bodied Chris- 
 tian should take hold of the man who speaks 
 only for the sake of buffoonery, and violently 
 put him out. It would, at least, save a repe- 
 tition of the foolishness, by the same man, on 
 the same set of children. 
 
 Verily our poor children are imposed upon 
 with a great variety of this kind of entertain- 
 ment. For every really excellent speech that 
 is made, it is safe to say there are ten which 
 
164 SUNDAY SCHOOL SPEECH-MAKING. 
 
 fail to iccomplish any good. The amount of 
 profitable instruction conveyed in the majority 
 even of delightful speeches, is exceedingly 
 slender. It is astonishing to see how much 
 chalf we give the little people, in order that 
 they may have a gTain or two of wheat. We 
 torture them by making them listen to all 
 sorts of people who have not the gift of in- 
 structing or entertaining them. The long- 
 winded man, whose stream of volubility flows 
 like so much carburetted hydrogen ; the an- 
 ecdote man, with his hungry and pointless 
 stories ; the illustrative man, who uses a 
 great many illustrations to illustrate nothing ; 
 the man of one pet idea, who continuously 
 ventilates that idea alike before old age and 
 youth ; the man who has only one speech, 
 which he uses on all occasions ; the dull man, 
 who puts us to sleep ; the stupid man, to 
 whose di ^course we cannot by any possibility 
 give attention ; the disagreeable man, to whom 
 we do not want to attend ; the tiresome man, 
 to whom we listen only in the hope that he 
 
SUNDAY SCHOOL SPEECH-MAKING. 165 
 
 will soon be done ; the gloomy man, who 
 renders religion as terrible as possil^le to the 
 children ; all these men find their way into 
 onr Sunday Schools, wdth a degree of enter- 
 prise and pertinacity which would be com- 
 mendable if their labors were well and wisely 
 put forth. It requires great firmness in the 
 superintendent to avoid having all these people 
 inflict themselves on the school, and some- 
 body's feelings are hurt when he neglects or 
 refuses to invite one who is known to be an 
 unprofitable orator, who has come expecting 
 to have his say. 
 
 Let us have a speech-meeting. In the chapr 
 ters which follow, we will listen to some of 
 the Sabbath School orators, who endeavor to 
 communicate 4heir ideas to the youth of our 
 land. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 The Pompous Speaker. 
 
 ^]%yiTH self-satisfied strut, graceful flour- 
 
 ish of pocket handkerchief, and loud 
 blast from his nostrils upon the same, this 
 gentleman takes his position upon the platform. 
 It is Sabbath afternoon. A monthly appoint- 
 ment for laying aside the regular lesson of 
 the day, and hearing speeches about mis- 
 sionary matters. The gentleman has come 
 for the purpose of being one of the speakers. 
 He looks round with patronizing air on the 
 company whom he is to address, clears his 
 throat, says "h'm," several times, and pro- 
 ceeds : 
 
 " My dear young friends : Let me observe, 
 as a preliminary, that I must have perfect si- 
 lence while I address you. You must bestow 
 on me your undivided attention, and not be 
 
THE POMPOUS SPEAKER. 16^ 
 
 guilty of disorderly conduct or confusion. 
 If you interrupt me while I am addressing 
 you, or signify by your inattentive deportment 
 that you do not appreciate my remarks, I 
 shall be obliged, though reluctantly, to bring 
 my address to a conclusion." 
 
 He has by this time succeeded in getting 
 their eyes and mouths pretty well open, from 
 curiosity as to what is coming next. He 
 continues : 
 
 " My dear children : I am very glad to see 
 you all here this afternoon. I have from my 
 earliest childhood experienced a deep solici- 
 tude for the welfare of the young and rising 
 generation. The sight of a little child, 
 awakens in my heart a warm interest for the 
 whole family of infantile humanity. I see 
 them with the world before them ; with its 
 hopes and fears, its dangers and its troubles, 
 all unknown to them. I gaze upon, their fu- 
 ture, but 0, what a gaze ! My youthful 
 hearers, the Sunday School is infufsed with a 
 spirit of profound conviction in certain fun- 
 
168 THE POMPOUS SPEAKER. 
 
 damental truths. The Sunday School looks 
 to the indoctrination of the youthful heart in 
 all the divine attributes. It contemplates the 
 entire sanctification of every child of Adam " — 
 Here the superintendent ought to step up 
 to the man and tell him that the children do 
 not understand a word of what he is telling 
 them ; but he is a little afraid of hurting the 
 stately person's feelings, and so suffers him 
 to plunge on. He proceeds, and after talking 
 a great deal about himself, a little about the 
 Sunday School, Adam's fall, and several other 
 things, presently gets into the thick of his 
 speech. He is more pompous than at first. 
 His flourish of speech and flourish of pocket 
 handkerchief, are both on the increase. He 
 uses words of great length, and very hard to 
 be understood. The most of his hearers do 
 not understand the speech at all. And it 
 would be no loss, except the loss of time con- 
 sumed in uttering it, if nobody understood it. 
 It is inflated fustian. It is ornamental dull- 
 ness. It is heavy frothiness. It is not on 
 
THE POMPOUS SPEAKER. 169 
 
 any subject in particular. The great man was 
 announced to speak on something connected 
 with the object for which the meeting was 
 held ; but he cannot lower himself to that. 
 He understands that several other persons are 
 to speak, and he will let them attend to that 
 part. 
 
 At last, long after the proper time, he brings 
 his remarks to their promised close. Those of 
 his hearers who are still awake, have been 
 looking forward to this moment with pleasur- 
 able expectation. The sleepers care not 
 how long he keeps on. He has settled them. 
 He wipes his massive brow, parades down 
 from the platform, takes his seat on an honor- 
 able chair, and looks round on the exhausted 
 victims of his address, as much as to say, 
 " Wasn't that a magnificent speech ? " 
 
 Truly magnificent. " The pomps and 
 vanity of this wicked world, and all the 
 sinful lusts of the flesh." Very fine stufi" to 
 blow the trumpet with, but very poor fare 
 for hungry and starving young souls. 
 
170 THE POMPOUS SPEAKEK. 
 
 There are some men who do this pompous 
 sort of talking for the sake of making a dis- 
 play, but there are others who do it because 
 they do not know better. They have heard 
 a great orator or two, and think they ought 
 to speak as the great orator speaks. Mr. 
 Stuff, when addressing a Sunday School, 
 thinks he is Daniel Webster addressing the 
 Senate, and puts on airs accordingly. He 
 comes as near his model as a poodle dog 
 comes to his when he attempts to growl like a 
 lion. 
 
 If the pompous man ever does any good 
 with his gift of speaking, it will be after he 
 shall have laid aside all the feathers, gold 
 lace and brass buttons of his style. He must 
 speak with more simplicity, and must be sure 
 that what he utters is sound sense, instead of 
 a long string of empty nothings, covered up 
 with great swelling words of bombatjtic 
 pedantry. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 The Long-Winded Speaker. 
 
 CHIS man's discourse is sometliiiig like 
 the movements of a very slow steamboat. 
 The starting of the boat gives the passengers 
 some intimation that it will eventually come 
 to its journey's end. But there is no telling 
 how much time may be wearily consumed on 
 the passage. The hearers of the tiresome 
 orator believe that the end of his speech will 
 positively come at some time, even though it 
 be after a nap, or that unsatisfactory mixture 
 of sleeping and waking which every hearer 
 of heavy discourses fully understands. The 
 steamboat passengers have an advantage over 
 the hearers of the weary address ; they can 
 talk, eat, or read books, to while away the 
 tedium of the slowly passing time. The 
 hearers must either listen or sleep, for po- 
 
172 THE LONG-WINDED SPEAKER. 
 
 liteness forbids other ways of passing the 
 time. 
 
 As the very slow steamboat makes a slow 
 business of getting started, so does the weari- 
 some speaker. It is not rapid work for him 
 to get up steam. The fire under his boiler 
 is not made in time, or the wood is green, or 
 there is not enough of it, or it is not judi- 
 ciously arranged in the furnace. It sputters 
 and cracks, and halts and heaves. His en- 
 gine starts with a confusing jerk. He mum- 
 bles his words and munches his sentences. 
 He does not get well oiled until the full head 
 of steam is on, and then the oil and steam 
 seem to keep together so closely that the 
 hearers can scarcely discern the one from the 
 other. 
 
 Two ministers were going together to a 
 preaching place in the country. As they rode 
 along, A said to B, "I suppose you don't 
 preach very long ; we think about half an 
 hour long enough." Said B, " Half an hour ! 
 why, it takes me that long to get started." 
 
THE LONG-WINDED SPEAKER. 173 
 
 Then, said A, " If it takes you that long, you 
 had better begin now, and you will be in good 
 speaking order when we get there." There is 
 a moral in this for the lengthy speaker. Get 
 up steam before you begin to speak, and so 
 save much of the time of your hearers. We 
 have no more right to take their time in 
 "getting underway," than we have to finish 
 dressing ourselves in the presence of the 
 guests whom we have invited to take tea 
 with us. 
 
 The speaker is in motion. Then what? 
 Now the difficulty is to stop him. It seems 
 as if the fountain of his speech were inexhaus- 
 tible. He has opened its flood-gates — who 
 shall close them? He plods on with great 
 industry, rolling out great lengths of good 
 and harmless talk, seeming to think that his 
 hearers ought to put up with its insufferable 
 lengthiness because it is pious truth. If any 
 were to tell him that they do not like the ex- 
 cellent stuff which he is giving them, he would 
 tell them of their natural depravity of heart. 
 
174 THE L02<G- WINDED SPEAICER, 
 
 If objection is made to the length of his con- 
 tinnance, he ascribes it to an unholy longing 
 to be away from the sanctuary and to spend 
 the time in indolence at home. The drowsi- 
 ness of his audience does not annoy him. 
 
 This man may be tolerated once in a long 
 while, because he means well, and what he 
 says is not hurtful ; but when Mr. Empty 
 rises to make a long speech, it is insufferable. 
 His countenance says, "Now, here I am ; may 
 never have a chance to speak here again, and 
 you may never get another chance to hear 
 mc ; so I will keep on awhile." The coun- 
 tenances of the hearers say, " Do wish that 
 man had stayed away." Nobody cries, " Go 
 on ! go on !" as he brings his sayings to a close. 
 There is a general feeling of relief when he 
 stops, coupled with the hope that his voice 
 may never again be heard till he has some- 
 thing to say. 
 
 It is impossible to say exactly what should 
 be the outside length of an address to Sunday 
 School children, just as it is to prescribe a 
 
THE LONG-WINDED SPEAKER. 175 
 
 limit to a sermon for adults. We could listen 
 to Tyng, Gough, Spurgeon, and many others 
 of less fame, for an hour and a half, while the 
 stupid imitator of Tyng, Gough or Spurgeon, 
 would put us to sleep, or disgust us, in ten 
 minutes. As a general thing, however, that 
 which takes over three-quarters of an hour to 
 deli\ er to grown people, or over half an hour 
 to children, is not reajembered. It may be 
 quoted as "very fine," or "really splendid," 
 or " the best I ever heard," but the effect of 
 it is lost. Twenty minutes would be a bet- 
 ter general length than thirty. A speaker of 
 rare ability, or a very ridiculous one, may 
 succeed in interesting them for thirty minutes. 
 
 Two remedies may be prescribed. One to 
 be applied by the speaker, the other by the 
 Sunday School authorities. 
 
 The speaher. Condense. Get some good 
 phonographer to attend on your next speech, 
 and take down what you say. It will cost 
 you five dollars, which will be well spent, for 
 your own good, and the good of the commu- 
 
176 TIIE LONG-WINDED SPEAKER. 
 
 nity. When the phonographer hands you 
 your speech, written out, you may be aston- 
 ished to find six or eight repetitions of what 
 need have been said but once ; also, several 
 things which you will stoutly insist you did 
 not say at all. Then strike out all the repeti- 
 tions, and all the diffuse stuff which you need 
 not have uttered, boil the remainder down, 
 and try the new production when you next ap- 
 pear in public. 
 
 The authorities. Never invite a man to 
 speak if you know him to be a long-winded 
 speaker. You have no right to trespass on 
 the endurance of the young people by inflict- 
 ins: such an entertainment on them. No mat- 
 ter who or w^hat he is, judge, doctor, elder, 
 distinguished foreigner, or brave general, if 
 he makes a long, tedious speech, he will do as 
 much harm as good. Provide sound, wise, 
 godly men to address your children, but re- 
 member that they must be spoken to with 
 earnestness, vigor, and brevity. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 At the Convention. 
 
 fT is supposed by some persons, that the 
 post of chairman at a Sunday School con- 
 ve^ition is one of unadulterated honor, compli- 
 ment and enjoyment. Quite the contrary. 
 A good chairman is entitled to the life-long 
 gratitude of every member of the convention, 
 not only for v^hat he does, but for what he 
 suffers. He must listen to all that is spoken. 
 Others may yawn and slumber, but the chair- 
 man must keep awake. Others may attend 
 or not, as they choose, may talk to each other, 
 or to the ladies, or may read books, or news.^ 
 papers, but the chairman must give ear to 
 every speech, however dreary, and, n\ust make 
 bold to stop the same when i^ exceeds the 
 appointed limits. All sorts of speakers rise 
 before him in turn, (and sometimes out of 
 
3 78 AT THE CONTENTION. 
 
 their turn,) crying out, "Mister Chairman!" 
 His official title falls so often on his ears, that 
 he congratulates himself that it is not to 
 cleave to him for life, as do titles to ex- 
 governors, ex-professors and ex-military men. 
 
 First rises the clamorous speaker. He must 
 and will be heard, and that without waiting. 
 His utterances are very important, (in his 
 own estimation) , and therefore he is often on 
 the floor. If he over-runs his time, and the 
 chairman causes him to sit down, he says it 
 is all the same, and he will go on when the 
 next subject of debate is before the house. It 
 is a remarkable feature of his discourse that 
 it will answer for whatever is being discussed, 
 it being about as pertinent to one part as an- 
 other. Another feature is, that it will bear 
 thus being cut into lengths, like so much 
 stove-pipe, without injury. 
 
 The faint-voiced man would be heard. That 
 is, if anybody could hear him. If he is in a 
 position where the chairman's eye happens to 
 light on him, he succeeds in obtaining the 
 
AT THE CONVENTION. 179 
 
 floor; otherwise he has to wait till others 
 who are more noisy, have got through. He 
 proceeds in a whisper or a squeak, till some- 
 body on the other side of the house complains 
 that the speech is not heard. Then he raises 
 his voice for a moment or two, as much as to 
 say, "Can't you hear that?" and relapses into 
 his inaudible mutter. What he says may be 
 very excellent, but it fails to instruct, inform, 
 or entertain those whose ears it does not reach. 
 Another variety of faint-voicedness, is when a 
 man consumes two minutes of a five-minute 
 speech in getting up his voice. It is to the 
 hearers something like beginning a book in 
 the middle. And yet another variety is the 
 utterance of one word out of every six in a 
 low tone. This is generally done for the sake 
 of solemnity, or to make an impression. The 
 speaker who does it should have blackboard 
 and chalk, to write for his hearers the words 
 to which he thus does injustice. 
 
 Then we hear from the statistical man. He 
 commences with the original observation that 
 
180 AT THE CONVENTION. 
 
 figures will not lie, and forthwith brings in a 
 bundle of arithmetic large enough for a day's 
 study in a respectable grammar school. With 
 this he can prove anything, especially that 
 the speaker on the opposite side is wrong. 
 He is apt to mention that 659,687 pages of reli- 
 gious matter have been distributed, which 
 have been read by 6,789,568 men, women, 
 and children ; showing that each page has 
 been read by about lOj persons. In addi- 
 tion to this, he mentions a great many other 
 mmierical matters, the aggregate effect of 
 W'hich is to confuse the hearers. A man 
 who would furnish much of statistics, should 
 furnish the congregation with slates and pen- 
 cils. Better still to have them printed on 
 slips of paper. Always be sure they are reli- 
 able. 
 
 The flowery speaker ventilates his perfumed- 
 utterances. But he is in difficulty where the 
 allotted time for each speech is only five 
 minutes. He has hardly time to begin to get 
 his flowers cut, and tie up his nosegay. And 
 
AT THE CONVENTION. 181 
 
 ill the hurry it sometimes happens that he ties 
 up the roses with the thorns sticking out too 
 prominently. Flowery speech may do when 
 a man has the pulpit to himself for an hour 
 and three-quarters, but please to let us have 
 only a little of it when the speech must be 
 short. 
 
 Sometime, we hear from an apologetic 
 individual, who asks to be excused for rising 
 at all, and says that his only reason is that 
 he knows nothing whatever, and has come 
 for information. His infirmity, however, is, 
 that after he has made this confession, he 
 commences to instruct the asseYnbled con- 
 gregation in something which he does know, 
 or thinks he knows, until "Mr. Chairman" 
 calls him to order for exceeding his time. 
 
 The very heavy man succeeds in obtaining 
 the floor. He has been stru2:2rlino^ for some 
 time, but others got ahead of him, as in the case 
 of the cripple at the pool of Bethesda. He 
 commences by saying, "M-i-s-t-e-r C-h-a-r- 
 m-a-n ! Human nature will always be human 
 
182 AT THE COXYENTIOX. 
 
 nature, the world over." At the utterance of 
 this stoTtling truth, profound silence falls like 
 a damp sheet over the whole assembly. They 
 wait with breathless anxiety during the pause 
 which comes between that and the next sen- 
 tence. When the next sentence comes, it is 
 found to contain nothing very important, and 
 the same proves true of the sentences which 
 succeed it. Nobody disputes Vv^hat he says. 
 
 These are not all the speakers, but they are 
 the most frequently on the floor. We may 
 learn a lesson or two from them. The man 
 who is most often on the floor does not succeed 
 in speaking' at all. He only gets as far as 
 *^ Mr. Chairman," when he discovers that some- 
 body else is before him, and subsides. It is 
 impossible to tell what the convention lose 
 by his failure to catch the chairman's eye. 
 
 Speakers, listen to a hint or two. If you 
 like them, follow them. 
 
 Be sure, before you open your mouth, that 
 you have something to say. 
 
 Be certain that you know what is before 
 
AT THE CONVENTION. 183 
 
 the house before you speak on it. It will tend 
 to make your remarks more to the point. 
 
 Don't be flowery. The shorter your words 
 and sentences the better. 
 
 Condense. Many fifteen minute speeches 
 would be better if boiled down to five. 
 
 Stop as soon as you are done. 
 
 Leave your arithmetic at home, especially 
 if the speeches are to be short. If you want 
 to give your hearers figures, give only grand 
 totals. They will forget everything else 
 numerical. 
 
 Let your voice be clear and loud. It is 
 useless to say anything unless you say it so 
 that people can hear you. You would com- 
 plain if your newspaper were a great sheet 
 of blurred ink marks, instead of clear typogra- 
 phy. If the message of the types must be 
 made plain to the eye, so must the message 
 of the voice fall plainly on the ear. 
 
 We hear too much talking in the pews, 
 while speakers are speaking. It is so in all 
 religious deliberative bodies. There is one 
 
184 AT THE COInYEIxTION. 
 
 way to stop it — only one. Let every speaker 
 so thoroughly interest his hearers that no- 
 body will want to talk. 
 
CHAPTEE XXXII. 
 
 The Empty Man. 
 
 OME empty things are empty because 
 they have been exhausted of that which 
 they formerly contained. This is not the 
 case with the speaker to whom we now listen. 
 His infirmity is that he was not filled. Con- 
 sequently he has nothing to say. 
 
 It would be well for himself and for his 
 hearers, if he could convince himself, before 
 starting, of his empty condition. But he 
 rises with the air of one who has important 
 truths to communicate. Even if he has an 
 inward conviction that he has not much to 
 say, he thinks the emergency may bring forth 
 something. He has heard about how some 
 great men find words and thoughts coming to 
 them in the pulpit and upon the platform , and 
 he does not know but that a deluge of speech 
 
 185 
 
186 THE EIVIPTY MAN. 
 
 matter may flow in upon him after he gets in 
 motion. He is iutroduced to those who are 
 to be his hearers. He looks wise at them. 
 They look at him as if they expect something 
 very fine. But he is empty as a tin rattle. 
 True, the tin rattle has a few solid substances 
 within it, which can be made to jingle against 
 its sides, and thus produce an entertaining 
 sound for very young person*. So our empty 
 friend may have an idea or two, or some frag- 
 mentary remnants of an idea, which v/ill jin- 
 gle a little when violently agitated. But the 
 music of the rattle is monotonous, and soon 
 becomes tiresome. So with the speech. It 
 is very hard work to listen to it ; all the hard- 
 er if we sympathise with the sufi'ering speaker 
 in his laborious efi*orts to pump up something 
 from where there is nothing. 
 
 For the opening sentences of his speech, 
 Mr. Empty selects some wise saws, so old 
 that all their teeth are worn off, or else some 
 allusion to his owu emotions on being asked 
 to address such an assembly as that which is 
 
THE EMPTY MAN. 187 
 
 before hiin. If it is an ordinary Sunday 
 School address, and the day is Mr, he opens 
 b}^ saying, " My dear children, I am glad to 
 see you here this bright and beautiful after- 
 noon." Then a pause and a clearing of the 
 throat, waiting for something else to come. 
 When the something does come, it is apt to be 
 a slight paraphrase of the sentence already 
 uttered, or an improvement on it ; for instance, 
 " I am very glad indeed^ my dear young friends, 
 to behold your pleasant faces here on this sun- 
 shhiy day." The pleasurable thought which 
 lies at the bottom of this may be ventilated 
 seven or eio'ht times in the course of the 
 speech. If the occasion is a great one — an 
 anniversary or a pic-nic, prominent allusion 
 is made to "this interesting occasion," to the 
 pleasure which it gives the angels in heaven 
 to behold it, and to the Sunday finery with 
 which the children are adorned. If it is at a 
 Sunday School convention, where five-minute 
 speeches are being delivered? these trite re- 
 marks consume the whole of the speaker's 
 
188 THE EJklPTY MAN. 
 
 time, and he costs the convention exactly five 
 minutes of its time, whenever he rises ; giving 
 nothing in exchange for it. 
 
 At an anniversary or other meeting where 
 this gentleman officiates, he asks, as a partic- 
 ular favor, that he may be the last speaker. 
 This he does in the hope that he may gather 
 a few ideas from the speakers who precede 
 him. He makes the most of his opportunities 
 here, and sometimes succeeds in appropriating 
 some ideas, but without such digestion as to 
 make them his own. AYhen he brings them 
 out, it is as when a turkey would steal pea- 
 cock's feathers for purposes of personal adorn- 
 ment ; all who see their rich plumage know 
 that they did not grow upon the turkey. 
 He says, " as the previous speaker has just elo- 
 quently remarked" — and then he proceeds 
 with a mangled hash of what he thought the 
 speaker said, with variations. If the youth- 
 ful hearers are asked what he said, they are 
 apt to give such an account as did a little girl 
 who had been listening to one of these empty 
 
THE EMPTY MAN. 189 
 
 men. " Why, ma, he talked, and he talked, 
 and he told us he was glad to see us ; and then 
 he talked ; hut he didn^t say nothing J" 
 
 A man commenced speaking quite eloquent- 
 ly at a meeting where the speeches were to 
 be but five minutes long, but after he had 
 spoken about two minutes, he consumed the 
 remaining three in telling how sorry he was 
 that the time was so short ; he would like to 
 have more time. By general consent, his time 
 was extended, as we all supposed he had some- 
 thing to say ; which being done, he paused, 
 scratched his ear, and said, "well, really, Mr. 
 Chairman, I don't know that I have anything 
 more to say." The irrepressible smile which 
 followed, interfered sadly with the devotional 
 purposes for which the meeting was lield. The 
 man was, oratorically viewed, a tin rattle. 
 One jingle finished him. 
 
 The Empty Speaker generally talks a great 
 while ; always as long as he is allowed to. 
 He keeps on in the hope that he will succeed 
 in saying something, a hope which is shared 
 
190 THE EMPTY MAN, 
 
 by his hearers, but which is most generally 
 disappointed. That which he says will not 
 w^arrant the labor and expense of phonograph- 
 ing or printing. 
 
 Emptiness arises from want of preparation. 
 It may seem to some people absurd to talk of 
 preparing to address children. It is a great 
 deal more absurd to address them without 
 preparation. Consider what you have to say. 
 If you have nothing to say, keep your mouth 
 carefully closed. If on consideration, you 
 find that you have somewhat to say, out witli 
 it, weighing every word, and every thought, 
 dressing it in its most pleasing garb, and be- 
 ing very particular to stop the moment you 
 get done. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 The Dull Speaker. 
 
 JT is not polite to withdraw from a public 
 assembly while a gentleman is speaking. 
 That is the reason why people stay to listen to 
 the dull man. They would rather go home. 
 As they feel that they must stay, some of 
 them take advantage of the opportunity which 
 is offered for slumber. 
 
 The Dull Speaker is among orators what the 
 hippopotamus is among the beasts of the field. 
 He is ponderous, slow, uncouth, and some- 
 what majestic. He puts forth his views in 
 the stately but clumsy manner in which the 
 great animal puts out his feet when he walks. 
 And he as completely crushes out all interest 
 from the minds of his weary hearers, as the 
 hippopotamus crushes the weeds and grass 
 wherever he sets his great flat feet. When 
 
192 THE DULL SPEAKER. 
 
 he commences his speech he looks as if to say, 
 " here is wisdom ; " and although the appear- 
 ance of wisdom is carried along the whole 
 course of it, the wisdom itself is so far down 
 in the depths of s]3eechly profundity, that it is 
 impossible for ordinary people to fish it up, 
 or else it is so completely enwrapped in fog, 
 that it cannot be seen. But he has the name 
 of being exceedingly wise. 
 
 There is little dispute about what he says. 
 His manner throws his matter so much in the 
 shade, that but few of his hearers concern 
 themselves about whether it is wise or unwise. 
 Frequently he utters sound sense, but in such 
 a way as to render the youth whom he ad- 
 dresses, insensible to any good efiect it might 
 otherwise produce on them. His wisdom 
 would be in order for delivery to a historical 
 or statistical society, or for printing on those 
 pages of a benevolent society's report which 
 are never read. But nb Sunday School wants 
 to be wearied by its insufierable dullness. 
 The only comments we hear about it, when it 
 
THE DULL SPEAKER. 193 
 
 is over, are those which touch on its tiresome- 
 ness, its heaviness, or the celebrity and gene- 
 ral ability of the good and great man who has 
 uttered it. Nobody remembers any particu- 
 lar point in it, if indeed it had any point. 
 Sometimes the speaker does get off a worn- 
 out joke, which is remembered for its clum- 
 siness, its failure to produce the effect which 
 a well executed joke is known to produce, 
 and its being entirely out of place in every 
 respect. 
 
 If the Dull Speaker, and his brother, the 
 Long-winded Speaker, should both speak on 
 the same occasion, it is entirely too much for 
 any audience. If a collection is to follow the 
 efforts of either, or both of them, the particu- 
 lar branch of benevolence which the collection 
 is intended to refresh, is likely to go very 
 hungry. All the hearers yawn when Mr. 
 Dull begins. The children have got into the 
 habit of yawning at the mere mention of his 
 name. 
 
 Dull is behind the age in most things. If 
 
194 THE DULL SPEAKER. 
 
 he sp(3aks at a missionary meeting, he tells 
 things which were known in 1834, rather 
 than matters of more recent intelligence. He 
 sometimes spreads himself on how one Kobert 
 Raikes went into a certain Sunday School en- 
 terprise, which was the beginning of all pres- 
 ent Sunday School enterprises. In national 
 matters, he has got as far as to where the 
 rebels fired on Fort Sumter, and may be ex- 
 pected by next anniversary season to have be- 
 come acquainted with the facts of the first bat- 
 tle of Bull Paul. 
 
 Talk to this man about interesting the chil- 
 dren. Tell him that he does not do it, and 
 that he ought to try. He wdll put on a look 
 of profound wisdom, and gravely shake his 
 head, while he tells you of the stuff and flum- 
 mery with which many vain men seek to in- 
 terest children. These men, he says, arouse 
 a certain degree of ephemeral excitement ; how 
 much better to give them something good and 
 solid. These men but tickle the youthful 
 ears, while his wise sayings go all the way to 
 
THE DULL SPEAKER. 195 
 
 the heart. Perhaps he thinks they do, but if 
 he would examine the children at the close of 
 a ilull discourse, he would find that not even 
 th3ir ears were touched. ~ 
 
 Mr. Dull ! Mr. Dull ! wake up ! You are 
 not interesting the children, or anybody else. 
 Nobody wants to listen to you. You proba- 
 bly do harm every time you open your mouth 
 to speak. You could do good if you would 
 turn over a new leaf. Remember that you 
 have no more right to serve np even good 
 truth in your dull way, than your cook has to 
 bring your food to the table prepared in such 
 a way that you cannot possibly eat it. Wake 
 up, sir ! When you speak, remember that 
 you have a message for your hearers. Up to 
 your duty of delivering it, in a straight-for- 
 ward, manly way ! Think well and study 
 well before-hand what you are to say. Stand 
 erect, throw back your shoulders, and throw 
 open your mouth, and let the speech roll out 
 clearly and plainly, so that it will be heard. 
 Begin without apology or introduction. Be- 
 
196 THE DULL SPEAKER. 
 
 gin without telliog who you are, or the cir- 
 cumstances of merely personal interest which 
 have called you out. Speak fast enough to 
 keep your hearers from going to sleep. Look 
 them in the eyes so as to make each one say 
 when he goes home, "Mother, that man was 
 looking right at me." Above all, feel that 
 you must try to do them some good, and trying 
 this, throw your whole soul into the speech. 
 Then nobody will say you are a Dull Speaker 
 any more. 
 
 Not worth the trouble of all this? Can't 
 doit? Then, sir, quit your public perform- 
 ances altogether. Sit down in the far corner 
 of yonder pew, and go to sleep, and give 
 place to somebody who can keep everybody 
 but yourself awake. There is no use in try- 
 ing to wake you up. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI\r. 
 
 The Talking Superintendent. 
 
 /jLp VERY good teacher in the Sunday School 
 \Zy over which this gentleman presides, 
 wishes that a stopper could be applied to his 
 fluency. The indifferent teachers hold him 
 in admiration, for he exercises his gifts so 
 much as to save them the trouble of filling up 
 the time with teaching, and so to avoid dis- 
 closure of the fact that they ^e unprepared 
 on the lesson. 
 
 His ways about the opening exercises are 
 not like the ways of other superintendents. 
 Some men can give dut a hymn without offer- 
 ing remarks on it, but our friend cannot. He 
 sees in each verse that is to be sung, some 
 important truth, which he fears will not be 
 observed by the children unless he calls their 
 attention to it. So he delivers an extempore 
 
 197 
 
198 THE TALKING SUPEKINTENDENT. 
 
 address of several minuted on the first verse, 
 to begiu with. The important things in the 
 following verses then crowd upon him so 
 thickly, that by the time he is done giving 
 them the attention they deserve, several 
 minutes more have passed. He is startled for 
 a moment when he looks at the clock, but 
 thinks he will make it all square by singing 
 only a part of the hymn. He gives out, " Sing, 
 if you please, two stanzas, beginning at the 
 fourth." He congratulates himself so much 
 on the saving of time thus efiected, that before 
 engaging in prayer, he addresses the school on 
 the subject of prayer ; an excellent subject, 
 and one whicir should be frequently before 
 them, but not especially in order just now. 
 The prayer being duly arrived at, and finished, 
 a chapter in the Bible is to be read. The su- 
 perintendent now becomes a speaking com- 
 mentary, partly studied, partly extemporized, 
 principally the latter. Time is spent here 
 which ought to be spent by the teachers in 
 giving prepared instruction, and a slender 
 
THE TALKING SUPERINTENDENT. l99 
 
 amount of good is accomplished by the expo- 
 sitions, which he gives, which are too often 
 like the " variations " which young ladies play 
 on the piano — somewhat pleasing to the ear, 
 but generally only dilutions of the march, 
 quickstep or popular air which is thus 
 " varied." For instance, if he is reading the 
 eleventh chapter of Joshua, he would oifer the 
 remark on the eighteenth verse that the kings 
 against whom Joshua was fighting were so 
 many, and their opposition so great, that he 
 spent a long time in the war before he could 
 finish it ; the remark being about three times 
 as long as the verse, and throwing no light 
 whatever on it. When the cli^ter is finished, 
 the way is clear for exhortation on whatever 
 subject is uppermost in his mind. The regu- 
 lar duties of the school ought to go on, but 
 he cannot bear the thouofht of neoflectino- so 
 good an opportunity for a speech. Some- 
 times his speech is on the lesson, sometimes 
 on punctuality, sometimes on the management 
 of the library, sometimes on making a noise 
 
200 THE TALKING SUPERINTENDENT. 
 
 in school ; but more frequently on matters 
 and things m general. 
 
 And now, his making of speeches being 
 suspended for a while, he makes the cheering 
 announcement to the teachers that it is time 
 to go on with the lessons. This announce- 
 ment comes like a call to dinner, when the 
 dinner has been standing on the table and 
 getting cold for half an hour. Nobody can 
 go to work on the lesson with the appetite 
 that would have helped them had the speeches 
 been left out. The lesson drao^s. Teachers 
 and scholars are alike wearied. The younger 
 children make a noise. Superintendent jin- 
 gles his bell, gives notice that they will please 
 to stop their noise immediately, and accom- 
 panies the notice with a speech of six minutes 
 on the wickedness of making a noise in Sun- 
 day School. Several of the children pause in 
 their noise-making till the speech is over. 
 
 The lesson is finished, being hurried through 
 in much less than its proper time. Mr. 
 Speechy now ofiers some remarks in expla- 
 
THE TALKING SUPERINTENDENT. 201 
 
 nation of it, which, he says, have occurred to 
 him while the school has been engaged on it. 
 These last remarks are extemporized, and 
 somewhat diffuse. Nobody learns much from 
 them. Then, with a brief harangue on things 
 in general, he dismisses the school. 
 
 On a speech occasion, such as a misssionary 
 day or anniversary, this officer is a great bore 
 to the hearers. He talks so much at other 
 times, that nobody cares about listening to 
 him now. But he allows no such trifling con- 
 sideration as this to interfere with the exer- 
 cise of his gifts and his rights. If he does not 
 positively make a speech, he does a great deal 
 of negative speaking, such as introducing the 
 speakers, which ought to be the work of a 
 moment, but which he spins out by telling 
 where each speaker comes from, and all he 
 knows about him. This, by the way, is very 
 disagreeable to most speakers. He also fills 
 in the chinks of the time by praising each 
 speech, as the speaker sits down. This also 
 is disagreeable, both to speaker and hearers. 
 
202 THE TALKING SUPERINTENDENT. 
 
 If this Sunday School orator could bottle 
 up his fluency, so as to keep it from flowing 
 out when it is not wanted, it would be a great 
 gain to his school and to himself. He needs 
 a time-table, and should run his exercises by 
 it, precisely as punctual railroad conductors 
 run their trains. Let him allow a certain 
 number of minutes for each part of the exer- 
 cises ; if he must make a speech or speeches, 
 let just so many minutes be allowed, and let 
 the speech come in it its proper place and time. 
 Let it be a good speech, well conceived and 
 thought out, and carefully and simply de-, 
 livered, even if it is but three minutes long. 
 Three minutes of such speaking will do more 
 good than a whole session spent in garrulous 
 pnlaver. 
 
CHAPTER XXXY. 
 
 The Stuffed Children. 
 
 CHE practice of stuffing small children 
 with speeches for platform delivery, is 
 so fashionable that it seems little better than 
 useless to say anything against it. There is 
 not much more chance of obtaining a hearing 
 from those who think well of the custom, than 
 there is of being respectfully listened to by a 
 young mother, when you tell her that she is 
 killing her baby by exposing its neck and 
 arms uncovered ; or by a young lady, when 
 you warn her of the mischiefs of tight-lacing. 
 Young mother insists that her baby's arms 
 are covered enough ; that they do not need 
 any covering at all ; and that you know noth- 
 ing whatever about the baby. Young lady 
 declares that her lungs are not crowded by 
 the foolish machinery with which she girdles 
 
 203 
 
204 THE STUFFED CHILDREN. 
 
 them, and that it is nobody's business but her 
 own, if she does choose to kill herself in this 
 way, rather than to die a natural death. So 
 the promoters of juvenile speaking maintain 
 that it is excellent training for the ohildren 
 who speak ; that it will make statesmen and 
 orators of the boys — (the corresponding ar- 
 gument for girls must be, that it will give them 
 sufficient command of language to enable them 
 to scold handsomely in the event of becoming 
 maternal heads of families) — that it will ben- 
 efit the school religiously and pecuniarily, es- 
 pecially the latter ; and that it is in every re- 
 spect a very fine thing. 
 
 Nevertheless, whether people will listen or 
 not, let me say a word about it. 
 
 It cannot be denied that great numbers of 
 dimes and such things, are taken at the door 
 of every Sunday School or church thrown 
 open for one of these exhibitions of stufied 
 youngsters. Neither is it denied that the 
 young persons so stufied and exhibited do ac- 
 quire a certain amount of brazen-facedness, 
 
THE STUFFED CHILDREN. 205 
 
 which, if cultivated, will fit them for active 
 duties in public speaking, scolding, or any 
 other branch of exhortation. But the money 
 so raised, burns holes in the prosperity of the 
 school, and the oratorio gifts thus acquired 
 by the children, are of very questionable ad- 
 vantage. 
 
 An anniversary is announced under the ob- 
 jectionable name of " Exhibition," thus putting 
 our children in the same category with the 
 " What-is-it," the Thumb family, the learned 
 seal, and the calf with two heads. And the 
 name of exliihition is just the name for it. 
 The children whom we love, are thrust for- 
 ward for show, exactly as are the celebrities 
 just mentioned. Their performance is some- 
 times very good, sometimes exceedingly poor, 
 sometimes of a negative order, half-way be- 
 tween good and bad,' puzzling the disinter- 
 ested bystander as to the verdict he is ex- 
 pected to render concerning it. Strange 
 speeches are spoken, and odd poems recited, 
 by children who know no more of the mean- 
 
206 THE STUFFED CHILDEEN. 
 
 iiig of what the J are saying, than does the 
 green parrot in the tin cage, of what he 
 screeches. Some selections are made from 
 the Bible, in which case the words of Scrip- 
 ture are sometimes beautifully rendered, some- 
 times mangled, or carelessly hurried over, with 
 as little reverence as would be observed in re- 
 citing the multiplication table. Other selec- 
 tions are made from the reading books in use 
 at day-school, or from some of the "dog-a- 
 log " books published for the purpose. "My 
 name is IN^orval on the Grampian hills," "You'd 
 scarce expect one of my age," " My voice is 
 still for war," and such stirring bits of elo- 
 quence, are shown up side by side with "A 
 dialogue by tAvelve boys and two grown per- 
 sons, representing Joseph's dream ; " " A dia- 
 logue by two boys, on the use of Tobacco ; " 
 and "How doth the little busy bee, by a little 
 girl three years old last Wednesday." The 
 printed programmes, describing these enter- 
 tainments, are often very funny things, and 
 worthy of preservation in sc7'ap books or 
 
THE STUFFED CHILDREN. 207 
 
 other safe places. The style of the oratory, 
 too, is queer. "Norval on the Grampian hills," 
 aged fourteen years, looks sternly at his hear- 
 ers, raises his right arm as the handle of a 
 pump is raised, and proceeds. The boy whose 
 " voice is still for war," shows that his utter- 
 ances come from his heart, by placing his hand 
 frequently over that organ, extending his fin- 
 gers and thumb very much as a daddy-long- 
 legs extends his legs in crawling. One of the 
 Tobacco dialogue boys goes heart and fists in- 
 to the subject, while the other one, (the boy 
 who has the worst of it,) has the same style 
 of animation as that which is shown by the 
 painted mandarins in the tea-shop windows. 
 The three-year old "Busy Bee," squeaks out 
 what she has to say about that industrious in- 
 sect, in the very best way she knows how. 
 Her gestures are like those of a jointed doll. 
 Poor little creature ! She should have been 
 put to bed two hours ago, instead of being 
 trotted out tliis way at night, to be made a 
 show of. 
 
208 THE STUFFED CHILDREN. 
 
 I recently paid ten cents for admission to 
 one of these infant prodigy shows, the printed 
 programme of which announced forty pieces 
 to be spoken or performed — just four for a 
 cent. The performers and orators were from 
 two years and a half old, all the way to big 
 boys and girls, the girls being dressed in a 
 profusion of finery. The thing was held in a 
 church. The platform was cleared of the pul- 
 pit, so that the oratoric juveniles might have 
 space in which to spread themselves. The 
 pastor announced the items of performance, in 
 their turn. All went on according to pro- 
 gramme, till about nine o'clock, when he an- 
 nounced, "the next item on the bill is, Ad- 
 dress by an infant of three years old.'' He 
 then benevolently looked down from the plat- 
 form to assist the infant when it should be 
 pushed up by its parents, who were near by, 
 in charge of the little creature. But no infant 
 was thrust forward. After a few moments 
 of delay and buzz, the pastor announced, "I 
 regret to say, that the infant who was to have 
 
THE STUFFED CllILDEEN. 209 
 
 addressed us, has gone to sleep! " Poor little, 
 over-stimulated, exhausted child ! She had 
 taught her foolish parents and friends, that 
 they should not make such stupid demands on 
 three-year-old humanity. Her stuffing and 
 cramming all went for nothing ; the ambition 
 of the parents was disappointed, as it ought 
 to have been. The audience laughed heartily. 
 The next youngster was stood up, and the 
 moral menagerie-show went on. 
 
 A view of the poor creatures behind the 
 curtain, may be profitable. 
 
 Deciding which children shall speak is a dif- 
 ficult and dangerous enterprise. Who shall 
 decide? Whoever does, is sure to get some- 
 body's ill-will, for not deciding that some- 
 body's children shall speak, instead of the 
 children of somebody else. The committee 
 who have this business in hand, almost always 
 get into trouble. But this is comparatively a 
 small matter, for they are grown people, and 
 can make the best of their way out of it. 
 
 There are two hundred and fifty children, 
 
210 THE STUFFED CIIILDKEN. 
 
 let US say, in the school. About thirty 
 speeches are wanted. That will be an abun- 
 dance. Two hundred and twenty young per- 
 sons must he speechless. What are the qual- 
 ifications for those who are to speak? Age, 
 stature, parentage, ability to gesticulate, moral 
 or intellectual excellence, or punctual attend- 
 ance at school for a term of months? From 
 the shocking speaking which some of the 
 young orators do, one would suspect one of 
 these roads to omtoric fame, as quickly as an- 
 other. The fact is, there is a great deal of 
 wire-pulling about it, just as there is in polit- 
 ical life, about the nomination of candidates. 
 (It is a common fallacy to suppose that all the 
 candidates nominated and elected in our free 
 country, are those whom the people really 
 want.) Mrs. Dull wants her Johnny to make 
 a speech, or recite a poem. The committee 
 know that John will make slow business of 
 it ; he hasn't the right kind of brains. But 
 Mrs. D. gave fifty dollars to the church last 
 year, and if her Johnny is rejected, she may 
 
TIIE STUFFED CHILDREN. 211 
 
 withdraw her interest in it. Besides, she 
 offers to stuff and train him, which takes a very 
 great burden off of somebody. John is ac- 
 cepted, trained, and exhibited, but makes such 
 a poor fist at learning "Excelsior," that were 
 it not for the attentions of the boy who sits 
 near at hand with his booli, acting as prompt- 
 er, he would have to leave the platform in 
 disgrace. Sampson Spry is disposed to take 
 part in the exercises, and is supposed to have 
 some oratorio ability, but his speech runs into 
 very lively gesticulations, like the toy jacka- 
 napes, which jumps by pulling a string, and 
 Sample is not understood. The committee 
 prevail on the parents of Georgiannette Slim 
 to let her perform as an infant prodigy, but 
 Georgiannette eats green pears a few days 
 before the " exhibition " comes off, and is laid 
 on the shelf till it is over. The friends and 
 adherents of the two hundred and twenty 
 young persons who make no speeches, are 
 divided in feeling ; some being angry at the 
 committee for not bringing their children for- 
 
212 THE STUFFED CHILDREN. 
 
 ward : while others congratulate themselves 
 that their children were not made fools of, as 
 were most of the children who spoke. 
 
 Then, after the speaking is done, the vain 
 children are elated by the compliments heap- 
 ed upon them, and even the sensible ones are 
 tickled by the same. No matter how badly 
 a child performs, some people will praise it, 
 sometimes for expediency, to keep in flivor 
 with the parents, sometimes for the sake of 
 not discouraging the little thing. If these 
 compliments induce a repetition of the decla- 
 mation, their effect is bad. Anyhow, dosing 
 a child with compliments is a dangerous kind- 
 ness. 
 
 What is the effect on the school ? Tremen- 
 dous. Did not the newspaper reporter go to 
 the show? Did he not describe it in such 
 glowing colors as to break every school in 
 tov\ai which does not have such shows ? Did 
 he not praise the immense trouble, and the 
 forgetfulness of expense with which the com- 
 mittee had got up the entertainment ? Did 
 
THE STUFFED CIIILDrwEN. 213 
 
 he not speak of the polish and refinement of 
 Johnny Dull, of the earnestness and activity 
 of young Mr. Spry, and of the delicate tones 
 of Sally Simper's voice, of whose speech he 
 could not hear one word ? Did he not com- 
 mend the singing, the ability of the superin- 
 tendent, the devotion of the teachers, the elo- 
 quence of the pastor, (whom he never heard,) 
 the beauty of the church, the density of the 
 crowd, and all other things that ought to be 
 commended? Oh, yes — it is a very prosper- 
 ous school, a notorious school, and all because 
 it had an " exhibition " of its children, who 
 were taken in charge not to be shown off in 
 this style, not to be trifled with, but to be 
 taught the way of everlasting life. 
 
 Stuffing children for anniversary speeches, 
 may be a good way to draw a crowd ; to fill 
 an exhausted treasury ; to give children a 
 taste for stuff and nonsense instead of for the 
 gospel ; to gain the praise of the v/orld ; but 
 it is not the way to make children wise unto 
 eternal life. The business is growing more 
 
214 THE STUFFED CHILDREN. 
 
 popular every day. Many well-meaning Chris- 
 tians have suffered themselves to be taken in 
 by its popularity. Serious work of the Sun- 
 day School is in many instances neglected for 
 it. If it is not checked, it will become an evil 
 even of more fearful magnitude than it is now. 
 Better let the children sit as hearers of 
 speeches ; if they want to let their voices be 
 heard, teach them to sing in the most glorious 
 style possible. Teach them, too, real hymns ; 
 not the trash which is fit only to be fiddled 
 and danced to, which too often finds its way 
 into our Sunday Schools. Provide for speak- 
 ers, wise, able, interesting Christian men, 
 who will instruct as well as entertain ; throw 
 open your doors, and invite your friends to 
 come to your anniversary. Don't charge 
 them, any more than you would for coming to 
 a sermon or a prayer-meeting. ,They have a 
 right to be there. Raise money in some other 
 way, to pay the expenses of the school. Your 
 school, and all concerned with it, will prosper 
 in this way, better than by turning religious 
 education into an intellectual menagerfe. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 The Peripatetic Bore. 
 
 E is an uneasy genius, who cannot find 
 rest for the sole of his foot in any par- 
 ticular branch of Sunday School effort. He 
 used to teach a class ; but a peculiar kind of 
 headache, which attacked and vanquished 
 him every Sunday, placed him on the exempt 
 list, after a brief and irregular term of ser- 
 vice. He was put in charge of the library ; 
 but his aching head could not stand the labor. 
 They made him superintendent; but at the 
 next election it was considered advisable to 
 drop him, and substitute a man of more stead- 
 fastness and ability. So, on the principle that 
 an Ex-President of the United States cannot 
 consent to serve as police magistrate or town 
 clerk, the uneasy person has ever since been 
 out of office. But he feeL^ a warm interest in 
 
 215 
 
216 THE PERIPATETIC BORE, 
 
 the Sunday School work, and that feeling of 
 interest needs public ventilation. How shall 
 it be ventilated ? 
 
 There is no such effectual way of putting 
 himself and his Sunday School interest before 
 the public, as to travel round from school to 
 school, paying visits, and making addresses 
 to those who will listen to them. He per- 
 forms a vast amount of this self-imposed 
 missionary labor, and often to the regret of 
 the schools which suffer it to be inflicted on 
 them. His first visit is an occasion of inter- 
 est ; but after he has been along three or 
 four times, the remark is made, "Here comes 
 that same man again," or " AYhat does he come 
 so often for? " or " We ha^e heard all he has 
 to say." Pie does not let on, if he hears these 
 remarks, but keeps on with his visits, and 
 makes a speech wherever he is invited. The 
 obliging superintendent of the school which 
 he most frequents, has resolved not to ask him 
 to speak again ; but his good nature gets the 
 better of his judgment, and the bore is again 
 
THE PERIPATETIC BORE. 217 
 
 and again permitted to entertain himself by 
 his well-meaning harangue. 
 
 To listen to his own account of the labors 
 he has performed, the good he has done, the 
 sacrifices he has made, and the perspiration 
 and fatigue he has suffered, you would sup- 
 pose that he had refreshed all the Sunday 
 Schools within several miles of where he lives, 
 and has saved the most of them from almost 
 hopeless decay. You would suppose that the 
 boys and girls in these schools are as clamor- 
 ous for his coming as they woidd be for a 
 magic lantern show, or the exhibition of a 
 menagerie with several monkeys in it. From 
 his version of the politeness with which the 
 superintendents receive him, and the pressing 
 urgency with which they invite him to speak, 
 you would not imagine how tired they are of 
 him, and how they do invite him to spe^k 
 only because they fear his feelings wdll be hurt 
 if they let him sit speechless. When you 
 hear him tell of the breathless attention with 
 which both adults and children listened to 
 
218 THE PEEIPATETIC BOKE. 
 
 his "few remarks," suppress your recollec- 
 tion of the yawns which overcame you, as 
 you heard him deUver, at your school, the 
 same speech which you had heard him de- 
 liver three previous times elsewhere. And 
 do not spoil the " original anecdote " which 
 he has spun out to twenty-two Sunday 
 Schools, by referring to the religious newspa- 
 per from whose columns he scissored it. 
 
 It is not necessary, for the sake of polite- 
 ness, to ask everybody who visits your Sun- 
 day School to " ofler a few remarks." Some 
 superintendents have a habit of doing it, just 
 as they would ask a man to take a seat, or to 
 let them take his hat and umbrella. Few 
 things are likely to injure a Sunday School 
 more certainly than this species of vagabond 
 oratory. It distracts the attention of the chil- 
 dren from their lessons ; it disarranges the 
 order of the exercises ; it frequently reduces 
 the spirituality of the school ; it is altogether a 
 nuisance which ought not to be tolerated. 
 
 If the afflicted superintendent of a suffer- 
 
THE PERIPATETIC BOKE. 219 
 
 ing Sunday School wants to get rid of these 
 troublesome visitors, there are two ways in 
 which he can do it. 
 
 First — Don't ask anybody to speak for the 
 sake of politeness, unless you are sure he will 
 make a good speech. Do not allow even a 
 good speech, unless you can arrange it for an 
 appropriate moment. 
 
 Second — When you see Mr. Peripatetic 
 Bore coming in, rush up to him, grasp him 
 by the hand, and tell him you are ^o glad to 
 see him, for you want him to teach that class 
 of small boys whose teacher is absent and has 
 provided no substitute. Now you have him. 
 He don't like work. He says he is not pre- 
 pared on the lesson. In vain you compli- 
 ment him by assuring him of your belief that 
 he is always prepared on any portion of 
 Scripture. He finds that you prefer that he 
 shall not make a speech. He pulls out his 
 watch and extemporizes an engagement which 
 he must positively fulfil, in fifteen minutes, at 
 a school in the next street. He really cannot 
 
220 THE PERIPATETIC BORE. 
 
 stay. Try this on him two or three times, 
 and he will weary you Avith his speeches no 
 more. 
 
 An uneasy person looks over my shoulder 
 and asks, "Why do you write that stuff? 
 Why not write something spiritual, to con- 
 vert souls ? " To whom I make answer, that 
 if we want our Sunday Schools spiritualized ; 
 if we want to lead souls to Christ ; the surest 
 way of attaining our object, is by confining 
 our schools to the plain and earnest teaching 
 •of gospel truth, and to that end ridding them 
 of all such speech-making humbugs as the 
 Peripatetic Bore. 
 
CHAPTER XXXYII, 
 
 The Apologetic Speaker. 
 
 '/iV HIS orator begins by saying that he posi- 
 \llJ tively cannot speak, owing to a very bad 
 cold in his head, which he caught a few days 
 ago by imprudently leaving off one thickness 
 of his under garments. Or, he is a sufferer 
 from the aching nerves of a partially decayed 
 tooth, which he has allowed to remain in his 
 lower jaw longer than it ought to, by reason 
 of not having had time to go to the dentist's 
 for the purpose of having it rooted out. Or, 
 he has not fully recovered from the bruise on 
 his knee, which he received when that joint 
 came violently in contact with the brick pave- 
 ment one night last week, some careless or de- 
 signing person having placed melon rind in a 
 spot on which he could not avoid treading. 
 Or, the illness of his wife's cousin (on the 
 
222 THE APOLOGETIC SPEAKER. 
 
 mother's side) has so engrossed his attention 
 since the fourteenth of last month, that he 
 cannot collect his thoughts. Or, he fears 
 (after promising to speak) that he is not 
 the best man whom the committee could 
 have selected for this interesting occasion, 
 and as he sees around him those who are 
 more eloquent than he, he trusts that his 
 well known inability to interest an audi- 
 ence, will suffice for a reason why he should 
 give place to some of the learned and gifted 
 gentlemen who are present. Or, the pres- 
 sure of business during the past few days has 
 been such as never, in all his business expe- 
 rience, (and here he stops to hint at what a 
 tremendous experience he has had) , crowded 
 on him before. It has completely ovei- 
 whelmed him. Or — he is totally unprepared. 
 The audience sympathizes with the afflicted 
 person, and unanimously conclude that it is 
 unreasonable to expect a speech from a man 
 laboring under any or all of the above men- 
 tioned disabilities. They wonder that his 
 
THE APOLOGETIC SPEAKER. 223 
 
 family could have consented to his leaving 
 home under the circumstances ; and still 
 greater is their surprise to see that the com- 
 mittee do Tiot, on hearing his apologetic 
 statements, at once procure a comfortable 
 hack, and hurry him to a place of repose and 
 safety. 
 
 But he wants no hack. Instead of sitting 
 down when he is done explaining that he 
 cannot speak, and why he cannot, he pushes 
 on ! The sympathy which his hearers at 
 first felt, subsides on seeing that he does ac- 
 tually get along. The catarrhal affection in 
 his head gives him less trouble than he had 
 anticipated. The pangs of the aching ivory 
 are lulled. Ointment seems to have been 
 suddenly and mysteriously applied to the 
 battered knee. The wife's cousin can take 
 care of herself till the speech is over. Plis 
 stammering tongue moves with ease and vol- 
 ubility which could not have been expected 
 of it. For one who was so entirely without 
 preparation, he does manage to fill up his 
 
224 THE APOLOGETIC SPEAKER. 
 
 allotted time, and generally somewhat more ; 
 for when a man begins with an apology, if 
 he consumes half his time in uttering it, he 
 counts the beginning of his speech at about 
 where the apology ended, and so keeps on. 
 
 Generally he is as good as his word, and the 
 audience soon find him out, a] id wish they 
 had encouraged him to sit down, when he 
 declared his inability to speak. His talk is 
 apt to be a continuous string of nothings, 
 amounting in their total to exceedingly little. 
 It did certainly need some apology, if indeed 
 it ought to have been spoken at all. It would 
 have been better to omit it altogether. His 
 hearers grow weary, and, while they wish 
 him no particular harm, hope that some of 
 his infirmites will interfere with his appear- 
 ance in public, should a future invitation be 
 extended to him. 
 
 Sometimes it is the case, however, that a 
 speaker who begins with an apology makes a 
 really excellent speech. This, which is a rare 
 occurrence, is only an evidence that good 
 
THE APOLOGETIC SPEAKEE. 225 
 
 men sometimes do foolish tilings. No apology 
 ever helps a speech. No speech is as good 
 with an apology at its beginning, as it is if 
 the speaker plunges at once into what he has 
 to say, and says it earnestly and clearly. The 
 only w^arrantable apology is in the case of 
 the speaker of feeble voice, who consumes 
 the first five minutes of his speech in building 
 the fire under his boiler to get up sufficient 
 steam to enable his voice to be heard. If we 
 must have an apology, let us have it then, for 
 nobody will lose anything by not hearing it. 
 The UTvpre/pared apologist is the most ob- 
 jectionable. If he is really unprepared, as he 
 says, he has no business to make a speech. 
 If he is prepared, he is guilty of doing some- 
 thing naughty, in saying that he is not. In 
 either case, he is the man who speaks longer 
 than the others. There is no necessity for 
 lifting the curtain and letting the congrega- 
 tion into the secrets of how you get up your 
 speech. When you invite guests to dinner, 
 you do not take them into the kitchen to 
 
226 THE APOLoaETrc speaker. 
 
 show tliem how the cookery was doue. And 
 if you should serve up the food raw, it would 
 be the last thing of which you would boast, or 
 even make mention. In the event of an emer- 
 gency, calling forth a purely extemporized 
 speech, there is no use in telling your hearers 
 about it, for you may be assured that some of 
 them will never find it out, and those who do, 
 can do so without being publicly informed of 
 it. 
 
 At a rural anniversary, a speaker rose, on 
 being introduced to the assembly, and with 
 serious face said, ""My friends, I regret to say 
 that I feel sick at my stomach, and I fear that 
 I shall not be able to address you on this occa- 
 sion." He went right on, however, the con- 
 gregation looking for active developments of 
 the disease, The over-fed organ discontinued 
 its rebellion against the rest of the man's 
 system, and the speech lasted three-quarters 
 of an hour. If he felt unable to speak, he 
 should have remained quiet ; if able, there 
 was no reason why he should offend the good 
 
THE APOLOGETIC SPEAKER. 227 
 
 taste of his hearers by saying exactly what 
 was the matter with him. 
 
 So much for apologies. They are, at best, 
 useless ; at worst, hypocrisy. Away with 
 them. 
 
CHAPTER XXXYIII. 
 
 The Untimely Speaker. 
 
 OME people seem to have been born at 
 the wrong time. Many an enthusiastic 
 inventor has struggled out a life-time of pov- 
 erty and disappointment, because he was born 
 a generation or so before the public were 
 ready to take hold of his ideas. There are 
 sloYv^ persons who are evidently a generation 
 behind the times. Others have entered the 
 world from ten to fifteen minutes too late, as 
 may be seen by their coming into church or 
 Sunday School, regularly that much after the 
 exercises have commenced. 
 
 It is uncertain whether the present- speaker 
 was born too late or too early. He is an un- 
 seasonable creature. His " few remarks" seem 
 always to be launched just at the time when 
 they are most inappropriate. He has not the 
 
TPIE UNTIMELY SPEAKEE. 229 
 
 gift of saving the right thing at the right 
 time. It might be an advantage to his hear- 
 ers if he would keep his thoughts entirely to 
 himself, and a select circle of his intimate 
 friends and admirers. But he will let the 
 world have the benefit of them, whether it 
 wants to hear or not. He generally has a 
 hobby. Sometimes it is a pet interpretation 
 of a passage of Scripture, on which he thinks 
 commentators and others have blundered. 
 Sometimes it is the use of tobacco. Some- 
 times it is parental mismanagement. Some- 
 times the " inevitable negro." And sometimes 
 it is almost nothing at all. 
 
 A meeting for prayer is held during the 
 sessions of a religious assembly ; let us say, 
 for instance, a Sunday School convention. 
 The ordinary opening exercises have been dis- 
 posed of. . All are in the spirit of j)rayer, and 
 expecting a profitable season. The chairman 
 announces that prayers or brief exhortations 
 are in order. Up jumps Mr. Untimely. He 
 proceeds with the information that he has 
 
230 THE UNTIMELY SPEAKER. 
 
 three sons, two nephews, and a cousin, in the 
 army ; states the regiments to which they 
 belong, the names of the colonels, and the 
 dates of their departure for the seat of war •, 
 then tells that certain of them have unfortu- 
 nately been wounded, and gives a brief ac- 
 count of the nature of their wounds and the 
 battles in which they were received. This 
 consuming nearly all of his share of time, he 
 hastily winds up by telling what a good thing 
 it is to be a prayerful soldier, or to have a 
 Bible in your pocket in case you are hit by a 
 minie ball. He adds a sort of postscript to 
 his remarks, to say that he has at home a 
 minie ball which went half way through his 
 cousin's Bible, and which he will be happy 
 to show to any of the brethren w^ho will call 
 at his residence, number fifteen Jeremiah 
 street. The chairman would stop him, only 
 that he has an idea that each sentence of the 
 inappropriate part, is the last, and that he is 
 rapidly arriving at the practical portion of his 
 exhortation. If this speaker rises during the 
 
THE UNTIMELY SPEAKER, 231 
 
 « 
 
 business sessions of the convention, he is sure 
 to speak on the wrong resolution » or to say 
 some unwise thing if he happens to hit the 
 right one. The chairman kindly undertakes 
 to put him right, but he plods on, remaricing 
 that if that officer will pay attention, he will 
 find that he will presently come to the point. 
 The point is so pointless, when it is arrived 
 at, that nobody sees it. 
 
 We go to a children's meeting. Untimely 
 has consented to be one of the speakers. The 
 house is full, principally of children, but with 
 a sprinkling of grown people. The other 
 speakers have addressed the children. Mr. 
 Untimely thinks it w^ould be a shame to let 
 all these fathers, mothers, aunts, and uncles 
 go without a speech specially for them, and 
 so addresses all his remarks to adults, forget- 
 ting the presence of the very little people 
 whom he was invited to address. The re- 
 marks may be excellent, but they are thrown 
 away. The little folks take vengeance on 
 him, some by going to sleep, others by mak- 
 
232 THE UNTIMELY SPEAKER. 
 
 iiig a disturbance, for no children need be ex- 
 pected to beiiave themselves in a public meet- 
 ing, unless they are interested in what is go- 
 ing on. 
 
 Another untimelj^ man volunteers a speech 
 at the close of a meeting where four or five 
 speakers have already been heard. He thinks 
 he is full of something to say. He boils over. 
 He gushes up to the chairman, and says he 
 must say a word in conclusion. Chairman 
 uncorks him, and lets him proceed. But his 
 bottle contains only a few bubbles of enthusi- 
 astic froth, with some stupid common-place 
 underneath it. The bottle has such a long 
 and narrow neck that the contents, though 
 not good for much, consume some time in 
 getting out. The o\\\j way to quench him, is 
 to sing some well knovv-n hymn, in which all 
 can join. 
 
 One or two ^^ untimely men " can easily 
 spoil a prayer-meeting, a children's meeting, 
 or, in fact, a meeting of any kind. They soon 
 become known, in the places which they fre- 
 
THE UNTIMELY SPEAKER. 233 
 
 qiient, and can be avoided. A good chairman 
 soon learns how to look in another part of the 
 house, so as not to see them when they bounce 
 up, crying, "Mr. Charman ! Mr. Chaimian! 
 just one word on this subject, if you please, 
 sir." 
 
 The Untimely Speaker is not a hopeless 
 nuisance. He can, in some instances, be re- 
 formed, especially if he 'is not too old, or too 
 much set in his ways. His chief mistakes 
 arise from the feeling that he must make a 
 speech, coupled with partial or total absence 
 of somewhat to say. For want of prepara- 
 tion, he stumbles into nonsense. Or from 
 want of appreciation of time, place, and cir- 
 cumstances, he wanders into something use- 
 less, or calculated to hurt somebody's feelings. 
 If some kind and judicious friend will tell 
 him of his mistakes, and show him what is 
 right, he may so far reform as to make a very 
 useful and acceptable speaker. If he refuses 
 advice, and says he knows so much that he 
 cannot be improved on, drop him. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 The Ridiculous Speaker. 
 
 CHE last words of the ponderous address 
 of that able man, the Eev. Dr. Plod, 
 have just fallen upon the wearied ears of the 
 audience. The audience are glad, for Dr. 
 Plod has been speaking for forty minutes. He 
 has been into the depths of metaphysical the- 
 ology, and has rolled out his weighty sa3dngs 
 with logical accuracy, and even with elegance 
 of diction. But it was not possible for his 
 youthful hearers to understand one w^ord of it. 
 Mr. Ridiculous has been announced as the 
 next speaker. The children know him, and 
 are looking for some lively refreshment from 
 him, which they feel that they deserve, after 
 listening to the stately utterances of Dr. Plod. 
 He knows, too, that if that distinguished per- 
 son were to continue his address much longer, 
 
 224 
 
THE RIDICULOUS SPEAKER. 235 
 
 the hearers, great and small, might be snor- 
 ing. They need waking up. And he will 
 wake them up. He reasons within himself, 
 " Old Plod couldn't come it over these folks ; 
 but see me fetch them." And he proceeds to 
 "fetch them." 
 
 The first thing he does is to make a comical 
 face at the children. The children at once 
 set him down as a superior man, for Dr. P.'s 
 countenance was as unmoved as a mile-stone, 
 during his speech. Now he is going to inter- 
 est them. They begin to love him, and wish 
 he were going to talk all the time. He makes 
 another funny face, wiiich makes the youthful 
 congregation laugh. These pleasant smirks 
 are instead of the ordinary " introduction " 
 with which sermons are begun. 
 
 The " introduction " being over, he plunges 
 into the heads of his subject — (if his subject 
 had any heads, or if he had any subject, it 
 would be a good thing) — or, at any rate, he 
 plunges into something. It is a string of 
 funny nothings, without head, middle, or tail. 
 
236 THE RIDICULOUS SPEAKER. 
 
 One queer story succeeds another, interspers- 
 ed with pleasant grimaces, which come as nat- 
 urally and as frequently as do the oaths with 
 which profane men spice their conversation. 
 It is extremely delightful to .the children, but 
 miserably unprofitable. It is like the elegant 
 froth puddings which adorn hotel dinner ta- 
 bles ; fine to look at, but poor stufi" to feed 
 upon ; nearly all froth, and almost no pud- 
 ding. As it would not require a careful cal- 
 culation to ascertain exactly how long it would 
 take a man to starve on such puddings, so we 
 might easily calculate how soon a Sunday 
 School would run down if statedly fed on 
 such foolish nothings as the present orator 
 utters. 
 
 Both Mr. Ridiculous and Dr. Plod are in 
 error, although their errors are widely difier- 
 eiit in their character. Plod is as grave as a 
 sexton ; Ridiculous cannot help playing the 
 bufi'oon. Plod never smiles, while Ridiculous 
 thinks that the chief excellence of speaking 
 is to keep the children on a broad grin all the 
 
THE EIDICULOUS SPEAKEE. 237 
 
 time. The Doctor thinks it undignified to be 
 constantly using illustrations, and so entirely 
 avoids them. The funny man uses great 
 loads of them, but they are only jokes, and 
 are not used to illustrate anything in particu- 
 lar. Plod disapproves of froth pudding, but 
 does not hesitate to ofier his young friends 
 stale sawdust pie. The one they cannot pos- 
 sibly swallow or digest ; the other they gulp 
 down in large spoonfuls, but the more they 
 get of it, the poorer and thinner they become. 
 It is very easy to make children laugh, 
 especially very young children. But making 
 them laugh should not be the chief object of 
 the man Vv^ho addresses them in Sunday School. 
 If mirth is all that is desired, it would be well 
 to omit the speech altogether, and only do 
 funny things. Let a funny person go from 
 bench to bench in a Sunday School, and tickle 
 the children's noses with a straw, or pleasantly 
 punch them under the ribs with a stick, and 
 he will have the school in a burst of cheerful 
 merriment sooner than by delivering the very 
 
238 THE RIDICULOUS SPEAKER. 
 
 funniest address he knows. Perhaps some- 
 body says this would be a ridiculous proceed- 
 ing. Not much more ridiculous than some 
 of the buffoon speeches which are sometimes 
 made. 
 
 It is not denied that the Ridiculous Speaker 
 succeeds in securing the attention of the chil- 
 dren. Children will give heed to whatever is 
 amusing. Let a man come along with a bar- 
 rel organ, and the most entertaining speaker 
 cannot hold their attention. Let some lively 
 boy report that there is a monkey in attend- 
 ance on that instrument of music, and it takes 
 more than ordinary discipline to restrain them 
 from crowdmg the doors and windows to wit- 
 ness the grotesque performances of the merry- 
 making little beast. 
 
 How far, then, is it right to be funny in 
 speaking to children? Very little, indeed, if 
 we want to do them good. Some cheerful 
 brother is disturbed at this, and fears we are 
 taking the side of Dr. Plod. Don't be alarmed, 
 my cheerful friend. It is right to flavor your 
 
THE RIDICULOUS SPEAKER. 239 
 
 speech with amusing remarks, just as you 
 put sugar in your coffee. A little sugar, if it 
 is a good article of sugar, without too much 
 sand in it, will sweeten a good-sized cup of 
 coffee. If you drink the (decoction of rye, 
 chestnuts, roots, and other stuff now generally 
 used for) coffee, without sugar, it is very dis- 
 agreeable. If, on the other hand, you put too 
 much sugar in it, you find a quantity of good- 
 for-nothing sweetening at the bottom of the 
 cup, which the coffee w^ould not dissolve, and 
 which is not useful, either as coffee, sugar, or 
 anything else. So must we season our speech 
 with exactly the right quantity of an excellent 
 article of mirthfulness. If a good joke comes 
 in place to point an illustration with, use it by 
 all means, but take care that neither joke nor 
 illustration are used only for the sake of say- 
 ing something sharp or funny. If the speech 
 is all joke, it is coffee with too much sugar. 
 If too dry and solemn, it is coffee with the 
 sugar left out, and however pure Mocha it may 
 be, nobody wants it, or can enjoy it. 
 
240 THE RIDICULOUS SPEAKER. 
 
 While sweetening our speech with the sugar 
 of pleasant mirthfuhiess, let us also be careful 
 that it be well seasoned with the salt of divine 
 grace. Otherwise it cannot be written of it, 
 " and the speech pleased the Lord." 
 
CHAPTER XL. 
 
 In the Pulpit. 
 
 fT is much more the fashion now for minis- 
 ters to take some notice of the children of 
 their congregation, than it was a good many 
 years ago. Different men have different ways 
 of encouraging their young people. Some pat 
 them on the h&td or back ; some look pleas- 
 antly at them ; some come into Sunday School 
 and make short or long speeches to them ; and 
 some put in every sermon a few sentences so 
 plain that the children can understand them. 
 When the children hear these sentences, they 
 feel that an oasis has been arrived at, in the 
 midst of a dreary wilderness of sermon ; while 
 the plain words are being uttered, they wake 
 up, give earuest attention, and often carry 
 home a thought or two of what was said for 
 them. 
 
242 IN THE PULPIT. 
 
 But the prevalent way of manifesting pas- 
 toral interest in children, is to give them, on 
 stated occasions, a special sermon, just for 
 themselves. If this is wisely done, it is an 
 excellent thino^. Tfie children understand that 
 it is their sermon, and that the big folks, even 
 if they do enjoy a monoply of the preaching 
 at other times, are now sitting under the 
 sound of the gospel only by sufferance. How 
 often these juvenile preachings are to be had, 
 is regulated according to the taste and con- 
 venience of the parties preaching and preached 
 to. 
 
 It is not equally convenient for all men to 
 come down from the stately step-ladder of 
 adult sermonizing, to the plain and simple 
 business of dispensing gospel milk to babes 
 in Christ. Some, who stand on the very high- 
 est step of the ladder, while uttering the reg- 
 ular eloquence of the pulpit, come down a 
 step or two with uncertain footsteps, as if 
 they feared a tumble ; and discourse with a 
 constant nnrvous grasp of the topmost step, 
 
IN THE PUtPIT. 243 
 
 which renders their footing even more uncer- 
 tain. Some, on the other hand, leap all the 
 way down the ladder, and get into the mud at 
 its base, where they do much floundering 
 about, in their efforts to be simple, and to 
 make the children understand. Some men 
 seem to have the faculty of adapting them- 
 selves to children at once ; some acquire the 
 art, after long and patient study and practice, 
 with occasionally an utter failure ; while some 
 seem never to meet with that success which 
 their laborious efforts deserve. 
 
 A young minister, in a town, no matter 
 where, filled his church with children and 
 young people. He made a special business of 
 preaching to them every Sunday afternoon, 
 attending more particularly to the grown 
 people in the morning. The effects were vis- 
 ible on the church of another denomination, 
 on the opposite corner. The pastor of this 
 church was a man of middle age, a very giant 
 in controversial theology, and who preached 
 able, powerful, and very deejp sermons. He 
 
244 IN THE PULPIT. 
 
 and his people were distressed that all the 
 young folks should take such a fancy to the 
 preaching of the heterodox little man over the 
 way. They consulted over a plan to bring 
 back the wandering lambs of the flock, and 
 concluded that if their pastor would preach a 
 course of afternoon sermons to children, it 
 would be just the thing. The little man 
 feared, when he heard it announced, that all 
 his young hearers would go to hear the doctor 
 of divinity. And his audience was indeed slim, 
 the first day that the learned man preached. 
 The next Sabbath, the great man had a very 
 thin house, while the junior preacher again 
 had a full attendance. The secret of the mat- 
 ter was, that the young man knew how to 
 preach to children, while the other did not. 
 
 Children do not so naturally take to hearing 
 sermons, as to rush in great crowds whenever 
 and wherever it is announced that a sermon 
 will be delivered. On the contrar}^ the very 
 name of sermon is such a bugbear with many 
 young persons, that they will devise almost 
 
IN THE PULPIT. 245 
 
 any excuse rather than go to hear preaching. 
 It is therefore necessary to hold out some ex- 
 traordinary inducement to them, in order to 
 make them come and listen. Making them 
 come is one business ; making them listen, so 
 as to carry away some good of the discourse, 
 is another. You may drive the children into 
 church, as pigs are driven into a pen, but it 
 does not follow that the preaching will bene- 
 fit them, only because you watched them so 
 sharply that not a single boy got a chance to 
 slip off. Unwilling hearers are very hard 
 hearers to preach to. If the child has the 
 sulks because he was sent to church, he will 
 not carry home a pleasant impression of the 
 sermon, even if it was the best that could be 
 delivered. 
 
 How, then, shall we make them come and 
 listen ? Simply by making the sermon as at- 
 tractive as possible. Grown people may 
 come, from a stern sense of duty, to listen to 
 sermons which are as dry as census reports. 
 Children will run away from such unpalatable 
 
246 m THE PULPIT. 
 
 repast. But if you take the census report 
 and change its tabular statistics into language 
 of the style of Peter Parley's geography, inter- 
 spersed with an occasional bit of poetry and 
 a few pictures, the children will devour it, and 
 cry for more. So with the most solid theolo- 
 gy. Children might just as well learn it as 
 not. They can be told of every attribute of 
 God, and of God's purposes, and the wonders 
 of his grace in Jesus Christ, far easier in sim- 
 ple language than in profound theologic for- 
 mula. The sermon must be preached in 
 language that they can understand, full of the 
 right kind of illustrations, and must be deliv- 
 ered in such a way as to secure the steadfast 
 attention of every child in the audience. Then 
 the children will all come, bring their friends, 
 and children and friends together will go 
 home profited as well as interested. 
 
 It is not necessary to talk nonsense to 
 children in order to secure their attention. 
 Whatever admiration we may have for Mother 
 Goose in the nursery, let us not make geese 
 
IN THE PULPIT. 247 
 
 of ourselves by introducing her into the Sun- 
 day School or the pulpit. 
 
 The sermon should be short. If it is over 
 half an hour, the children will forget the most 
 of it. The other services should be appropri- 
 ate to the occasion. The prayers may well 
 be shorter than usual ; two short prayers will 
 be better than one long one. Never neglect 
 reading the Bible on any preaching occasion, 
 great or small. Sing plenty of hymns, and 
 sing them well. The " childrens' day," will 
 then be one of the most pleasant of all religious 
 exercises, and even the grown people will 
 come to hear what it is that the children listen 
 to, and perhaps to be profited by the absence 
 of that stateliness with which the gospel is 
 sometimes dealt out to them. 
 
CHAPTEE XLI. 
 
 The Truly Eloquent Speaker. 
 
 ^*^HE literal meaning of the word eloquence, 
 ^l\J is speaking out. The truly eloquent 
 speaker, then, is the man who brings out 
 what he has to say, in such a way that his 
 hearers, great or small, may take hold of it, 
 and appropriate to themselves the good that 
 is contained in it. 
 
 Two things are necessary in order that 
 speech may be eloquent ; first, that there be 
 something in the speaker, which can be 
 brought out ; secondly, that it be brought out 
 in such a way that it shall be good for some- 
 thing when it is out. 
 
 The mighty guns, which do the heavy shoot- 
 ing from our iron-clads, are very harmless 
 thinofs when there is no load in them. The 
 enemy may come directly under their muzzles, 
 
THE TRULY ELOQUENT SPEAKER. 249 
 
 and go away in perfect security. They may 
 even shake their fists at tlie guns, kick them, 
 or^ut their heads into the capacious bores, as 
 the menagerie man thrusts his head between 
 the gaping jaws of a tame old lion, and re- 
 main uninjured. But let the great gun be 
 loaded, and a gunner with lighted match, stand 
 at the touch-hole, and everybody knows what 
 may be expected. Let the worn-out old lion 
 be suddenly restored to his original savage 
 vigor, and loaded up with the juvenile energy 
 which he used ta have when he was a little 
 lion, living in a jungle, and he will perform 
 such a crack of the jaws as will leave the 
 headless trunk of the late menagerie man a 
 witness to the recklessness of its owner. 
 
 But it is important that the gun be rightly 
 loaded, and with the proper material. You 
 may stuff a fifteen-inch Dahlgren up to the 
 muzzle with snow, and no startling effects 
 will be produced. You may load with solid 
 shot, but if the solid shot have no gunpowder 
 behind it, the getting of it out again will be a 
 
250 THE TRULY ELOQUENT SPEAKER. 
 
 difficult job. If the solid shot is an imper- 
 fect one, the probability is that it will go spin- 
 ning over the country in a vagrant fashion, in- 
 stead of going directly against what it was 
 intended to hit. Load with a shell, such as 
 some rebel sympathizers, in one of our navy- 
 yards, filled with saw-dust instead of the ex- 
 plosive things with which shells are expected 
 to be filled, and the result is the same as if 
 you fired iron kettles or tin pans at the 
 enemy. 
 
 So much for what is put -in the gun. N"ow 
 about getting it out, so as to accomplish 
 something with it. 
 
 A good gunner is ]oarticular about sighting 
 his gun, and aiming it, so as to carry the mis- 
 sile which it contains exactly to the right spot. 
 It must not be pointed too high or too low, 
 or too much on either side. He must have 
 the apparatus with which he touches it oiF, in 
 good order, and must apply it just at the 
 right time. If he is firing shell, he must have 
 the fuse so arranged that the explosion will 
 
THE TRULY ELOQUENT SPEAKER. 251 
 
 take place at the right moment of tune. Oth- 
 erwise all his gunnery goes for nothing. 
 
 As with firing guns, so with making speech- 
 es. The eloquent^ man does not come to the 
 platform unloaded, and trusting to the force 
 of circumstances to put a load into him. He 
 is careful, before commencing his speech, to 
 prepare his material ; to have it of the right 
 kind, and to pack it in the very best way for 
 getting it out efiectively. There is no danger 
 that he will merely make a gunpowder flash, 
 and be done. Mr. Empty sometimes makes 
 a flash with startling efiect, and some of the 
 people think it is very fine. But it amounts 
 to nothing. The eloquent speaker does not 
 stufi" himself up with apologies, coughs, and 
 clearings of the throat, silly jokes, or long- 
 winded and pointless stories, all of which 
 things unhappily constitute the stock in trade 
 of many orators who stand before children. 
 
 So he is ready to fire off" his load. There 
 is a science in doing it rightly. It is not 
 everybody who is even crammed with knowl- 
 
252 THE TRULY ELOQUENT SI'EAKER. 
 
 edge of the finest kind, that can make that 
 knowledge available to youthful hearers. Mr. 
 Slow goes to school all the period of his boy- 
 hood, then to college for four years, and to 
 theological seminary for three more ; and yet 
 the children of other people whom he tries to 
 address, suspect him of being a great booby. 
 Plenty of learning has been crammed into the 
 man, but it stuck fast, and there is no getting 
 it out. Mr. Poke is exceedingly wise, and 
 writes for the Journal of Science ; but Avhen 
 he addresses people, he puts his hands in his 
 pockets, stands on one leg, and hesitates and 
 stammers, till his sleepy audience are ready 
 to exchange him for any person, even of lim- 
 ited attainments, who will interest them, and 
 wake them up. The eloquent man begins in 
 earnest, continues in earnest, and stops when 
 he is done. He keeps his audience awake all 
 the time. They stay awake because they are 
 interested. Being interested, they are apt to 
 be instructed and profitted. The word which 
 is aimed directly at them, goes home to their 
 hearts, and does them good. 
 
THE TEULY ELOQUENT SPEAKER. 253 
 
 Some people suppose that there is some 
 mysterious secret about success in addressing 
 children. This is a mistake. The only sci- 
 ence in it, is the science of being perfectly 
 natural, simple, and straight-forward. There 
 is no use of usinsf lon£>' or bombastic words to 
 children, when short and easy ones will 
 answer. Admit that children can and do use 
 and understand such long words as thermome- 
 ter, water-melon, and the like ; is there any 
 use in saying empyrean, when we mean shy? 
 When we wish to tell them that something is 
 very had, is it necessary to say that it is over- 
 whehningly heinous? If we do use such ex- 
 pressions, the children will be hopelessly con- 
 fused, and will not remember even enough to 
 ask their parents at home what all these wise 
 things mean. Some kind people y^j say 
 that these examples are extreme cases ; ])ut if 
 they will listen with pencil and paper in hand, 
 to many a Sunday School speech, they will 
 hear words as striking as these. I heard a 
 man who took for a text, in speaking to his 
 
254 THE TRULY ELOQUENT SPEAKER. 
 
 Sunday School, the word " Sin." Surely short 
 enough. But he actually went on to talk to 
 them of the " overwhelming heinousness " of 
 sin ! It would have been an interesting ex- 
 perin\ent to examine the children on their 
 views of sin, after the discourse was over. I 
 heard iinother man, on another occasion, tell- 
 ing a church full of children, some long stuff 
 about being " potentially saved ! " 
 
 It is not necessary, on the other hand, to 
 descend, as some infantile reading books do, 
 to words of onl}^ three letters. This is incon- 
 sistent with true eloquence. 
 
 If we had more humility, and more of the 
 child-like simplicity of the gospel, we would 
 succeed better in intere~sting and instructing 
 the little people who are placed under our 
 care. 
 
CHAPTEE XLII. 
 
 *^And the Speech pleased the Lord." 1 Kings 3: 10. 
 
 '/'i HIS is the sum of the whole matter This 
 vJy is the true test of the excellence of every 
 address that is made, whether to young per- 
 sons or to adults. If the speech is acceptable 
 to God, he follows it with his blessing. If it 
 is not well pleasing in his sight, it is of no 
 use, however much the congregation to whom 
 it Avas addressed may be delighted with it. 
 
 It is the custom, however, to measure the 
 excellence of speakers and their speeches by 
 a much lower test. Instead of asking whether 
 the speech, discourse, or sermon was accepta- 
 ble to God, the common question is, " How 
 did the people like it ? " or, " Does he draw a 
 full house?" Instead of asking if it was cal- 
 culated to do good, the inquiry is often made,. 
 " Did he tell any stories ? " or, " Did he say 
 
 25 5 
 
256 AND THE SPEECH 
 
 anything funny ? " As manufacturers con- 
 sult the tastes and wishes of the people to 
 whom they expect to sell their goods, so as to 
 find a ready market for them when they are 
 made, it is not surprising that many speakers 
 and preachers of the Word, are led to give the 
 people what they see that the people want. 
 And the peoples' wants vary from time to 
 time. Although the demand for change of 
 style in public addresses is hardly as capri- 
 cious as that for change in style of bonnets or 
 coats, yet there is continual change. Our 
 forefathers would sit on oaken benches, in 
 houses of worship in wliich it was thought 
 sinful to erect stoves, even in the coldest 
 w^eather ; two weary hours would be spent in 
 giving heed to a discourse, often as dry as it 
 was long. Things have changed. A dis- 
 course of that length is now cut into about 
 three, and given to the hearers in such sizes 
 and shapes as can be more readily taken in. 
 Instead of the frigidity and oaken hardness of 
 the surroundings of worship, it is the fashion 
 
PLEASED THE LOED. 257 
 
 to sit on cushioned seats, with comfortable 
 backs. The demand which probably existed 
 in those days for dullness in style and matter, 
 has perceptibly abated. If a speaker were 
 to rise, after the manner of the forefather 
 preachers, and tell us that he would now 
 proceed to treat his subject by dividing it 
 into six heads, each of which heads would 
 be sub-divided into four particulars, and 
 each particular again divided into subordinate 
 heads, numbered firstly, secondly, and third- 
 ly ; if said preacher were then to go on to do 
 all this, what a surprising effect would be pro- 
 duced on a congregation of worshippers in this 
 fast age of smart speakers, cushioned benches, 
 and warmed meeting houses. And if one 
 of the sensation speakers of modern times had 
 stood before a Massachusetts congregation 
 of 1663, his hearers would have been startled 
 out of their propriety, and would have won- 
 dered what the man was about. It would be 
 an interesting subject for discussion, which 
 sort of discourse is most acceptable to God ; 
 
258 AND THE SPEECH 
 
 for, strange as the olden time sermon may- 
 seem to us, we cannot deny that some of our 
 forefathers attained a degree of godliness, 
 which, to say the least of it, is not surpassed 
 by the hearers of modern preaching and 
 speaking. 
 
 It is not, then, only the style and matter of 
 the speech that concerns its usefulness or ex- 
 cellence. There is something behind the 
 words we say which is even more important 
 than the discourse itself; though the congre- 
 gation may not be able to perceive it, or to 
 judge of its quality if they do. " Let the 
 words of my mouth, and the meditation of my 
 heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O, Lord, my 
 strength and my Redeemer." What is in our 
 heart controls and regulates that which we 
 utter. It may be high-sounding eloquence to 
 the ears of those who hear ; if it come not 
 from the heart, it is as empty froth. It may 
 not specially tickle the ear, or please the fan- 
 cy, and yet, if its motive is good, God accepts 
 it, and blesses it both to hearers and speaker. 
 
PLEASED THE LORD. 259 
 
 The great duty in preparing and deliver- 
 ing a discourse of any kind, from an infant- 
 school talk to a sermon, is to see that our 
 hearts are right in the sight of God ; that what 
 we select to say is that which will honor God ; 
 that we may say just those things which will 
 lead our hearers »to increased godliness ; and 
 that we speak in such a way as to make them 
 hear and remember ; for if what we say is 
 God's message, we have no right to deliver it 
 in such a way as to produce no impression. 
 
 We serve a just God. He is not a hard 
 master. He puts upon us no more task than 
 we can accomplish, but he expects us to do 
 our work well. He gives us material and 
 tools, and expects us to use our material to the 
 best advantage, and to keep our tools in excel- 
 lent order. He gives us his message to deliver 
 to our perishing fellow sinners. It does not 
 please him if we give them something else 
 instead of it. It does not please him if we 
 mangle the message, so that they cannot un- 
 derstand it, or tell it in such a stupid way 
 that they go to sleep instead of listening to it. 
 
260 THE SPEECH PLEASED THE LORD. 
 
 It is no light business to give the word of 
 eternal life to our fellow creatures, even 
 though they be little children. There is a 
 weighty responsibility assumed with every 
 speech that is delivered. Let us seek to bear 
 this responsibility worthily, " not handling 
 the word of God deceitfully ; but, by mani- 
 festations of the truth, commending ourselves 
 to every man's conscience in the sight of God." 
 So, when we speak, we shall speak the words 
 of wisdom, and speak them wisely, and, even 
 though we may not so much delight the itch- 
 ing ears of those who seek only amusement 
 and entertainment, we will have the better 
 record on high, ^* And the speech pleased the 
 Lord.'' 
 
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 PICTORIAL CONCORDANCE of the Holy Scrip- 
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 MILLENNIAL EXPERIENCE, or the Will of God 
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 THE HIGHER CHRISTIAN LIFE. A volume of re- 
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 SONGS, for Social and Public Worship ; containing 
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 THE STORY OF A POCKET BIBLE. An autobio- 
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 THE OLD RED HOUSE. By the author of Capt. 
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 BERNICE, The Farmer's Daughter 85 
 
 THE MODEL MOTHER, Or, The Mother's Mis- 
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 ONLY A PAUPER. A work of graphic interest. 
 
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 OPPOSITE THE JAIL. By the author of the Child 
 
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 PALISSY, THE HUGUENOT POTTER. A Historic 
 
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 CAPT. RUSSEL'S WATCHWORD. Combining rar» 
 
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 STRAIGHT FORWARD, or Walking in the Light. 
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 WORKING AND WINNING, or the Deaf Boy's 
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 CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN, or how I rose in the 
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 ELLEN DACRE, or Life at Aunt Hester's. By the 
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 SEQUEL TO TIxM, THE SCISSORS-GRINDER. By 
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 TALES FROM THE BIBLE. First Series. By Rev, 
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 THE LOST WILL. By Mrs. A. E. Porter. This work 
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 NOONDAY. By the author of Capt. Russel's Watch- 
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 TIM THE SCISSOR-GRINDER, or Loving Christ 
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 PIETY AND PRIDE. An historic tale. Illustrated. 75 
 
 WILL COLLINS, or the Way to the Pit. By Miss 
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 'the ORGAN GRINDER, or Struggles after Holi- 
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 THE SOLDIER'S RETURN. Illus 70 
 
 ANTOINETTE. The original of the Child Angel. 
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 THE DRUNKARD'S DAUGHTER. By the author 
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 LELIA AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. A splendid 
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 DAISEY DEANE. By the author of Grace Hale Il- 
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 GUYON'S LETTERS. Translated by Mrs. Prof. 
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 THE FLOUNCED ROBE AND WHAT IT COST. 
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 THE LITTLE MOUNTAIN GUIDE, or How to be 
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 THE GOLDEN MUSHROOM. By the author of the I 
 
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 THE SUNBEAM, and other Stories. Beautifully 11- | 
 
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 UNCLE JABEZ, or the History of a Man whose Boy- 
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 HANNAH LEE, or Walking in the Light. Illust. . . . 50 
 
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 LIEUTENANT MESSINGER. Illus 50 
 
 LITTLE ONES IN THE FOLD. By Rev. Edward 
 
 Payson Hammond. 50 
 
 SIMILITUDES. By Miss Lucy Larcom, a writer of 
 
 rare excellence. Illustrated 50 
 
 THE CONQUERED HEART. By the author of 
 
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 JOHNNY McKAY, or the Sovereign. 18mo. Illust. 45 
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 the author of Hillside Farm. Illust 45 
 
 LITTLE MAY, or of What Use am I? Illustrated. 45 
 
 ROBERT WALTON, or the Great Idea. Illustrated. 45 
 
 THE FACTORY GIRLS. A touching narrative. 
 
 Fully illustrated 45 
 
 MOORCROFT HATCH. By A. L. 0. E. , one of the 
 
 most gifted writers of the age 45 
 
 PETE, THE GUNNER BOY. By Grandmother Hope. 
 
 Illustrated 45 
 
 CHARLEY ADAMS, the Morning Laborer. Illus. 40 
 THE BEGGAR'S CLOSET, and What it Contained. 
 
 Illustrated 40 
 
 ADDIE ANSLEY, or How to Make Others Happy. A 
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 HILLSIDE FARM, or Home Influences Illustrated. 
 A book for the family. Illus 40 
 
CATALOGUE OF BOOKS. 
 
 THE FAITHFUL PROMISER, in- large type. A de- 
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 GRACE HALE. A book for girls. Fully illustrated 40 
 
 HEMLOCK RIDGE, or only Dan. White's Son. 18mo 
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 MACKEREL WILL, The Thieving Fisher-boy. lUus. 40 
 THE BOUND BOY. By the author of Tim, Sequel 
 to Tim, Prairie Flower, etc. Illus 40 
 
 THE BOUND GIRL. By Mrs. Madeline Leslie, 
 author of Tim, etc. Illus 40 
 
 VIRGINIA, OR THE POWER OF GRACE. A touch- 
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 the streets of New York. By the author of Tim. 
 Illus 40 
 
 JOE CARTON, or the Lost Key. A book for boys. 
 Illus 35 
 
 ROSE COTTAGE. A beautiful juvenile. Illus. ... 35 
 
 MILES LAWSON, or the Yews. Illus 35 
 
 ROSE DARLING, or the Path of Truth. By the 
 author of Joe Carton, Hop-Pickers, etc. Beauti- 
 fully illustrated 35 
 
 HENRY MINTURN, or my Dark Days. Beautifully 
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 MATTY FROST. A story for girls. By the author 
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CATALOGUE OF BOOKS. 
 
 LITTLE APPLE BLOSSOM. By the author of Car 
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 HENRY LANGDON. By Louisa Payson Hopkins. 
 Illus 35 
 
 THE PRAIRIE FLOWER. By the author of Tim, 
 the Scissors-Grinder. A narrative of the tenderest 
 interest. Illust 35 
 
 PLEASANT SURPRISES. A charming juvenile. 
 Illustrated o... 35 
 
 THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY. The Child of the 
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 STELLA, OR THE PATHWAY HEAVENWARD. 
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 SUNDAY SCHOOL SPEAKER, or. Children's Con- 
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 PAPA'S LITTLE SOLDIERS. By C. E. K , author 
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 CARRIE ALLISON, or in the Vineyard. By the 
 author of Grace Hale 30 
 
 WHr THE MILL WAS STOPPED, or Overcoming 
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 FRANK TALBOT, or Unstable as Water. Illus 30 
 
 GEORGE ROWLAND, The Servant Boy. Illus-. 30 
 
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 THE PARISH HALL, and What Was Done There. 
 
 Fully illustrated 30 
 
 GRANDMOTHER TRUE, or When I was a Little 
 
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 TEDDY WHITE, or the little Orange Sellers. Illus.. 30 
 OUR DEAR EDDIE. A rare example of piety in a 
 
 Sabbath School Scholar. Illus 30 
 
 LOSS OF THE SHIP KENT, by Fire. A work of 
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 THE YOUNG MILLINERS. A book for girls. Illus. 30 
 
 THE POWER OF FAITH. A narrative of Sarah 
 
 Jordan. Illus 30 
 
 THE YOUNG HOP-PICKERS. By the author of 
 
 Matty Gregg. Illus 30 
 
 TAKING A STAND. By Mrs. H. C. Knight, author 
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 OUR FATHER'S HOUSE. A sweet juvenile. Illus. 30 
 ANNIE LYON, or the Secret of a Happy Home. Illus 30 
 SOWING AND REAPING. A book for boys. Illus. 30 
 THE GOLD DIGGER. What he lost and what he 
 
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 THE YOUNG SERGEANT, or the Triumphant 
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 Antoinette, etc 30 
 
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 ALICE HAVEN. A book for girls. By the author 
 
 of Grace Hale, Carrie Allison, etc. Illus 30 
 
 THE TELESCOPE. An Allegory. Filled with Bible 
 
 truth, and clothed in beautiful imagery, Tllus 25 
 
 LEONARD DOBBIN, or the One Moss Rose. Illus.. 25 
 KITTY'S KNITTING-NEEDLES. A book for girls. 
 
 Illus 25 
 
 THE FOX HUNTER. A work of unspeakable value 
 
 to disciples. By Dr. Malan 25 
 
 NED, THE SHEPHERD BOY, changed to the Young 
 
 Christian. Illus 25 
 
 WILLIE AND CHARLIE, or ihe Way to be happy. 
 
 Illus 25 
 
 JANE THORNE, or the Head and the Heart. Illus.. 25 
 JENNIE CARTER, or Trust in God. By Catherine 
 
 D.Bell. Illus 25 
 
 PHILIP AND BESSIE, or Wisdom's Way. Illus.. . . 25 
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 with approved mode of conducting it 25 
 
 LEAVING HOME. By the author of Capt. Russel's 
 
 Watchword, Ellen Dacre, Old Red House, Blind 
 
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 LITTLE JERRY, The Ragged Urchin, and under 
 
 what Teachings he was Reclaimed from the Street. 
 
 lilas 25 
 
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 THE BELIEVING TRADESMAN, an authentic story, 
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 THE SUNDAY EXCURSION, and what came of it. A 
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 BLIND ETHAN. By the author of Capt. Russel's 
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 ROBERT RAIKES, the founder of Sabbath Schools 
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 SONGS FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL AND VES- 
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 BENNY'S BIRDS. Illus - 25 
 
 STOLEN GOLD PIECE. Illus 25 
 
 ALICE FIELD. Illus 25 
 
 SEALING THE SPIRIT 20 
 
 THE REMEMBERED PRAYER. A charming juve- 
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 SHIPS IN THE MIST. By the author of Similitudes, 
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 LAZY STEPHEN, and what made him a valuable 
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 THE LOST HALF CROWN. A charming juvenile. 
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 TOM MATHER AND THE LOST PURSE. Reveal- 
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CATALOGUE OF BOOKS. 11 
 
 JESSIE AT THE SPRING, and Other Stories. De- 
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 THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER'S DAUGHTER. A 
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 WILLIE WILSON. A dear child was Willie. The 
 story and its associations speak for themselves. Ill 20 
 
 THE YOUNG RECRUITING SERGEANT. The mind 
 of a little child sometimes exercises a potential in- 
 fluence over that of an adult. Illus 20 
 
 YES AND NO. Two very hard words to speak in 
 the light of a temptation. Illus 20 
 
 TOM BRIAN IN TROUBLE. Much easier is it to 
 get out of it. This story is a practical commentary 
 on a great truth. Illus 20 
 
 DREAMING AND DOING, and Other Stories. Great 
 truths in life experiences. Illus 20 
 
 SANCTIFICATION. By Rev. J. Q. Adams 20 
 
 THE HANDCUFFS, or the Deserter. Illus .... a ... . 15 
 
 THE LUNATIC AND HIS KEEPER, and other narra- 
 tives. Illus 15 
 
 MUST I NOT STRIVE? or the Poor Man's Dinner. 
 
 Illus 15 
 
 THE LOST TICKET, or Is your Life Insured ? Illus. 15 
 
 THE CHILD ANGEL. Illus 15 
 
 THE DREAM OF HEAVEN. A narrative work of 
 
 touching interest. Tenth thousand 15 
 
 SUNBEAMS FOR HUMAN HEARTS 15 
 
DATE DUE 
 
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Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries 
 
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