BV 1534 .C3 1911 
 Carmack, Harry Edgar, 1864- 
 How to teach a Sunday-school 
 lesson 
 
How to Teach a Sunday- 
 School Lesson 
 
 . By 
 H. E. CARMACK 
 
 ^'i OF PHiiTcl 
 
 MAY 1 1911 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London 
 
 AND 
 
 Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 191 1, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 123 North Wabash Ave. 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 
 
To Harold and Robert.- 
 
 We have had many walks and talks 
 together^ not the least delightful being 
 those on the way to Suiiday-school every 
 Sunday morning since yon ivere old 
 enough to zvalk. In memory of these 
 good times ^ I dedicate this little book to 
 you, and knowing that you ivould never 
 forgive me if I failed to do so, I also join 
 with you in this dedication the member of 
 the Home Departme7it who, as we three 
 are agreed, is the best little woman in the 
 world and whom I call Wife and you 
 call Mother. 
 
 Your Father. 
 
Preface 
 
 THIS book is another attempt to apply 
 the principles of psychology and 
 pedagogy to the work of Sunday- 
 school teaching. As so many excellent 
 manuals have already appeared on the sub- 
 ject, a word of explanation and perhaps of 
 apology is due as to why the author ventures 
 into this field. He began his work as a 
 Sunday-school teacher, as so many other 
 teachers have begun, without any previous 
 training, and has acquired his knowledge 
 through a long and trying experience in the 
 actual work of the Sunday-school. This, 
 together with many years of active service 
 in the organized work of the Sunday-school, 
 in teachers' meetings, institutes and con- 
 ventions, has given him, he feels, an under- 
 standing of the needs of the average Sunday- 
 school teacher. Especially does he sympa- 
 thize with those teachers, by far the greater 
 number engaged in the work, who have had 
 7 
 
8 Preface 
 
 no psychological or pedagogical training. 
 In studying many of the books that have 
 been written on this subject, he has often 
 found that there was a gap between the 
 theory as laid down in the book and the 
 teaching of a lesson, a gap easily crossed 
 perhaps by the expert, but too wide and 
 too difficult for the average teacher. It has 
 been his desire to write a book which the 
 teacher can use as a guide in the preparation 
 of each lesson, to give a lesson plan that is 
 thoroughly scientific and to explain each step 
 so plainly and so simply, and with such 
 abundance of illustration, that any teacher 
 can follow it. 
 
 If this book, therefore, has any value dis- 
 tinct from other books on the same subject, 
 the writer believes that it lies in the point of 
 view from which it has been written, that of 
 one who has himself travelled the hard and 
 difficult road. To help those who follow 
 over the difficulties, to save them from the 
 mistakes, the discouragements and the fail- 
 ures which he knows so well, and to help 
 them to know the joy of skillful and success- 
 
Preface 9 
 
 ful effort which he has also tasted : for this 
 he has written this little book. If it shall, 
 even in a small way, accomplish its object he 
 will be well content. 
 
 For convenience the author has, all through 
 the book, used the masculine pronoun in re- 
 ferring to the pupil, and the feminine pro- 
 noun for the teacher. 
 
 The author's indebtedness to others who 
 have preceded him will be apparent. He 
 wishes especially to acknowledge the help he 
 has received from Prof. Charles McMurry's 
 " Method of the Recitation," a book that 
 should be in the hands of every Sunday- 
 school teacher. 
 
 H. E. C. 
 
 IVilkinsburg, Pennsylvania. 
 
Contents 
 
 PART I 
 PLANNING THE CAMPAIGN 
 
 I. The Sunday-School Teacher's Aim 
 
 II. The Career of a Lesson Truth 
 
 III. The Citadel of the Will 
 
 IV. Facts and Truths 
 
 V. The First Advance . 
 
 13 
 
 17 
 29 
 
 33 
 42 
 
 PART II 
 
 THE ATTACK ON THE IMAGINATION 
 
 VI. The Importance of the Imagination . 55 
 
 VII. General Preparation . . .61 
 
 VIII. Special Preparation .... 70 
 
 IX. Presenting the Lesson Facts . . 89 
 
 PART III 
 CAPTURING THE EMOTIONS 
 
 X. What is Interest ? . . . •97 
 
 XI. Interest in Lesson Facts . . .104 
 
 XII. Interest in Lesson Truths . .125 
 
 II 
 
1 2 Contents 
 
 PART IV 
 LAYING SIEGE TO THE REASON 
 
 XIII. Induction . . . . .132 
 
 XIV. Deduction . . . . .138 
 
 PART V 
 FINAL SUGGESTIONS 
 
 XV. Special Lessons . . . .148 
 
 XVI. The Consciousness OF God * . 152 
 
I 
 
 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER'S AIM 
 
 IN order to teach a Sunday-school lesson 
 well, the teacher must have in mind a 
 clear and well-defined aim. The writer 
 once playfully asked a young lady friend of 
 his to discharge a revolver. She took the 
 weapon gingerly in her fingers, 
 of^an'Sm" held it out at arm's length, 
 
 closed her eyes, and pulled the 
 trigger. A good deal of Sunday-school 
 teaching is done pretty much in the same 
 way. The results are such as must be ex- 
 pected from such a haphazard way of pro- 
 ceeding. Contrast with this the aim of those 
 chosen men of the tribe of Benjamin, seven 
 hundred of them, every one of whom knew so 
 well how to use the sling. ^ These men had 
 learned to fix their eyes on the object they 
 wished to hit, and to keep them there until 
 
 • Judges XX. i6. 
 
14 Planning the Campaign 
 
 the stone from the sling went straight to its 
 mark. Thus by keeping the object clearly 
 in view, and by repeated efforts, they acquired 
 that wonderful skill which is so graphically 
 described as " throwing at an hair's breadth 
 and not miss." When our Sunday-school 
 teachers, in the preparation of their lessons, 
 and when they take their places before their 
 classes, learn to keep in mind just what they 
 propose to accomplish, we will have far more 
 effective teaching in our Sunday-schools. 
 
 The purpose of the Sunday-school has 
 been given thus : " To bring the pupil to 
 Christ, to build him up in- 
 IZ'Z-lToi Christ, and to send him 
 forth to work for Christ." 
 This is a good definition of the general pur- 
 pose of the Sunday-school but it is too broad 
 to be of much help in the teaching of a par- 
 ticular lesson. It is well to distinguish be- 
 tween what the teacher seeks to do, and what 
 the pupil is to do as a result of the teach- 
 ing. What the teacher seeks to do is one 
 thing, what the results of that teaching may 
 be in the life of the pupil is quite another 
 
The Sunday-School Teacher's Aim 15 
 
 thing. As a matter of fact the teacher does 
 not bring the pupil to Christ. If he comes 
 he must do so of his own free will and choice. 
 The teacher does not build the pupil up in 
 Christ. He grows towards the Christlike 
 character by daily and hourly choices in right 
 living. The teacher does not send him forth 
 to work for Christ. The life of service must 
 also be entered upon by him out of love for 
 Christ, and a desire to do His will in the 
 world. But there is something that must be 
 done before the pupil can be led to make 
 these choices. What is it ? 
 
 St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians of " the 
 Word of God which effectually worketh also 
 
 in you that believe." ^ It is 
 Sb;;Sl" Point the Word of God in the mind 
 
 and heart that leads to right 
 action in the life. It is the teacher's work to 
 plant the truth in the mind of the pupil. It 
 is the pupil's work to act upon it and thereby 
 transmute it into character. Yet while the 
 teacher's work is to teach and the pupil's to 
 act, a great deal depends upon the way in 
 
 1 I Thess. ii. 13. 
 
l6 Planning the Campaign 
 
 which the truth is lodged in the pupil's mind, 
 as to whether it shall influence his action. 
 Much Sunday-school teaching is done upon 
 the theory that all that is necessary is simply 
 to point out the truth as it lies imbedded in 
 the lesson, and thereupon the mind of the 
 pupil will seize upon it, assimilate it and act 
 upon it. This is a great mistake. We have 
 been told again and again that "telling is 
 not teaching." Nor is it sufficient simply to 
 lodge an abstract truth in the memory of the 
 pupil. It is a familiar fact that pupils may 
 commit to memory hundreds of Bible verses 
 without such verses having any very per- 
 ceptible influence upon their lives. Not 
 mere knowledge but action is the aim in 
 Sunday-school teaching. How to reach the 
 will of the pupil is the great problem. Not 
 simply to lay the truth before the mind of the 
 pupil, but to drive it home to his will should 
 be the teacher's aim in the teaching of every 
 lesson. 
 
II 
 
 THE CAREER OF A LESSON TRUTH 
 
 *' "T" N each of us when awake (and often 
 I when asleep)," says Prof. William 
 James in his "Talks to Teachers," 
 " some kind of consciousness is always go- 
 ing on. There is a stream, a succession of 
 
 states or waves or fields (or 
 ^ci:'!",""'"^"' whatever you please to call 
 
 them) of knowledge, of feel- 
 ing, of desire, of deliberation, etc., that con- 
 stantly pass and repass, and that constitute 
 our inner life. . . . These concrete fields 
 are always complex. They contain sensa- 
 tions of our bodies and of the objects around 
 us, memories of past experiences and thoughts 
 of distant things, feelings of satisfaction and 
 dissatisfaction, desires and aversions and 
 other emotional conditions, together with 
 determinations of the will, in every variety 
 of permutation and combination. ... In 
 17 
 
l8 Planning the Campaign 
 
 the successive mutations of our fields of con- 
 sciousness, the process by which one dis- 
 solves into another is often very gradual, 
 and all sorts of inner rearrangements of con- 
 tents occur. Sometimes the focus remains 
 but little changed while the margin alters 
 rapidly. Sometimes the focus alters and the 
 margin stays. Sometimes focus and margin 
 change places. Sometimes, again, abrupt 
 alterations of the whole field occur." ^ 
 
 Into this complex, flowing stream of con- 
 sciousness, the teacher launches the lesson 
 truth. What shall be its fate ? 
 
 Immediate ^j^^ j^jg^j ^.^g^j^ ^f ^ sklllfully 
 
 taught lesson would be im- 
 mediate action. On the great Day of Pente- 
 cost, when Peter concluded his sermon, the 
 multitude cried out, ** Men and brethren, 
 what shall we do?" and " they that gladly 
 received the word were baptized." ^ When 
 Saul on the way to Damascus saw a great 
 light, and heard the voice of Jesus saying, 
 " I am Jesus of Nazareth whom thou perse- 
 cutest," he said, " What shall I do. Lord ? " ^ 
 
 1 Op. cit., p. 15 fF. « Acts ii. 37, 41. ' Acts xxii. 8, 10. 
 
The Career of a Lesson Truth 1 9 
 
 When Paul told the jailer of Philippi to " be- 
 lieve on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be 
 saved," " he took them that same hour of 
 the night, and washed their stripes, and was 
 baptized, he and all his, immediately. And 
 he brought them up into his house, and set 
 food before them, and rejoiced greatly, with 
 all his house, having believed in God." ^ 
 
 The difficulty is that, with so many lessons, 
 there can be no immediate opportunity to 
 
 put them into practice. Some 
 ponl?^"*" ti^e ^"St elapse before the 
 
 truth can be put into action. 
 In the meantime the truth drops out of con- 
 sciousness. Even where there is a strong 
 impulse to act, the impression dies away and 
 the impulse is no longer felt. We are fa- 
 miliar with this experience in listening 
 to a sermon. How often as we have lis- 
 tened, the eloquence and spiritual power of 
 the preacher have so worked upon us that 
 we have felt a strong resolve forming within 
 us to go out from the church and forthwith 
 begin to do something to make the world 
 
 ' Actsxvi. 31,33, 34. 
 
20 Planning the Campaign 
 
 better. But when the sermon is ended and 
 the service is over, other thoughts quickly 
 come into the mind, the impulse dies away, 
 the great truth of the sermon drops out of 
 the consciousness, and we go back to the 
 old ways, apparently no farther along in the 
 Christian life than we were before. 
 
 Since, then, in most cases, immediate ac- 
 tion cannot or does not follow, what may we 
 
 hope for? When the truth 
 Queswons drops out of consciousuess, 
 
 will it fade away never to be 
 recalled ? Or will the pupil recall the lesson 
 during the following week, or at some future 
 time in his life ? If so, how often will it be 
 recalled ? If any thought from the lesson 
 does recur to him, under what circumstances 
 will it be recalled ? With how much vivid- 
 ness and power will it come ? Will it enter 
 his mind spontaneously and at the right mo- 
 ment? If it does, what will be its effect? 
 These are interesting and important ques- 
 tions which every teacher must ask concern- 
 ing the lesson taught. It would be an en- 
 lightening experience if it were possible for 
 
The Career of a Lesson Truth 2 1 
 
 the teacher to follow the career of a lesson 
 truth in the mind of her pupil and find the 
 answers to these questions. This of course she 
 cannot hope to do. She can, however, study 
 the mind of the pupil ; she can learn the laws 
 which it follows in the hearing, assimilation 
 and use of truth ; she can acquire skill in us- 
 ing those laws in her teaching, and with such 
 knowledge and skill in teaching she may 
 count on sure results in the life of her pupil, 
 even though she may not follow and watch 
 the effect of the truth. To aid the teacher in 
 acquiring such knowledge and skill is the 
 purpose of these chapters. Before taking up 
 the study of the steps in teaching, the follow- 
 ing considerations are offered as throwing 
 some light on the questions above pro- 
 pounded. 
 
 Consciousness is impulsive. Every idea 
 
 that comes into the mind tends to flow out 
 
 into action. If ideas came 
 
 ..consciousness ^.^^^^ ^^^ remained long 
 
 enough they would always re- 
 sult in action of some sort. But conscious- 
 ness is also complex. While we cannot tell 
 
22 Planning the Campaign 
 
 just what the state of mind of the pupil may 
 be when the lesson truth comes before it, we 
 know some things in a general way which 
 help us to study its effect. There is a certain 
 amount of inertia in the mind as there is in 
 material things, and there must be sufficient 
 intensity in a given state of mind to over- 
 come this inertia. Again there may be the 
 strong pull of habit, the nervous energy 
 generated by the thought tending to flow out 
 along old channels worn by repeated action. 
 There may be other ideas struggling to gain 
 the focus of consciousness. The mind may 
 be the battle-ground of ideas. The probabil- 
 ity of the lesson truth coming into and hold- 
 ing the centre of consciousness for such a 
 length of time and with such vividness and 
 emotional intensity as to lead to action, will 
 depend upon the number of faculties brought 
 into play in its teaching, upon the interest or 
 emotion awakened by its teaching, upon the 
 manner in which it is associated with other 
 thoughts in the mind, and upon the closeness 
 of connection between the truth taught and 
 the choice to be made. 
 
The Career of a Lesson Truth 23 
 
 Most Sunday-school teachers have a vague 
 idea in their minds that the pupil will go out 
 
 into the world and put into 
 Foriowfne prompt action through the 
 
 week the lesson taught to 
 him on Sunday. They would be surprised 
 if they knew how often the lesson goes out 
 of his mind not to return for a long time to 
 come. 
 
 The lesson on Peter and Cornelius in the 
 tenth chapter of Acts was taught in one 
 
 Sunday-school recently. This 
 Illustration chapter is full of great thoughts 
 
 about God, His answers to 
 prayer, His providential working, and His 
 love for every one of His creatures. It is 
 rich in material that might be used in daily 
 life for guidance, inspiration and strength. 
 A few days after the lesson was taught, a 
 bright fourteen-year-old boy was asked : 
 " Have you thought about the Sunday-school 
 lesson this week?" "No," was the answer. 
 " Do you remember whether any single 
 thought or word that your teacher spoke to 
 you last Sunday has come into your mind at 
 
24 Planning the Campaign 
 
 any time during the past few days ?" " No, 
 I cannot remember that I have thought of a 
 word of it since." This case is probably not 
 an exception. 
 
 Let it be noted here that it is not a ques- 
 tion of how much he can recall of the lesson 
 upon review. In the review 
 
 Not a Question of 
 
 What He Remem- thcrc is a mental effort made 
 
 bers on Review 
 
 to recall the lesson, there is 
 time for the memory to work, and he is as- 
 sisted by the questions of the teacher. But 
 to influence his choices, it must come into his 
 mind without these aids. 
 
 Even though prompt action does not fol- 
 low, or the pupil does not recall the lesson 
 
 during the days immediately 
 L'p^etr """* following, it may not be lost. 
 
 There grows up in the mind 
 of the pupil a fund of knowledge and truth 
 upon which he draws in forming his judg- 
 ments and making his choices. The funda- 
 mental truths of religion after all are not 
 many in number. It may be that he has 
 learned them at his mother's knee. The les- 
 son truth of any given Sunday may be one 
 
The Career of a Lesson Truth 25 
 
 with which he has long been famiHar, and 
 upon which he has acted so often that it has 
 become thoroughly assimilated with his men- 
 tal life. The lesson in such a case would 
 simply refresh his memory and renew a past 
 impression, and in a given situation, might 
 influence his action, without his distinctly re- 
 calling that it was taught to him recently in 
 the Sunday-school. Beyond doubt such is 
 the effect of many lessons. 
 
 Again the truth taught, even though a new 
 
 truth, may yet be so closely connected with 
 
 the general fund of truth al- 
 
 Addingto His 
 
 General Fund of ready acQulrcd by him, that 
 immediately and almost with- 
 out mental effort, it blends with this general 
 fund, and is thereafter not distinguished 
 from it. Thus, for example, the pupil has in 
 his mind a certain general conception of God. 
 The lesson may give some new aspect of the 
 character of God which would add just a lit- 
 tle to the definiteness of his conception, and 
 this would have its influence upon his daily 
 life, without his clearly distinguishing be- 
 tween the truth taught last Sabbath, and the 
 
26 Planning the Campaign 
 
 general conception that is in his mind. It 
 should be the constant effort of the teacher to 
 connect the truth of the lesson with those pre- 
 viously taught so as to build up in the mind 
 of the pupil a well arranged, closely con- 
 nected fund of religious truth. 
 
 It is to be remembered also that memory 
 is a very remarkable power. It is probable 
 
 that no idea that has once en- 
 Memory tered the mind is ever entirely 
 
 lost. While we know that the 
 memory works largely by the association of 
 ideas, we are unable to follow the intricacies 
 of these mental associations. Ideas long 
 buried sometimes flash into the mind, and we 
 are unable to trace any connection between 
 them and the thoughts previously there. 
 New experiences recall former thoughts and 
 feelings, and they come back with new fresh- 
 ness and power. Thoughts which seemed to 
 have been long dead are suddenly revital- 
 ized and glow with new force and meaning 
 in the light of new experience. Lessons 
 taught in childhood may come back with con- 
 victing and regenerating power in manhood. 
 
The Career of a Lesson Truth 27 
 
 Yet after all this has been said and taking 
 the most hopeful view of the matter possible, 
 it is still true that the les- 
 A Lost Lesson SOU may be so taught and the 
 impression made may be so 
 slight that it is swiftly swept to one side in 
 the stream of consciousness, like a piece of 
 driftwood, and it goes out of the mind never 
 again to reappear in any way to influence the 
 life. Thus the teacher's time may be wasted, 
 and the precious lesson hour may become a 
 lost opportunity. 
 
 In all that has just been said, regard has 
 been had only to the unaided powers of the 
 pupil's own mind. We must 
 The Holy Spirit ncvcr forgct that in our teach- 
 ing we may have the assist- 
 ance of a wiser and mightier teacher. " But 
 the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom 
 the Father will send in My name. He shall 
 teach you all things, and bring to your re- 
 membrance all that I have said unto you." ^ 
 The teacher may have the help of the 
 Holy Spirit both in the preparation and in 
 
 1 John xiv. 26. 
 
28 Planning the Campaign 
 
 the teaching of the lesson. The teacher may 
 have the help of the Holy Spirit to prepare 
 the mind of the pupil to receive the truth. 
 But the Holy Spirit will not violate the laws 
 of the mind which God has impressed upon 
 it. If the teacher, either through ignorance 
 of those laws, or lack of preparation of the 
 lesson, does not follow and obey them in 
 teaching the truth, so that it does not really 
 enter the mind of the pupil, she has no right 
 to expect the Holy Spirit to aid her, nor has 
 she any right to expect that He will follow 
 the truth and use it in influencing the pupil's 
 life. He may do this. The work of the Holy 
 Spirit upon the human soul is indeed a deep 
 mystery. Just when and where and how He 
 may use God's word to influence the soul of 
 the pupil we cannot know. But this is no ex- 
 cuse for lack of preparation and skill on the 
 part of the teacher. Certainly He is more 
 likely to use the truth that is well taught by 
 a thoroughly prepared and trained teacher, 
 than that which is taught by one who is un- 
 prepared. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE CITADEL OF THE WILL 
 
 BUNYAN in his " Holy War " tells us 
 that in the country of the "Universe" 
 was a fair and delicate town and cor- 
 poration called " Mansoul," a town for its 
 building so curious, for its situation so com- 
 modious, for its privileges so 
 "The Holy War" advautageous that with refer- 
 ence to its original state there 
 was not its equal under heaven. Its founder 
 was Shaddai, who built it for his own delight. 
 In the midst of the town was a famous and 
 stately palace which Shaddai intended for 
 himself. He had no intention of allowing 
 strangers to intrude there. And the pecul- 
 iarity of the place was that the walls of Man- 
 soul could never be broken down or hurt 
 unless the townsmen consented. Mansoul 
 had five gates, which, in like manner, could 
 
 only be forced if those within allowed it. 
 29 
 
3© Planning the Campaign 
 
 These were Eargate, Eyegate, Mouthgate, 
 Nosegate, and Feelgate. Thus provided, 
 Mansoul was at first all that its founder 
 could desire. It had the most excellent laws 
 in the world. 
 
 Thus under the figure of a walled city, 
 Bunyan pictures the soul and its capture by 
 
 Satan and its redemption by 
 fhrMTn? °' Christ. In studying the prob- 
 
 lem of how to reach the will 
 of the pupil, it will be helpful to use some- 
 what the same figure. In ancient times, 
 many cities were defended by a series of 
 walls one within the other. In the heart of 
 such a city, there would be a central citadel, 
 built of stone, with walls twenty or thirty 
 feet thick, and sometimes when one after an- 
 other of the walls was taken, still the citadel 
 held out for years. So we may picture the 
 mind as having a series of ramparts, the 
 outer one being sensation, the second, mem- 
 ory, the third, imagination, the fourth, the 
 feelings, the fifth, the reason, and at last in 
 the centre of being, the will. These several 
 powers are named in this order because of 
 
The Citadel of the Will 31 
 
 the increasing difficulty in reaching and 
 arousing them to action. The senses lie, as 
 it were, on the outer surface of the mind. It 
 is easy to arouse them to activity. Indeed it 
 is only too easy, as every teacher, especially 
 the teacher of the little children, has dis- 
 covered. It is harder to awaken the mem- 
 ory, and it takes greater mental effort to use 
 it than it does to use the senses. To get the 
 imagination to work is still more difficult. 
 It is largely through the memory and the 
 imagination that the emotions are stirred. 
 The reasoning powers are the last to develop, 
 and are still more difficult to arouse. The 
 will is the hardest of all to move. Thus it 
 will be seen that there is real truth in the 
 figure of the rampart within rampart, each 
 of which the teacher must capture in order 
 to reach the will. But when the sensations 
 are captured, the memory stirred, the imag- 
 ination quickened, the emotions aroused, and 
 the reason convinced by the truth, then the 
 will is likely to be swept into action. In 
 other words, the greater the number of men- 
 tal powers that are brought into use in the 
 
32 Planning the Campaign 
 
 learning of the lesson, the deeper, the more 
 powerful, the more lasting the impression. 
 
 It will be noted that in the statement of the 
 teacher's aim above given, the word " truth " 
 
 was used in the singular num- 
 iTssoT^ ^^ ^ ber. It must be evident from 
 
 the foregoing that it is impos- 
 sible to teach a large number of truths in a 
 single lesson. Yet this is what a great many 
 teachers try to do. They pass so quickly 
 from one truth to another that not a single 
 one of these mental powers is brought prop- 
 erly into play, much less all of them. The 
 teacher who plans to bring all or as many of 
 them as possible into action in the teaching 
 of the lesson will find that usually not more 
 than one truth can be used. To drive the 
 truth home through sensation, memory, im- 
 agination, feeling and reason to the will is 
 not an easy task. It takes careful study and 
 planning. How to accomplish this will be 
 the subject of our further study. 
 
IV 
 
 FACTS AND TRUTHS 
 
 BEFORE we can find out how to lodge 
 a Bible truth in the mind of the pupil, 
 we must first distinguish between 
 Bible facts and Bible truths. What is meant 
 by a Bible fact ? What is meant by a Bible 
 
 truth ? And what is the con- 
 Distinguishing Be- 
 tween Facts and nection between them ? It is 
 
 to be feared that many Sun- 
 day-school teachers have very vague and 
 confused ideas as to the answers to these 
 questions. Yet they are of the utmost im- 
 portance. Every Bible lesson contains cer- 
 tain facts, and it also contains certain truths. 
 Can we study the truths without studying 
 the facts ? Many teachers seem to have this 
 idea. In their eagerness to get at the truths 
 of the lesson, they pass over the facts as of 
 little importance. They treat the lesson as 
 though the facts were the shell of which the 
 truth is the kernel. " Let us crack the shell 
 33 
 
34 Planning the Campaign 
 
 and throw it aside as quickly as possible and 
 let us get at the truth," is their thought. 
 
 But such is not the true idea of the rela- 
 tion between facts and truths of the lesson. 
 Rather should we say that the 
 fo'?ruths°'^'''' fact is the body of which the 
 truth is the soul. There is a 
 vital connection between them. As we can- 
 not see a disembodied spirit so we cannot 
 see a truth until it is embodied in a fact. 
 When we have once gained a conception of 
 a living spirit through the body which it oc- 
 cupies, we can form an idea of what the 
 spirit may be when disembodied ; and when 
 we have once gotten hold of a truth 
 through seeing it embodied in a fact, we 
 may form a conception of that truth apart 
 from the fact. But we can never arrive at any 
 truth entirely apart from facts of some sort. 
 It is through the study of facts that we arrive 
 at a knowledge of truth. 
 
 Just here is a source of weakness in Sun- 
 day-school teaching. The teacher not hav- 
 ing learned how to discover the truth in the 
 fact does not put forth any mental effort to 
 
Facts and Truths 3^ 
 
 discover the truths of the lesson for herself, 
 but depends upon the lesson helps to point 
 
 them out to her. Thus she 
 s'^on Tr'ati? ''"" "o^ ouly fails to understand the 
 
 importance of the facts, but 
 she loses the j oy of discovery. She does not 
 take the interest in the truth that she would 
 have taken if she had found it for herself. 
 She therefore lacks the power which this 
 mental grasp of the truth, this interest in it, 
 and this joy which its discovery would give 
 to her if she had worked it out for herself. 
 That the study of the facts is of the greatest 
 importance in arriving at the truth will ap- 
 pear from what follows. 
 
 All the elements of our knowledge may be 
 divided into two classes, individual notions 
 
 and general notions. An in- 
 individuai Notions dividual notion is oue of which 
 
 we can form a mental image. 
 It may be derived from a single sensation or 
 from a combination of sensations, or from a 
 combination of present sensations and mem- 
 ories of past sensations, or by a combination 
 of memories of past sensations. It may be 
 
36 Planning the Campaign 
 
 simple or it may be very complex. But it is 
 always concrete. I have a mental image of 
 the desk at which I am writing, of the friend 
 who is sitting by my side, of Abraham 
 Lincoln, of Paul the apostle, of Mt. Hermon, 
 of the City of Jerusalem, of the crucifixion of 
 Christ. Material things, persons, incidents 
 in the lives of persons, places, events in 
 history — all things that can be presented to 
 the mind through the senses or the imagi- 
 nation are individual notions. 
 
 A general notion on the other hand is one 
 that includes a number of individual notions. 
 When a child sees a horse for 
 General Notions the first time, he forms an in- 
 dividual notion of that animal. 
 After he has seen a number of horses, he 
 discovers that they all resemble each other 
 in certain particulars while at the same time 
 they differ from one another in other par- 
 ticulars. So he forms a general notion of an 
 animal that is not like any particular horse, 
 and yet, vague though it may be, is enough 
 like all horses to enable him to use the notion 
 whenever he wishes to refer to them as a 
 
Facts and Truths 37 
 
 class. This general notion is always abstract. 
 It is impossible to form a vivid mental image 
 of any general notion. Common nouns, verbs, 
 and adjectives that include large numbers of 
 individual cases, definitions, rules, laws, prov- 
 erbs and maxims are general notions. Many 
 Bible texts contain such general notions. 
 
 The following diagram may assist in mak- 
 ing clear the relation between individual and 
 general notions. In this dia- 
 A Diagram gram cach one of the large 
 
 triangles may represent an 
 individual notion. That portion of the tri- 
 
 angle within the small circle may represent 
 that element which is common to all the 
 
38 Planning the Campaign 
 
 individual notions, or the general notion. 
 Thus each large triangle might stand for a 
 single instance of God's answer to prayer. 
 From the many instances of such answers 
 given in the Bible and from similar instances 
 in our lives, or in the lives of others whom 
 we have known, we form the general notion 
 (or draw the general inference) that God is 
 a prayer-hearing and a prayer-answering 
 God. The facts and circumstances con- 
 nected with each one of these instances may 
 be entirely different from any of the others. 
 Nevertheless, in each group of facts, how- 
 ever widely they may differ in other re- 
 spects, is found this common element, and 
 because we find it present in so many differ- 
 ent instances, we are justified in our faith 
 that when we go to God with our needs and 
 petitions He will hear us and answer us ac- 
 cording to His infinite wisdom and love. 
 The teacher who has not studied psychology 
 or logic may find it somewhat difficult at 
 first to grasp these ideas of individual and 
 general notions. She should make a de- 
 termined effort to do so for they are funda- 
 
Facts and Truths 39 
 
 mental in all our thinking and to all our 
 teaching. 
 
 In the Bible lesson the individual notions 
 are the facts of the lesson, all those elements 
 
 of which we can form mental 
 Lesson Facts imagcs. A large number of 
 
 them may be found in every 
 lesson. It is to be remembered that most 
 of the Bible narratives are very much ab- 
 breviated. A very short story may often be 
 divided into a number of scenes, and a large 
 number of mental images may be formed in 
 picturing each one of these scenes. 
 
 In the story of the conversion of Saul, we 
 may form a mental picture of Saul himself, 
 
 of the oriental costume that he 
 "LmTcts " wore, of the horse on which he 
 
 was riding, of the little group 
 of companions who were with him, of the 
 road along which they were riding, of the 
 desert stretching away to the East, of the 
 dim line of the hills to the west, and of the 
 city of Damascus which he saw before him. 
 We can form mental images of his state of 
 mind, see the memories which were haunting 
 
40 Planning the Campaign 
 
 him of the death of Stephen, of the scenes 
 of suffering and sorrow among the Christians 
 whom he had arrested and dragged to 
 prison ; we can feel in imagination the sharp 
 stings of conscience, the dark shadows of 
 doubt that hung over him ; we can form 
 mental images of the great light that shone 
 around him ; see him fall to the ground as 
 though struck by lightning ; hear that voice 
 as *' the sound of many waters " saying, 
 " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me ? " 
 hear the trembling voice of the stricken man 
 say, "Who art Thou, Lord?" and the Master's 
 reply, " I am Jesus whom thou persecutest, 
 but arise and enter into the city, and it shall 
 be told thee what thou must do." Yet all of 
 this and more is comprised in four short 
 verses of Scripture.' 
 
 When we thus study the facts of Scripture, 
 we discover that while there is a large ele- 
 ment in them which belongs 
 Lesson Truths to a particular time and place, 
 there is another element which 
 is common to these facts and many others, 
 
 1 Acts ix. 3-6. 
 
Facts and Truths 41 
 
 which is found in the facts relating to other 
 persons, times and places. As we study the 
 conversion of Saul we discover an element 
 common to the experience of a vast number 
 of persons in all ages : It is that wonderful 
 grace of God, who while Paul was a sinner 
 met him, revealed Himself to him, forgave 
 him his sins, and called him into a life of 
 service which filled him with ever-increasing 
 joy and gladness. Paul is but one of millions 
 who have thus experienced this wonderful 
 grace of God. It is this universal element 
 in every Bible lesson that we are to seek 
 for, but we find it only by a study of the 
 facts. 
 
 So contrasting the facts and the truths of 
 the lesson, we may say that the facts are 
 those elements which are particular, local 
 and temporal, while the truths are those 
 elements which are general, universal and 
 eternal. The facts belong to the particular 
 time, place and person, the truths apply to all 
 places, times and persons. 
 
V 
 
 THE FIRST ADVANCE 
 
 IN picturing the mind as a series of ram- 
 parts, sensation was mentioned as the 
 first or outer one. The capture of this 
 rampart need not detain us long or be con- 
 sidered as a separate step in the teaching 
 process for several reasons : 
 Memory (i) It may be truly said that 
 
 the gates through this rampart 
 lie wide open and undefended. They are so 
 easily taken, that they are often a hindrance 
 rather than a help in teaching. (2) As the 
 Bible lesson facts relate to events which hap- 
 pened long ago, in a far distant land, the 
 senses cannot be used directly, but only in- 
 directly in the illustration of the lesson. 
 (3) In the actual process of teaching, or- 
 dinarily the first rampart to be attacked is 
 the memory. Why this is so will appear 
 from the following account of the process of 
 
 acquiring new individual notions. 
 
 42 
 
The First Advance 43 
 
 A little child who had a pet dog was taken 
 into the country and saw a sheep for the first 
 time. He cried out, " Oh, 
 ■"r.r.>*Nr:= •"ama, see the funny dog." 
 The mother laughed at the 
 mistake and told him that was not a dog but 
 a sheep. What took place in that child's 
 mind ? A new object was presented to it. 
 There was already in his mind a familiar 
 image of his dog. He recalled this image, 
 compared it with the new object presented to 
 his senses, saw a resemblance between them, 
 and named the new object a " dog." At the 
 same time, he saw that the new object differed 
 from the image in his mind, and so he called 
 it "a funny dog." Then the mother told 
 him the name of the new object, a sheep. 
 So he acquired a new individual notion. 
 
 Thus all learning is a process of compari- 
 son between the old and the new. Not only 
 so, but there must be some re- 
 Apperception semblance, connection or rela- 
 tion between the old and the 
 new. The closer the kinship between them 
 the easier is the new added to the old. The 
 
44 Planning the Campaign 
 
 greater the difference between them, the more 
 mental effort is required to compare them, 
 and to form the notion of the new. The 
 mind welcomes the familiar but shrinks from 
 the strange and unfamiliar. 
 
 A new idea presented to the mind is like a 
 person entering a room full of people. If he 
 
 is an entire stranger, he and 
 Illustration evcry one else present feels a 
 
 sense of embarrassment, and 
 he has a strong impulse to withdraw. If 
 there is one person in the room who is ac- 
 quainted with him, that person welcomes 
 him. But if every one in the room knows 
 him well, neither they nor he feel any embar- 
 rassment, he is gladly welcomed, and finds 
 his place readily among them. So when the 
 new idea comes into the mind, if there is 
 a close relationship between it and other 
 ideas in the mind, the new idea feels at home, 
 as it were, and takes its place among its 
 kindred. But if the ideas already there have 
 no connection with the new idea, there is a 
 feeling of strangeness, and it is either treated 
 with indifference or is rejected altogether. 
 
The First Advance 45 
 
 This is a simple illustration of the great 
 law of the mind which psychologists call the 
 law of apperception. We learn with what 
 we know. Out of the immense number of 
 mental impressions coming into the mind 
 through the senses and the imagination, it 
 selects only those which have some kinship 
 with its previously acquired stock of ideas. 
 To these it attends, from the others it turns 
 away. 
 
 But not only does the reception of new 
 ideas depend upon their connection with 
 those already possessed. It 
 r;;s^o:u B.'"" also depends largely upon 
 where those ideas are in the 
 mind. If the old ideas are buried deep in the 
 subconscious mind, time and effort to bring 
 them into consciousness is necessary before 
 the comparison can be made. If, however, 
 the old ideas are actually in the conscious- 
 ness at the time the new idea is presented, 
 then the comparison is quickly and easily 
 made. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that the contents of 
 the pupil's consciousness at the beginning of 
 
46 Planning the Campaign 
 
 the lesson must greatly influence its recep- 
 tion. If, for example, the pupil just before 
 
 coming to class had been 
 Z'ZtT'°' thinking on the subject of 
 
 prayer, and had been debat- 
 ing whether or not he could really expect God 
 to answer his prayers and were to come to the 
 class with these thoughts in his mind, and 
 the teacher were to begin to teach the lesson 
 on the deliverance of Peter from prison,' 
 and how wonderfully the prayers of the 
 church were answered, the mind of the pupil 
 would eagerly seize upon it. But if the 
 pupil comes to the class with his conscious- 
 ness filled with the experiences of the past 
 week, the latest newspaper sensation, yester- 
 day's ball game, the story book that he is 
 reading, or a thousand and one other things 
 that have no connection whatever with the 
 lesson for the day, then there must be some 
 preliminary preparation of his mind before 
 he can receive the lesson. The ideas which 
 are alien to it must be driven out ; facts, 
 truths and experiences which do have 
 
 • Acts xii. 3-19. 
 
The First Advance 47 
 
 some relation to it must be recalled to his 
 mind. 
 
 The first step in the teaching process is then 
 to prepare the mind of the pupil by bringing 
 into his consciousness ideas which are re- 
 lated to those contained in the lesson. In so 
 doing the first advance is made upon the 
 memory. 
 
 But how is the teacher to know what is in 
 the mind of the pupil ? Of course if the pu- 
 pil has studied the lesson be- 
 PupT/Mind'^'^ fore coming to the class, he 
 already has some ideas con- 
 cerning it to which others are easily added. 
 But suppose, as is so often the case, he has 
 not studied the lesson ? Then the teacher in 
 planning her approach must fall back upon 
 her knowledge of the pupil and his mind. 
 This she acquires by studying his home life, 
 his school life, his recreations, his compan- 
 ions, his reading, etc. The more she knows 
 about these the easier it will be to find the 
 point of contact with his present knowledge. 
 
 Again the teacher knows what she has al- 
 ready taught her class. She should not 
 
48 Planning the Campaign 
 
 think that she is done with a lesson when she 
 has taught it once. It is to be feared that 
 
 many teachers dismiss the les- 
 Former Lessons sons from their minds almost 
 
 as completely as the pupil 
 often does. But the skillful teacher will keep 
 a record of the lessons taught, and one of 
 her first questions in planning her approach 
 should be, Can I use any previous lesson to 
 lead up to this one ? If there is a close con- 
 nection between the last lesson and this one, 
 then a brief review is a fine preparation for 
 the new one. But if as so often happens 
 there is but little connection between them, 
 then the teacher may go back over the les- 
 sons previously taught, until she finds one 
 that is closely related to, or resembles in its 
 facts or truths, the one for the day. For ex- 
 ample, if the teacher had taught a year ago 
 the incident of Hezekiah's prayer, in the 
 twentieth chapter of 2 Kings, and the story 
 for the day is that of the deliverance of Peter 
 from prison, the teacher by recalling the les- 
 son on Hezekiah would accomplish two de- 
 sirable objects, she would refresh the mem- 
 
The First Advance 49 
 
 ory of the pupil and lead up easily to the 
 lesson for the day. Much more of such work 
 in linking passages of Scripture together 
 might be done by teachers, and thus the pu- 
 pil's knowledge would be rendered more ra- 
 tional and systematic, and because of the as- 
 sociations thus formed, would be more easily 
 recalled. 
 
 Jesus makes constant use in His teaching 
 
 of the law that we are now considering. In 
 
 His conversation with the Sa- 
 
 Illustration 
 
 The Samaritan maritau woman, He takes the 
 
 Woman 
 
 well of water with which she 
 was so familiar as the starting point for His 
 great teaching on the water of life. The par- 
 able of the sower is based upon familiar 
 scenes in the minds of His audience. It has 
 been suggested that when Jesus spoke this 
 parable on the shore of the Lake of Gal- 
 ilee, He could look over the heads of His 
 audience and see a sower at his work on 
 the hillside. His reference to the wind in 
 the talk with Nicodemus, to the bread in the 
 sixth chapter of John, to the light in the 
 eighth chapter of John ; the parables of the 
 
^o Planning the Campaign 
 
 lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal 
 son. His constant reference to the kingdom 
 of heaven — in fact all of His teaching is 
 rooted in the familiar scenes, experiences and 
 thoughts of the people to whom He spoke. 
 
 So the sermon in the second chapter of 
 
 Acts is an admirable example of the use of 
 
 this principle, beginning as it 
 
 Illustration ^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 Peter's Sermon, docs with the familiar proph- 
 
 Acts ii 
 
 ecy and leading up to the 
 great truths concerning Jesus and the resur- 
 rection. 
 
 The address of Paul in the synagogue of 
 Antioch in Pisidia in the thirteenth chapter 
 
 of Acts is another good ex- 
 uoTpIT ample of the use of the law of 
 
 apperception. Paul did not 
 begin his address by telling about Jesus. 
 His audience had probably never heard of 
 Him, and if Paul had begun immediately to 
 talk about Jesus, they would not have under 
 stood him, and perhaps would not have 
 given him their attention. But most of these 
 people were Jews and Paul began by re- 
 calling to their minds some of the facts of 
 
The First Advance 51 
 
 their national history down to the time of 
 David, and when he had reached that, he 
 found the point of contact in the promise of 
 God to David and declared to them " in this 
 man's seed God hath brought unto Israel a 
 Saviour, Jesus." Then he tells the story of 
 the crucifixion and the resurrection, and pro- 
 claims the remission of sins through Christ's 
 name. 
 
 In planning the approach the teacher may 
 use either facts or truths previously learned. 
 
 In looking over former lessons 
 "'Trufhf " ^^''' resemblances may often be 
 
 found between the facts of 
 such lessons and those of the lesson for the 
 day. Sometimes resemblances may not be 
 apparent at first, but may be discovered 
 when two or more lessons are placed along 
 side of each other. A Bible class teacher be- 
 gan the study of the deliverance of Paul from 
 the jail at Philippi by referring briefly to the 
 prison experiences of Joseph, Jeremiah, John 
 the Baptist and Peter, and the different ways 
 in which God had delivered them. At first 
 thought there might not seem to be much 
 
52 Planning the Campaign 
 
 likeness between the experiences of the Syro- 
 Phcenician woman, the widow of Nain, the 
 nobleman of Capernaum, Jairus, and the 
 father of the boy at the foot of the Mount of 
 Transfiguration, but when they are brought 
 side by side how deep and real are their re- 
 semblances ! So the different ways in which 
 God calls men might be shown by reference 
 to Abraham, Moses, Samuel, David, Isaiah 
 and Paul. 
 
 Sometimes striking contrasts may be 
 noticed between the facts of former lessons 
 and those of the lesson for the 
 Contrasts day. How different the ex- 
 
 perience of John the Baptist 
 and that of Peter in prison ; note the contrast 
 between Matthew and the rich young noble- 
 man ; how different the experiences of Isaiah 
 and Jeremiah, both prophets of the Lord ; 
 notice the differences in the story of the con- 
 version of the Ethiopian eunuch and of 
 Cornelius ; notice the striking contrasts be- 
 tween the impotent man at the Pool of 
 Bethesda in the fifth chapter of John, and the 
 blind man in the ninth chapter of that Gospel. 
 
The First Advance 53 
 
 Sometimes the teacher may recall illustra- 
 tions previously used by her which contain 
 
 facts resembling or contrast- 
 fratl^ns'""" '^^S wlth thosc of the lesson. 
 
 Facts concerning the persecu- 
 tions of Christians, remarkable answers to 
 prayer, conversions, signal deliverances from 
 danger, and other religious experiences that 
 have come within the knowledge of the pupil 
 or the teacher, may in some particulars con- 
 tain resemblances or contrasts to the facts of 
 the lesson. So the watchful teacher may 
 often pick up incidents from newspapers and 
 magazines in which there are facts which re- 
 semble those found in the Bible. 
 
 On the other hand the facts of the lesson 
 may teach a truth which has been taught in 
 
 previous lessons where the 
 
 Taught'''''''""'''' ^^^^^ ^^^^ entirely different. 
 Almost any great religious 
 truth may be illustrated by a variety of human 
 experiences. The teacher may begin the les- 
 son by recalling a truth taught in a previous 
 one, and then proceed to point out how the 
 same truth is found in the facts of the lesson 
 
54 Planning the Campaign 
 
 for the day. Thus the familiar truth clothed 
 with fresh concrete facts takes on a new and 
 deeper meaning. The mind of the pupil de- 
 lights in the discovery of a new aspect to an 
 old, familiar truth. A truth which repeated 
 many times in an abstract form would make 
 but little impression, when thus illustrated by 
 new and widely differing facts and experi- 
 ences, is driven home deeper into the mind 
 and life. It is one of the elements of good 
 teaching thus to enforce the same truth by 
 new and fresh concrete facts. And let it be 
 repeated again that in thus pointing out re- 
 semblances and differences, the teacher is 
 making use of the law of association by which 
 knowledge is fixed in the memory, is exercis- 
 ing the reasoning powers of the pupil by as- 
 sisting him to classify and arrange his knowl- 
 edge, and is aiding him to build up an orderly 
 system of truth. The teacher who keeps con- 
 stantly running over in her mind the lessons 
 previously taught for the purpose of compari- 
 son and distinction will soon become expert in 
 detecting resemblances and differences which 
 may thus be used in connecting the lessons. 
 
VI 
 
 THE IMPORTANCE OF THE IMAGINATION 
 
 HAVING carried the rampart of mem- 
 ory and prepared the mind of the 
 pupil by recalling facts and truths 
 with which he is familiar and which are re- 
 lated to those of the lesson, the teacher is 
 now ready to advance upon and carry the 
 next rampart which is the imagination. As 
 it is from the lesson facts that we derive the 
 lesson truths, the facts must be studied first, 
 and it is in the teaching of the lesson facts 
 that this attack must be made. 
 
 In describing an individual notion it was 
 said that it is one of which a mental image 
 can be formed and that it 
 .'T.-L'Nt.rf; may be derived from (i) a 
 single sensation, (2) a combi- 
 nation of sensations, (3) a combination of 
 present sensations and memories of past 
 sensations, or (4) a combination of memories 
 of past sensations. As we have seen Bible 
 55 
 
56 The Attack on the Imagination 
 
 facts relate to events which happened in far- 
 away countries, a long time ago, and cannot 
 be presented directly to the senses. But the 
 mind has another most wonderful power by 
 which it may form notions of such facts and 
 that is the power of imagination. In form- 
 ing notions of persons, places and events 
 which have never been present to the senses, 
 the imagination draws upon images of past 
 sense impressions stored in the memory. 
 With these in whole or in part, and with 
 such aids as it may have given to it by de- 
 scriptions and comparisons, it constructs a 
 new mental image or picture which may in a 
 greater or less degree resemble the actual 
 place, person or event. 
 
 The use of the imagination is so much 
 neglected in Sunday-school teaching that 
 
 we deem it necessary here 
 DewTy °''^"" to quote from a few of our 
 
 leading educators upon the 
 subject. Dr. John Dewey says : " The 
 mental image is the great instrument of 
 instruction. What a child gets out of any 
 subject presented to him is simply the 
 
The Importance of the Imagination 57 
 
 images which he himself forms with regard 
 to it. I beheve that if nine-tenths of the 
 energy at present directed towards making 
 children learn certain things were spent in 
 seeing to it that the child was forming proper 
 images, the work of instruction would be 
 indefinitely facilitated. I believe that much 
 of the time and attention now given to the 
 preparation and presentation of lessons 
 might be more wdsely and profitably ex- 
 pended in training a child's power of 
 imagery and in seeing to it that he was 
 continually forming definite, vivid and grow- 
 ing images of the various subjects with which 
 he comes in contact in his experience." ^ 
 
 Patterson Du Bois in his fine book on " The 
 Natural Way in Moral Training," says : 
 " Chief among these indirect 
 Patterson Du Bois modes of sccuring thosc right 
 habits of action and thought 
 which beget right feelings is the setting 
 before the mind a worthy image, a living 
 deed or picture. . . . Nothing is so per- 
 sistent in the memory as an image, nothing 
 
 1 « My Pedagogic Creed," p. 14. 
 
58 The Attack on the Imagination 
 
 so controls ideals. . . . The writer who 
 lives writes in pictures. Many a dull speech 
 or sermon is redeemed by one well told story 
 or even a vivid rhetorical figure. Fable, 
 parable and allegory, at their best, penetrate 
 the deepest and stick the longest. That 
 prince of educators, Francis W. Parker, said 
 that attention was imaging. Words and 
 phrase expressions are functioned only when 
 they are followed by a mental image. There 
 is no real teaching through dead forms of 
 words which, because they call up no image, 
 do not function." 
 
 Mr. Du Bois quotes Dr. George Stanley 
 Hall as saying : " Again we tend to think 
 
 in images, and some phi- 
 George Stanley losophcrs like Tainc, Frosc- 
 
 hammer and Parrish, have 
 represented that this is the form of about 
 all human thought. However this may be, 
 the imagination is one of the most potent 
 of all human faculties and is more creative 
 than any other. Some high authorities have 
 lately urged that if this faculty were well 
 trained, all the rest would almost take care 
 
The Importance of the Imagination 59 
 
 of themselves. By the imagination we 
 escape from the limits of time, space and 
 even all personality that hedge us in ; our 
 lives may be ever so limited and yet by this 
 power we can almost become citizens of all 
 time and spectators of all events. By it the 
 poet, artist and prophet have wrought their 
 magic in the world." ^ 
 
 Horace Bushnell declared that the Gospel 
 Horace Bushnell was a gift to thc imagination. 
 
 Our Saviour in His teaching makes a con- 
 stant appeal to the imagination. His par- 
 ables are little pictures painted 
 il\l"at":'*"' with a few touches, but with 
 such a master hand that once 
 seen, they are hung up in the memory never 
 to be forgotten. We quote again from Mr. 
 Du Bois : '* Nothing is more marked in the 
 teaching of Jesus than its pictorial visibility. 
 Sometimes it was acted, as in the miracles, 
 the washing of the disciples' feet, the 'show 
 me a penny,' the setting of the child in the 
 midst, the blessing of little children, the 
 cursing of the barren fig tree, etc. Some- 
 
 ' Op. cit., pp. 179, 191, 219. 
 
6o The Attack on the Imagination 
 
 times it was given in vivid word picture or 
 story as in the parables ; or in visual illustra- 
 tion as the smitten cheek, the stolen coat, the 
 two women grinding at the mill, the widow's 
 mite, the Good Samaritan, the last supper, 
 etc. Wendt observes that ' the whole active 
 work of Jesus was an exposition of His teach- 
 ing through His own example.' He made it 
 visible in His own life. Then He abounded 
 in simile and metaphor and figurative illus- 
 trations by comparison ; in parables involving 
 comparison utilizing common things ; in al- 
 legories. In fact the incarnation itself is, as 
 it were, a divine announcement of this prin- 
 ciple. Men needed to see the ideal man in the 
 real ; they needed the image of the actual, of 
 perfect manhood in the concrete, in order that 
 they should themselves know God better." 
 
 One of the secrets of Christ's wonderful 
 power as a teacher is just this skill in seizing 
 and holding up before the mind some concrete 
 fact or group of facts which can easily be 
 grasped by the imagination and at the heart 
 of which lies a great spiritual truth. 
 
VII 
 
 GENERAL PREPARATION 
 
 AS individual notions or the lesson 
 facts in Bible study are grasped by 
 the imagination, and as we arrive at 
 a knowledge of general truths through the 
 study of individual facts, we see how abso- 
 lutely essential it is that the 
 lll^ZtT teacher should plan to attack 
 and carry this rampart in the 
 pupil's mind. But before the teacher can 
 bring the facts vividly before the imagination 
 of the pupil, she must have them vividly and 
 distinctly before her own imagination. She 
 cannot make the pupil see what she does not 
 see herself. 
 
 Here is where many Sunday-school teach- 
 ers fail. For this failure there are several 
 causes: (i) Teachers have been taught 
 that the important thing in the lesson is the 
 
 lesson truth ; (2) they have never made any 
 61 
 
62 The Attack on the Imagination 
 
 attempt to cultivate their imaginations ; (3) 
 they have gotten into the habit of thinking 
 
 in words rather than in pic- 
 causes of Failure turcs ; (4) it takcs Considerable 
 
 effort to get the lesson facts 
 vividly before the imagination ; (5) the les- 
 son helps in constant use by teachers give 
 little assistance in developing the facts con- 
 cretely and vividly, but are largely taken up 
 with critical notes, homiletical applications, 
 etc. (6) Then, too, many teachers have not 
 had the opportunity to study psychology, 
 and to learn either of the importance of the 
 imagination or how to cultivate it. In view 
 of its great importance then, and of the facts 
 just pointed out, we will be pardoned for 
 giving considerable space to the study of 
 this subject. 
 
 There are several elements that go to the 
 making of a good imagination. There must 
 
 be (i) a store of past mental 
 imagStiol' °°°' impressions which may furnish 
 
 the material for the new pic- 
 ture ; (2) power to recall such past mental 
 impressions ; (3) power to recombine such 
 
General Preparation 63 
 
 memories into a new mental product ; 
 (4) power, when such memories are thus re- 
 called and recombined, to see the new pic- 
 ture vividly and distinctly ; and (5) power to 
 do all this easily and rapidly. It will be well 
 for the teacher to study her own imagination 
 and see in which one, if any, of these ele- 
 ments it is weak. 
 
 It will usually be found that the principal 
 cause for a poor imagination is the lack of 
 
 sense material from which to 
 Sense Material draw, No mental image can 
 
 be formed of anything which 
 does not resemble something that has been 
 presented to the senses. A blind man can- 
 not imagine the colour of yellow. A child 
 born and raised upon the great plains can 
 form no vivid picture of a lofty mountain 
 peak. The dweller in the tropics cannot 
 imagine what ice is like. One who has been 
 raised in a great city cannot form vivid pic- 
 tures of country life, while he who has lived 
 in the country finds it extremely difficult to 
 realize the life of the dweller in the city. In 
 reading poetry or fiction, we constantly draw 
 
64 The Attack on the Imagination 
 
 upon familiar scenes of our own past life, and 
 with these, often with but very slight change, 
 we form the background of the various scenes 
 depicted. 
 
 Even where there may be a fund of mate- 
 rial upon which to draw, the imagination 
 
 may be poor because of lack 
 Neglect of Memory of practicc iu recalling past 
 
 sense impressions. It may be 
 said that ninety per cent, of imagination is 
 memory. Immense numbers of sense im- 
 pressions are made upon the mind through 
 the senses that are never recalled. Seldom 
 do we make deliberate effort to recall them. 
 The varying experiences of our daily lives 
 pass quickly into oblivion. It is hard to re- 
 call what we did or what happened to us last 
 week, last month, last year. Most of us give 
 litde time to the effort to recall these experi- 
 ences. Thus the memory becomes weak from 
 lack of use. 
 
 A third cause of a poor imagination is a 
 lack of power to visualize, that is, to see the 
 image distinctly when recalled. In Prof. 
 William James' larger work on " Psy- 
 
General Preparation 65 
 
 chology " there is an account of an investiga- 
 tion which was conducted by Professor Galton 
 as to tiie visualizing power of 
 fn?estitions different persons. Professor 
 
 Galton sent out to a large 
 number of people a list of questions as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 Picture to yourself your breakfast table as 
 it looked this morning. Now answer the fol- 
 lowing questions : 
 
 (i) Illumination. Is the image dim or 
 fairly clear ? Is its brightness comparable to 
 the actual scene ? 
 
 (2) Definition. Are all the objects pretty 
 well defined at the same time, or is the place 
 of sharpest definition at any one moment 
 more contracted than the real scene? 
 
 (3) Colouring. Are the colours of the 
 china, of the toast, bread crust, mustard, 
 meat, parsley, or whatever may have been on 
 the table quite distinct and natural ? 
 
 Professor Galton found that many scientific 
 men had no mental imagery whatever. In 
 general society he found many men and a 
 larger number of women and many boys and 
 
66 The Attack on the Imagination 
 
 girls vv'ho declared that they habitually saw 
 mental imagery and that it was perfectly dis- 
 tinct, full and clear. They could describe 
 their imagery in minute detail. 
 
 Let the teacher try this experiment on 
 
 herself and endeavour to discover how much 
 
 visualizing power she pos- 
 
 vllua'JrrrpLer SCSSCS. No doubt UpOU SUCh 
 
 a test many will find that the 
 power is weak. But this weakness may 
 arise simply from lack of exercise as in the 
 case of the scientific men referred to by 
 Professor Galton. If this is so it may readily 
 be regained and may be greatly strengthened 
 and brought to a high degree of efficiency 
 by practice. Let the teacher practice re- 
 calling the scenes of her childhood, the 
 places she has visited, the persons she has 
 met, the pictures she has seen. In doing 
 this let her take time to permit the pictures 
 to form, for they may come slowly at first. 
 It is a good plan to look at a picture or a 
 scene steadily for some moments and then 
 close the eyes and try to see it in the mind. 
 Then opening the eyes again the actual 
 
General Preparation 67 
 
 picture may be compared with the mental 
 picture, repeating this until the one is a 
 vivid reproduction of the other. After a 
 little practice the teacher will find the visual- 
 izing power growing stronger and working 
 more rapidly. 
 
 The teacher may have a good memory 
 and strong visualizing power, and yet may 
 
 not be able to construct new 
 Sres ""'''*'" mental pictures. This faculty 
 
 too is developed by exercise. 
 The teacher in reading newspapers, maga- 
 zines and books, should stop frequently, 
 close the eyes, and strive to form a vivid 
 picture of the scene and of the persons about 
 whom she has just been reading. At first it 
 will probably be found that these pictures 
 are exceedingly vague and indistinct. Very 
 few people take time in reading to form 
 distinct pictures in the mind of the scenes 
 about which they are reading. We are most 
 of us content to skim from page to page, 
 rapidly, without taking time to allow images 
 to form, except in a most vague and indis- 
 tinct manner. The truth is that very few 
 
68 The Attack on the Imagination 
 
 people have " snap shot " imaginations. With 
 most of us it takes a " time exposure " to al- 
 low the picture to form on the mental plate. 
 If there were some way by which we could 
 see these mental pictures as we can see im- 
 perfect photographic plates, we would be 
 amazed to see how poor our snap shot pic- 
 tures are. 
 
 Power to see these new pictures vividly as 
 
 well as to use the imagination with ease and 
 
 rapidity will come with prac- 
 
 Practicc tice and cultivation of this 
 
 wonderful faculty of the mind. 
 
 As a rule children have strong memories 
 and vivid imaginations. They think in pic- 
 tures. Most Sunday-school teachers, no 
 doubt, had vivid imaginations when they 
 were young. But as they grow older the 
 reasoning powers develop ; they form large 
 numbers of general notions, and get into the 
 habit of thinking in words, in abstract terms. 
 Thus the imagination becomes weak simply 
 from lack of exercise. 
 
 Where the proper use of the imagination 
 has been neglected it will take considerable 
 
General Preparation 69 
 
 mental effort to carry out the foregoing sug- 
 gestions for its improvement, but the teacher 
 
 who will give the time and en- 
 I'l^Tnatio?'' ergy necessary to cultivate the 
 
 imagination in this manner, 
 will be amply repaid by the increased enjoy- 
 ment and delight which she will obtain from 
 all her reading, as well as the new power it 
 will give to her in teaching. 
 
VIII 
 
 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 IN studying a portion of Bible history or 
 biography, the teacher should read the 
 lesson and its context and note carefully 
 where the story begins and where it ends. 
 The lesson verses printed in the lesson helps 
 should be disregarded. They 
 study the complete ^^^ determined largely by 
 
 limitations of space, and there- 
 fore rarely show any regard for literary unity. 
 The writers of these stories had a fine literary 
 sense ; they knew how to begin, how to 
 work up to a climax, and how to end their 
 stories. Even in single paragraphs and very 
 short stories there is always displayed this 
 sense of literary unity. A proper regard b)^ 
 the teacher for this unity will greatly aid in 
 deepening the impression of the lesson upon 
 
 the pupil. 
 
 70 
 
Special Preparation 71 
 
 In each incident or story there will usually 
 be found a number of changes of scene. 
 
 The teacher should note these 
 Scenes and make a list of them. 
 
 Sometimes the teacher may 
 add scenes which are not mentioned in the 
 story but which lead up to it, or which may 
 occur between those mentioned. Thus the 
 story of the restoring of sight to the blind 
 man in the ninth chapter of John's Gospel 
 might be divided as follows : Scene i, The 
 blind man in his home (not mentioned) ; (2) 
 the blind beggar by the wayside (before the 
 coming of Jesus) ; (3) the coming of Jesus ; 
 (4) the journey to the pool (his thoughts and 
 feelings) ; (5) at the Pool of Siloam ; (6) the 
 journey from the pool ("came seeing"); (7) 
 the return home (not mentioned) ; (8) the 
 discovery of the neighbours ; (9) the meeting 
 with the Pharisees; (10) the meeting with 
 Jesus. Let it be noted that each of these 
 scenes covered a certain length of time in the 
 life of the blind man, and include experiences 
 which to him were of the deepest interest 
 and of the utmost importance. Yet so con- 
 
72 The Attack on the Imagination 
 
 densed is the narrative that some of them are 
 included in but a word or two. Think of 
 how much is included in those four words 
 ** blind from his birth " ; think of the joy of 
 that return journe}^ "and came seeing." 
 The teacher who would enter into this story 
 must with the aid of her imagination fill in 
 the details that are thus related so briefly. 
 She must strive to put herself in the place of 
 the blind man at each stage of the story, and 
 must try to realize how he thought and felt 
 as the story develops. 
 
 In order to get a proper perspective for a 
 story, it will often be helpful to go back and 
 study the scenes and events 
 Preceding Events which lead up to that with 
 which the story begins. For 
 example in the study of the scene in the syn- 
 agogue in the second chapter of Mark, the 
 teacher might take up the life of the man 
 with an unclean spirit before that day. It is 
 very probable that when he was first seized 
 with this strange affliction he was either 
 driven from the community where he lived 
 on account of the superstitious fears of those 
 
Special Preparation 73 
 
 about him, or else he may have himself felt 
 constrained to hide from his fellows, and so 
 gone out to live in caves or amid the tombs. 
 Think of the misery, the suffering, the lone- 
 liness, the utter hopelessness and despair of 
 one spending his life in this manner. Then 
 think of the contrast between the day before 
 he went into the synagogue, and the day 
 after he met the Saviour. Such a brief study 
 of the lives of the leading persons just before 
 the lesson will throw light on their thoughts, 
 feelings and acts in the passage for the les- 
 son. Think of the life of Matthew the pub- 
 lican, just before Jesus met him ; of Zaccheus ; 
 of the woman of Samaria ; of Nicodemus ; 
 of the leper in the second chapter of Mark ; 
 of the rich young ruler ; of the thief on the 
 cross ; of Saul on the way to Damascus. In 
 order to enter fully into their thoughts, their 
 feelings and their actions as related in the 
 Scripture, it is necessary to go back of the 
 point where they appear in the story and 
 lead up to the first scene. 
 
 Every mental picture, like every real pic- 
 ture, must have a background. The teacher 
 
74 Ihe Attack on the Imagination 
 
 must next try to form a vivid picture of this 
 background. In order to do this, she must 
 
 accumulate a store of mental 
 The Background imagcs of the lands and 
 
 places where the events of 
 Bible history occurred. A visit to the 
 Holy Land would be the best help for 
 this, but as this is out of the question for 
 most teachers, the next best thing is to study 
 pictures of these places. Photographs of 
 historic spots in Bible history are now to be 
 had in abundance. The stereoscopic pictures 
 taken with the double lens such as those 
 furnished by Underwood and Underwood, 
 New York, are especially realistic. The 
 teacher should not be satisfied with a glance 
 at such pictures, but should study them long 
 and patiently, until they are transferred to 
 her own memory. To these should be added 
 descriptions of the scenes wherever the 
 teacher can find them. Books like Stanley's 
 " Sinai and Palestine," George Adam Smith's 
 ** Historical Geography of the Holy Land," 
 Thompson's " Land and the Book," Geikie's 
 " Holy Land and the Bible," should not only 
 
Special Preparation 75 
 
 be read but carefully studied with constant 
 effort to reproduce the scenes in the imagi- 
 nation. Relief maps are exceedingly helpful 
 in giving proper ideas of the topography of 
 Palestine. Models of oriental houses, and 
 reproductions of oriental costumes should be 
 studied, and books and poems which give a 
 vivid sense of the atmosphere and surround- 
 ings of oriental life should be read. 
 
 The teacher who has never studied it can 
 have no idea of how much more real and in- 
 teresting Bible history be- 
 Historic Spots comcs, whcn its background is 
 studied and reproduced in the 
 imagination. It adds wonderfully to the 
 reality and interest of the scenes at Sinai to 
 study them through pictures and descriptions. 
 The teacher who follows step by step the 
 journey of the Israelites through the wilder- 
 ness and their experiences at Sinai as they are 
 traced by Stanley in his " Sinai and Palestine " 
 will ever after have a deeper understanding 
 of the meaning and significance of that great 
 story. So a careful study of the Lake of 
 Galilee and its surroundings gives peculiar 
 
76 The Attack on the Imagination 
 
 vividness to the story of Jesus* Galilean min- 
 istry. One who has in his mind a picture of 
 those two hoary mountains Ebal and Gerizim, 
 with Jacob's Well lying between them at their 
 eastern edge, will have a far better idea of the 
 story of the woman at the well. It brings 
 us closer to the great transfiguration scene to 
 study old snow-capped Hermon and its place 
 in the scenery of Palestine. The lives of 
 Samson, Saul and David are better under- 
 stood after a study of the Shephelah or low 
 foot-hills lying between the central hill coun- 
 try and the Philistine plain. 
 
 The most interesting historic spot in the 
 world is the city of Jerusalem. Many of the 
 
 most important scenes in Bible 
 Jerusalem history wcre located there. 
 
 The teacher should carefully 
 study the modern city, its hills, valleys, 
 streets, walls and buildings. From this it 
 will be quite easy to work back to the city as 
 it was in Bible times. While there is still 
 much doubt as to the exact location of the 
 place of the crucifixion, the garden of 
 Gethsemane, etc., yet the main features re- 
 
special Preparation 77 
 
 main the same, and the principal places of 
 interest can be located with sufficient cer- 
 tainty to enable the teacher to picture them 
 in imagination. 
 
 The teacher who will thus study pictures 
 and descriptions of historic places in the Holy 
 Land and practice recalling 
 A Picture Gallery them, wiU soon find that she 
 is storing up in her own mind 
 a gallery of such pictures which are quickly 
 recalled. Jerusalem, Nazareth, Capernaum, 
 Hebron, Bethel, Samaria, the Jordan Valley, 
 Jericho, Carmel, Gilboa, Tabor, the Lake of 
 Galilee, the plain of Esdraelon, will be names 
 which will quickly bring before her mind 
 vivid pictures which will form the background 
 of the lesson she is studying or teaching. So 
 the Bible will become a new book to her. 
 She will have a deepening sense of the truth 
 and reality of these scenes, and there will 
 grow up in her heart a love for the land 
 second only to that which she feels for her 
 own home land. It is truly wonderful that 
 in the long sweep of the centuries and the 
 many changes that have come over the face 
 
78 The Attack on the Imagination 
 
 of the earth, so much of the original scenery, 
 topography, social life, habits, costumes, and 
 even the actual towns, on the same spots, 
 should remain in this little country to-day. 
 
 If the scene is in a house, a mental picture 
 of the house should be formed. A model of 
 
 an oriental house will be of 
 House Scenes great assistance here. A 
 
 teacher, who desired to teach 
 the lesson of the healing of the man with the 
 palsy in the second chapter of Mark, took 
 a small empty starch box, cut a hole in the 
 top, covered it with light brown paper on 
 which lines were drawn to indicate stones, and 
 made a stairway out of pasteboard running 
 up along side of the box, and with this an ef- 
 fective lesson was taught. Such a model could 
 be used for a number of lessons. This was a 
 model of a poorer class of houses. Models of 
 the better class of houses with interior court- 
 yard, the " chamber on the wall," etc., can be 
 obtained at small cost. The room where the 
 scene occurs, its walls, windows (if any), doors, 
 furniture, all should be brought before the 
 mind. Dwelling on these details helps to hold 
 
Special Preparation 79 
 
 the image before the mind and to develop its 
 vividness. A careful reading of books like 
 Stapler's " Palestine in the Time of Christ," 
 Trumbull's "Studies in Oriental Social Life," 
 etc., will give the teacher correct ideas of how 
 the people dressed, the way they lived, their 
 manner of furnishing their houses, their social 
 customs, — such as feasts, weddings, funerals, 
 — their home life, their occupations, etc. 
 As the life of the people in Palestine has 
 changed but little through the centuries, books 
 of travel in Palestine will help the teacher to 
 accumulate mental images necessary for the 
 construction of accurate pictures of life in that 
 country in Bible times. Such knowledge is 
 essential in order that the teacher may not 
 make serious blunders in describing such 
 scenes like that of the teacher who said she 
 did not know how Peter could pray on the 
 housetop without falling off, but " with God 
 all things are possible ! " 
 
 A number of scenes in the life of Christ 
 and in the life of St. Paul occur in the Jewish 
 synagogue. As a preparation for teaching 
 these lessons the teacher should study the 
 
8o The Attack on the Imagination 
 
 interior arrangements of these buildings. 
 They were usually rectangular in shape with 
 flat roofs supported by rows 
 The Synagogue of pillars. At One end were 
 the chief seats for the elders, 
 the ark for the law, the reader's desk and the 
 lamp. Some of them had benches for the 
 worshippers ; others were without these and 
 the worshippers sat on the floor. There was 
 a latticed gallery for the women. In studying 
 a lesson like the scene in the synagogue at 
 Capernaum in the second chapter of Mark, 
 the teacher should endeavour to form a vivid 
 picture of the interior of this synagogue as it 
 looked during that dramatic incident. 
 
 Where a scene is located in the open air, 
 it should be studied in the same way. Sup- 
 pose it is the story of Jacob's 
 In the Open vision at Bcthcl in the twenty- 
 
 eighth chapter of Genesis that 
 is to be studied. J Jacob had bid farewell to 
 Isaac and Rebecca and had gone out from 
 Beersheba. With his wallet filled with food 
 for the journey, his staff in his hand, and his 
 garments gathered up in his girdle, he started 
 
Special Preparation 8l 
 
 on his long journey towards the North. At 
 sunset he stops to rest for the night. He is 
 on a hilltop ; the stillness of the evening, the 
 loneliness of the hills, the dark shadows of 
 the valleys are around him ; he is footsore 
 and weary and homesick ; he eats his lonely 
 meal ; and gathering his garments about him 
 with a stone for a pillow he lies down to 
 sleep. The blue sky is over his head ; the 
 stars are shining brightly through that clear 
 Syrian air ; the soft breezes fan his cheeks ; 
 the silence is broken only by the cry of some 
 wild animal. As he closes his eyes, mem- 
 ories of his past life float before him : the 
 evening scenes of the camp at Beersheba, 
 the coming of the herds, the noise and 
 clamour of watering the flocks ; the milking 
 of the kine ; the evening meal, the talk and 
 laughter, the songs and tales of the camp ; 
 then the face of his old father, the face of his 
 mother ; the scenes of his childhood, the re- 
 ligious teaching he had received ; the stories 
 of his grandfather Abraham ; the covenant 
 with God ; his sin ; then the future, its 
 dangers, its uncertainties. Lonely, home- 
 
82 The Attack on the Imagination 
 
 sick and afraid, he falls asleep. Then comes 
 that beautiful dream, bringing with it a sense 
 of the nearness of God. " Surely Jehovah is 
 in this place and I knew it not. How dread- 
 ful is this place. This is none other than the 
 house of God. This is the gate of heaven." 
 
 So wherever the scene may be laid, in the 
 valley, on the hillside or mountain top, along 
 the highway, by lake or seaside, in the open 
 field, in house or synagogue, a determined 
 efiort should be made to bring it vividly be- 
 fore the mind. 
 
 Having thus studied the background, the 
 persons in the scene must be studied. Pic- 
 tures of oriental costumes may 
 The Persons be Studied until it becomes 
 
 easy to picture the dress of 
 the persons in the scene. The face is harder 
 to imagine. The hair, the forehead, the 
 look of the eyes, the expression of the mouth 
 and chin, the tone of the voice, each gesture 
 that the person makes while he is speaking, 
 each act that he performs in the scene may all 
 be brought before the mind. The greater the 
 number of these details the longer the image 
 
Special Preparation 83 
 
 is held and the more vivid it becomes. The 
 teacher may seek the aid of the great artists 
 in forming such pictures. Michael-Angelo's 
 Moses and David, Raphael's Paul, and other 
 pictures, reproductions of which may now be 
 had, can be used for this purpose. 
 
 The study of the dress, face, gestures, ac- 
 tions, etc., is not enough. More important 
 
 than these it is to try to im- 
 Their Mental States agiuc thc mental State of each 
 
 person. We must not stop 
 with the outside. We must try to pluck out 
 the heart of his mystery, get inside of him, 
 put ourselves in his place, and imagine his 
 emotions as he speaks or acts, in the scene. 
 Psychologists tell us that the " sense of 
 reality " depends much upon the emotions. 
 Things seen in the cold light of the intellect 
 are apt to seem unreal, while things seen in 
 a glow of emotion become intensely real. 
 So there is nothing that will give the sense 
 of reality to a mental picture of a person like 
 that of entering into and sharing his feelings. 
 In forming a vivid picture of a person in 
 the lesson it will often be helpful to run over 
 
84 The Attack on the Imagination 
 
 in the mind the memories that person may 
 have had at the moment related in the les- 
 son. At any given moment 
 Their Memories of his Hfe each individual is 
 the sum of all his past experi- 
 ences, he is what his past life has made him. 
 These memories of his past life lie in his sub- 
 conscious mind and may at any moment 
 rush up into consciousness. They are espe- 
 cially apt to do so at the great turning points 
 and crises in life. But even if they should 
 not do so, it will help us to realize the person 
 in the lesson if we put ourselves in his place, 
 and run over his past life leading up to the 
 scene in the lesson. In such a lesson as that 
 in the eighth chapter of Judges for example, 
 where the elders of Israel came to Samuel 
 and demanded a king, try to put yourself in 
 Samuel's place at that moment, and think of 
 the memories that would come welling up 
 within him as it dawned upon him what this 
 demand would mean to him. The farewells 
 of Moses, of Joshua, and of Samuel ; the 
 memories of David when he was anointed 
 King of Israel after his long and trying ordeal 
 
Special Preparation 85 
 
 of discipline under the providential guidance 
 of God ; Elijah's thoughts during that last 
 walk with Elisha to the Jordan ; Jeremiah's 
 memories at the fall of Jerusalem ; the mem- 
 ories of the aged Hebrews at the rebuilding 
 of the temple ; Saul's memories when he 
 found himself rejected of the Lord ; Paul's 
 memories during those three days of blind- 
 ness in Damascus ; Peter's memories during 
 that night in prison when he expected to be 
 led forth the next day to his death ; the disci- 
 ples' memories on that last evening in the 
 upper room in Jerusalem ; our Saviour's mem- 
 ories that awful night in the Garden of Geth- 
 semane : By dwelling on these in imagina- 
 tion we find ourselves coming into closer 
 sympathy and fellowship with these persons. 
 All this is a part of that process of " putting 
 yourself in his place," which is essential to 
 the sympathetic understanding of another hu- 
 man soul. 
 
 It is not easy to form a vivid picture of a 
 person in this broad sense. Personality is a 
 very complex thing. Our conceptions of 
 persons are formed from a large number of 
 
86 The Attack on the Imagination 
 
 single impressions made under varying cir- 
 cumstances. But where there is a series of 
 
 lessons about the same per- 
 personaiity son, as often happens in the 
 
 Sunday-school, the teacher 
 who will take the time and have the patience 
 to study him in the manner suggested, will find 
 growing up in her mind a more and more 
 vivid picture of him, and she will gain a 
 deeper insight into the truths which are re- 
 vealed in the life and experience of this person. 
 It may be objected that a greater knowl- 
 edge of the Bible is here assumed on the part 
 
 of the teacher than it is fair 
 
 mbrNe«s:LT t^ ^^^P^^t ^^^^ the average 
 worker in the Sunday-school. 
 It is true that Sunday-school teaching does 
 make large demands upon the teacher. No 
 teacher who has any desire to succeed in this 
 work will be satisfied with a scrappy study of 
 each lesson as it comes from week to week. 
 In taking up a series of lessons, the book 
 from which they are taken should be read 
 straight through from beginning to end. If 
 this were done at a single sitting it would be 
 
special Preparation 87 
 
 all the better. The teacher should read it 
 through often enough to familiarize herself 
 with its general outline and contents. If the 
 teacher would read the Bible straight through 
 in course a few times, it would help her very 
 much in the teaching of the individual lessons. 
 
 Where there are a number of scenes in the 
 story, it will not be possible to study them 
 all in the manner suggested. 
 Selection Necessary The tcacher may be com- 
 pelled to select those which 
 are more important, more dramatic and in- 
 teresting, and spend her time on them. 
 Even if it is not intended to dwell upon them 
 all at length in the teaching of the lesson, it 
 helps to give it unity and reality in the mind 
 of the teacher to study each scene from be- 
 ginning to end of the incident in this way. 
 
 In developing the scenes of the lesson it 
 will be found helpful to make brief notes of 
 the details as they come before 
 Notes the mind. If this is not done, 
 
 the mind is apt to dwell upon 
 one detail too long. When it is jotted down, 
 it is easy to pass to the next. When all of 
 
88 The Attack on the Imagination 
 
 the details are thus noted, the notes help to 
 recall them, and by going over the notes a 
 number of times, the several details become 
 moulded into a unity with proper perspective 
 and proportion. The notes need not be writ- 
 ten out in full. It will be found usually that 
 a single word or two will serve to recall the 
 detail. 
 
IX 
 
 PRESENTING THE LESSON FACTS 
 
 HAVING gotten the facts clearly and 
 vividly before her own mind, the 
 teacher is now ready for the next 
 step, and must plan how best to bring them 
 before the imagination of the pupil. This 
 will be easier than it was to 
 fo°p'i;pTr'*'" get the lesson into the teach- 
 
 er's own mind. Children have 
 active and sympathetic imaginations. They 
 are quick to seize upon suggestions given by 
 the teacher. It will be found, too, that the 
 more vividly the lesson appears to the 
 teacher, the easier it will be for her to bring 
 it to the pupil. It is easy to describe things 
 which we see with glowing imagination. 
 The teacher who vividly realizes the story 
 herself will almost unconsciously add many 
 little details which will give the sense of 
 
 reality to what she talks about. 
 
 89 
 
90 The Attack on the Imagination 
 
 There are several ways in which the lesson 
 facts may be brought before the imagination 
 
 of the pupil. For the younger 
 Methods children the best method is to 
 
 throw the lesson into the form 
 of a story. Story telling is an art in itself, 
 and it would require a separate volume to 
 treat of it adequately. Making the story 
 one's own, and then practice, are two es- 
 sentials to success. Even in teaching older 
 pupils the story method is often effective. 
 Everybody loves a story, and there is no 
 doubt of its teaching power. Another method 
 is to ask questions which call for an effort of 
 the imagination. There are three principal 
 kinds of questions in Sunday-school teach- 
 ing : those which require an answer from 
 memory ; those which call for an expression 
 of judgment, and those which appeal to the 
 imagination. Let the teacher note these 
 three kinds, and let her practice framing 
 questions which call for the use of the imagina- 
 tion on the part of the pupil. By a series of 
 such questions she may set the mind of the 
 pupil to work, and may draw from him the 
 
Presenting the Lesson Facts 91 
 
 picture which he sees, and in the effort to 
 answer, the picture will come out in his mind 
 more clearly. Or the teacher may ask the 
 pupil to tell the story in his own words, inter- 
 jecting questions which will help to develop 
 it in his imag-ination. Or she may combine 
 these methods, now telling the story herself, 
 now giving a bit of description, now asking 
 questions of the pupil, and now getting the 
 pupil to describe it as he sees it. A teacher 
 who studies the use and development of the 
 imagination will become expert in detecting 
 the vague and indefinite character of the 
 pupil's mental images, and in adding just the 
 needed touch to help him to see it more 
 clearly. It will also be found that with prac- 
 tice the teacher acquires facility in selecting 
 just the right words to describe the scene, or 
 to give the air of reality to the lesson facts. 
 The tendency at first will be to overload the 
 lesson with details. The teacher will try to 
 bring before the pupil all that she has worked 
 out in her own imagination and pretty much 
 in the same order that it has come to her. 
 But with growing skill, she will learn to 
 
92 The Attack on the Imagination 
 
 select the most important and interesting de- 
 tails, to arrange them in the most effective 
 order, and to express them in the happiest 
 manner. 
 
 In developing the lesson in the imagina- 
 tion of the pupil, diagrams can often be used 
 
 to great advantage. There 
 Diagrams is morc teaching power even 
 
 in a crude diagram or draw- 
 ing than most teachers realize. The rough 
 lines and marks are quickly seized by the 
 imagination of the pupil and translated into 
 a picture. They give an impulse to the im- 
 aginative faculty, and enable it to work with 
 greater ease and facility. A teacher who was 
 teaching the story of Paul's arrest at Philippi ^ 
 drew upon the blackboard two lines repre- 
 senting the banks of a river; alongside of 
 them a rough plan of the city was drawn, 
 with gates on the east, south, west and 
 north ; a large square was drawn around the 
 southern gate to indicate the market-place ; 
 a small square on the side of this represented 
 the prison ; a number of lines were drawn to 
 
 1 Acts xvi. 1 1-40. 
 
Presenting the Lesson Facts 93 
 
 indicate streets, one street running east to 
 the gate by the river. On this a small square 
 represented the house of Lydia. Two or 
 three upright marks at the crossing of two 
 streets indicated the slave girl and her mas- 
 ters. As the lesson was taught, a chalk line 
 was drawn from the house of Lydia down 
 the street to the corner where the girl was 
 encountered, from there to the market-place 
 where the hearing before the magistrates was 
 had ; and from there to the prison ; from there 
 to the house of Lydia where the farewells 
 were said to the church, and then to the 
 western gate. It was frankly stated that the 
 plan was imaginary, yet it covered the main 
 features of the story, and brought them out 
 with a distinctness that could not have been 
 had without them. The advantage of such 
 a diagram is that it does not require skill to 
 draw, it does not take much time to make, 
 and however roughly drawn it answers the 
 purpose almost as well as a sketch carefully 
 and skillfully drawn with all the details 
 filled in. 
 
 Maps should be in constant use to trace 
 
94 I'he Attack on the Imagination 
 
 journeys and locate places. In using maps, 
 however, it must be remembered that a map 
 
 is a mere symbol and that 
 Maps it must be supplemented with 
 
 word pictures or it will not help 
 much in understanding the lesson. Indeed 
 unless it is so supplemented it may mislead 
 rather than help the pupil. On the map the 
 journey of Paul and Barnabas from Perga to 
 Antioch in Pisidia ' is indicated by a red line 
 possibly half an inch long. Yet that journey 
 led through a high mountain range, along a 
 steep, toilsome and lonely road, infested with 
 robbers and other dangers so great that they 
 probably scared John Mark and caused him 
 to turn back home. A look at the map 
 would utterly fail to show the pupil what this 
 journey meant. So the cities on the map 
 are represented by small dots. These the 
 teacher must translate into large cities, with 
 strong walls and gates, with narrow, crooked 
 streets, flat-roofed houses, public squares, 
 and buildings, with swarms of people moving 
 up and down, in and out of the stores and 
 
 ' Acts xiii. 13-14. 
 
Presenting the Lesson Facts 95 
 
 bazaars, and filling the temples and theatres, 
 people as real, as human, as those who 
 walk the streets of our cities to-day. No 
 wonder maps are uninteresting to pupils 
 when they are merely glanced at and no 
 attempt is made to translate the symbol 
 into the reality. We have already pointed 
 out the usefulness of the relief map in giv- 
 ing correct ideas as to the topography of a 
 country. 
 
 We have also spoken of the help which 
 pictures give to the imagination. They 
 
 should be in constant use in 
 Pictures the class. Many schools are 
 
 putting in the stereoscopic pic- 
 tures previously referred to. With two of 
 the instruments and the pictures, they may 
 be used very effectively in an ordinary sized 
 class. 
 
 Models of oriental houses, of the synagogue 
 and the temple, of articles of furniture, of an 
 
 oriental tomb, etc., can now 
 Models be obtained and are very 
 
 helpful. 
 A very effective method of teaching a les- 
 
96 The Attack on the Imagination 
 
 son is that of taking the class around a sand 
 box, and having them make the relief map 
 
 in the sand, then with the aid 
 Sand Box of the stercoscopic pictures, 
 
 tracing the scenes of the story 
 on the sand map. 
 
X 
 
 WHAT IS INTEREST? 
 
 FOUR very powerful influences act upon 
 the will and produce the larger num- 
 ber of our actions. These are (i) sug- 
 gestion, that is the forming in the mind of a 
 mental picture of the action to be performed ; 
 (2) imitation, that is seeing 
 Influences either actually or in imagina- 
 
 tion some one else do the act ; 
 (3) habit ; and (4) emotion. 
 
 "The executive force of an idea," says 
 Jules Payot in his " Education of the Will," 
 "almost always comes from 
 Payot its union with those real 
 
 sources of power which we 
 call the affective states. Every turn of ex- 
 perience convinces us of the feebleness of 
 ideas. . . . All force which instigates im- 
 portant actions emanates from sensibility. 
 When sensibility is profoundly diminished, 
 when there is no joy following sensation, 
 97 
 
98 Capturing the Emotions 
 
 then the idea remains inert and cold. . . . 
 The will is not fond of carrying out the cold 
 orders it receives from the intelligence. As 
 it is the organ of all power and feeling, it 
 wants emotional orders tinged with passion. 
 
 . . All volition is preceded by a wave 
 of emotion, an effective perception of the act 
 to be accomplished. . . . It is necessary 
 therefore if we would weld an idea solidly 
 and indestructibly to a desired action, that 
 we should fuse them together by the heat of 
 an emotion." ' 
 
 The power to feel is one of the most won- 
 derful and mysterious that the human mind 
 possesses. On the eastern 
 A Wonderful gj^^ ^j ^^^ ^j^^, ^f Jcrusalcm 
 
 is a spring of water which is 
 now called the " Virgin's Pool." A remark- 
 able peculiarity of this spring is that its flow 
 is intermittent. The water in the basin of 
 the pool is sometimes so low that it seems as 
 though the water had stopped flowing, but 
 at certain hours of the day, the water sud- 
 denly begins to well up and comes with such 
 
 ' Op. cit., p. 54 ff. 
 
What is Interest ? 99 
 
 force and rapidity that the basin is soon 
 filled to overflowing. This mysterious rise 
 and fail of the water has been a source of 
 wonder and awe to the natives for centuries. 
 No one has ever been able to discover the 
 cause of it. Many of the natives look upon 
 it as supernatural. 
 
 The power to feel, to experience emotion, 
 
 which the mind possesses may not inaptly 
 
 be compared to the Virgin's 
 
 Riae and Fall Pool. CoUCCaled within US 
 
 and closely connected with the 
 brain and nervous system, is this strange 
 fountain which is continually rising and fall- 
 ing, and sometimes its movements are as 
 mysterious as the rise and fall of the Virgin's 
 Pool. At times it seems as though it had 
 entirely disappeared. As we go about our 
 daily tasks, performing them, perhaps, in a 
 mechanical manner, it would be hard to 
 discover even a trace of feeling in our 
 minds. But some objects have the power to 
 open the gate, as it were, of the fountain, 
 and the moment such an object enters the 
 mind, there is a swift rise of feeling. It may 
 
loo Capturing the Emotions 
 
 be only a slight flow of the current, or it may 
 come with a flood that sweeps everything 
 before it, so that the whole mind is filled with 
 it, and it rushes along the nerves to every 
 part of the body. 
 
 When the rise of feeling is marked, it takes 
 on many different phases : love, fear, anger, 
 joy, sorrow, aversion, desire, 
 Interest louging, auxiety, pain, pleas- 
 
 ure, etc. When it first begins 
 to rise, or when the rise is not so marked as 
 to take on any of these various forms, we give 
 it the name of " interest." When the stream 
 has risen to its height, it begins to recede, 
 hence interest in any subject cannot be sus- 
 tained, ordinarily, for any length of time, un- 
 less there is change and variety in the im- 
 ages presented to the mind. 
 
 What would life be without the emotions ? 
 Without the power to feel, we would be in- 
 different to everything. We 
 kI^T' would not think, for there 
 
 must be some pleasure in 
 thinking in order to overcome the natural in- 
 ertia of the mind. We would not do any- 
 
What is Interest"? loi 
 
 thing, for back of every volition there must 
 be more or less interest. We would be in- 
 different to the world of nature, for we would 
 have none of the higher aesthetic emotions. 
 All the ties which bind us to our fellows 
 would disappear, for they are all rooted in 
 feeling. Nothing would be of any value to 
 us, for consciousness of value takes its rise 
 from feeling. A life so entirely negative and 
 colourless would hardly be worth the living. 
 
 When our attention is first called to this 
 power, it seems to be very capricious. It is 
 
 capricious in its coming and 
 Caprice going. A sccne upon which 
 
 we have looked many times, 
 without a thought of anything beautiful 
 about it, at an unexpected moment becomes 
 transfigured with loveliness. A young man 
 looks upon a young woman with indifference 
 and then suddenly falls in love with her. 
 The poem which I read with such delight 
 yesterday to-day fails to move me ; to-morrow 
 I may read it again and it somehow will fit 
 into my mood and take on new freshness and 
 meaning. One day our mood is glad and 
 
102 Capturing the Emotions 
 
 joyous, the next we are depressed and 
 gloomy, and we cannot give any reason for 
 the change. 
 
 Objects which have power to awaken feel- 
 ing often seem to be capricious also. What 
 interests one person fails to at- 
 Differing ^ ^ auothcr. The child, the 
 
 Interests ' 
 
 boy, the youth, the man, each 
 has his own peculiar interests in life. The 
 boy wonders at the interests of the man, the 
 man smiles at the childish interests of the 
 boy. Even those who are passing through 
 the same stage of growth have interests dif- 
 ferent from one another. Children of the 
 same family and near an age differ re- 
 markably in their tastes and interests. In 
 nothing do we differ from one another so 
 much as in the response we make in feeling 
 to different objects. 
 
 The power to feel is not, however, so 
 capricious as these instances would make 
 it appear. Each person is born with 
 certain natural interests. These are added 
 to in the growth of the mind and the ex- 
 periences of life in a manner which will be 
 
What is Interest"? 103 
 
 hereafter explained. It is not proposed to 
 give here a technical exposition of the psy- 
 chology of interest. This subject is still 
 under investigation, and experts on the 
 science of mind are not yet agreed in their 
 conclusions concerning it. What we desire 
 to do is to give the teacher some simple sug- 
 gestions which will enable her to select the 
 lesson material and to present it in a way that 
 will interest the pupils. 
 
XI 
 
 INTEREST IN LESSON FACTS 
 
 OBJECTS of interest always possess 
 some familiarity. That which is en- 
 tirely strange is not interesting. A 
 new study is apt to be dry at the beginning. 
 Usually strange people do not attract us at 
 first. The Bible is an unin- 
 Famiiiarity tcrcstiug boolc to many simply 
 
 because of its unfamiliarity. 
 The places, persons and events belong to a 
 far-away time and a far-off land. They seem 
 to belong to another world and out of all 
 connection with every-day life. So every 
 teacher has felt the difficulty of beginning a 
 lesson which is entirely unfamiliar to the 
 pupils. Their blank looks and listless atti- 
 tudes betray their lack of interest. Every 
 teacher knows how much easier it is to teach 
 pupils who come to the class with some 
 
 knowledge of the lesson. Here is another 
 104 
 
Interest in Lesson Facts 105" 
 
 application of the law of apperception. The 
 law of interest requires the preparation of 
 the mind by recalling familiar facts and 
 truths. 
 
 On the other hand some novelty is neces- 
 sary to awaken interest. We are always 
 eager to learn something new 
 Novelty about familiar things. Curi- 
 
 osity, the craving for new 
 knowledge and new experience, is a natural 
 interest. We are born with it and never lose 
 it. A pupil soon tires of a teacher who con- 
 stantly repeats the same truths ; who goes 
 over the same ground in the same way ; who 
 never surprises. So the teacher must strive 
 to bring something new and fresh to her 
 class in each lesson. Old truths may be given 
 fresh setting in new groups of lesson facts. 
 The more thorough study the teacher gives to 
 the lesson, the more likely she is to find some- 
 thing new in it. So the teacher must be ever 
 seeking illustrations which show the truth in 
 a different light. 
 
 Interest in an object depends very much on 
 the vividness with which it is presented to the 
 
lo6 Capturing the Emotions 
 
 mind. Objects of sense arouse interest 
 quickly because of the vividness with which 
 
 they are presented. 
 Vividness In like manner interest 
 
 in objects presented to the 
 imagination will depend largely upon the 
 vividness with which they appear to the 
 mind. In reading a story laid in places that 
 are familiar, we feel greater interest be- 
 cause of the ease and quickness with which 
 we form mental pictures of the background 
 of the tale. When we have seen a famous 
 person, we will always be more interested in 
 what we read about him, because of the pic- 
 ture of him that we carry in our minds. An- 
 other reason why a good illustration awakens 
 interest is because it is usually concrete and 
 brings a picture to the imagination. Stories 
 that delight children, such as Robinson 
 Crusoe, always have this quality of concrete- 
 ness and vividness. 
 
 Personality is interesting to us. It is the 
 one supremely interesting thing in the world. 
 Let the teacher grasp the significance of 
 this fact : That we are born with a natural, 
 
Interest in Lesson Facts 107 
 
 deep-rooted interest in persons. Our first 
 contact in life is with a person, in the loving 
 
 embrace of our mother. Per- 
 pertonaiity SOUS occupy a larger place in 
 
 the child's mind than anything 
 else. All through our experience in the 
 world, our lives are pressed close against 
 other lives ; they influence us in a thousand 
 ways ; they dominate our thought, our feel- 
 ings, our imaginations and our wills. It is the 
 personal element in them that sends us to the 
 newspaper, the magazine, the novel, the biog- 
 raphy, the history, the poem and the drama. 
 Even nature needs a human element added 
 to it to make it interesting to us as John Bur- 
 roughs has so well shown us. 
 
 We are naturally and instinctively inter- 
 ested in the actions of persons, especially 
 
 where an action means some- 
 Dramatic Action thing, where it involves the 
 
 life and destiny of the person 
 who acts. The delight of children in make 
 believe play is well known. The love of 
 grown people for dramatic action is so strong 
 that thousands gather in our theatres every 
 
io8 Capturing the Emotions 
 
 night to watch the mimic play. Boys de- 
 light in stories of adventure that are full of 
 movement. A baseball game is full of dra- 
 matic action. The mature man studies the 
 great tragedies of Shakespeare in which the 
 leading character is caught in the toils of his 
 own deed and is carried down to ruin. Life 
 about us is full of the dramatic. Comedies 
 and tragedies are being enacted all about us 
 if we only had eyes to see them. 
 
 Each one of the five elements of interest 
 
 thus far considered is found in the greatest 
 
 abundance in the Bible, and 
 
 The Bible especially in the teachings of 
 
 Jesus. 
 
 Jesus makes constant use of the most 7^- 
 7niliar things in His teaching. '* In the house 
 we see the cup and the platter, the lamp and 
 the candlestick ; we see the servants grinding 
 the meal between the millstones, and then 
 hiding the leaven in it till the whole is leav- 
 ened ; we see the mother of the family sewing 
 a piece of cloth on an old garment and the 
 father straining the wine into the skin bottles ; 
 we see at the door the hen gathering her 
 
Interest in Lesson Facts 109 
 
 chickens under her wings and, in the streets, 
 the children playing at marriages and funer- 
 als. Out in the fields we see the lilies in 
 their stately beauty rivalling Solomon's, the 
 crows picking up the seed behind the sower, 
 and the birds in their nests among the 
 branches ; the doves and the sparrows, dogs 
 and swine, the fig tree and the bramble bush. 
 Looking up we see the cloud carried over the 
 landscape by the south wind, the red sky of 
 evening promising fair weather for the mor- 
 row and the lightning flashing from one end 
 of the heavens to the other. We see the 
 vineyard with its tower and winepress ; the 
 field adorned with the tender blade of spring 
 or sprinkled with the reapers among the 
 yellow grain in autumn, the sheep, too, yon- 
 der in their pastures, and the shepherd going 
 before them seeking the lost one over hill 
 and dale." ' 
 
 On the other hand note the wonderful 
 freshness of the teaching of Jesus. The peo- 
 ple who flocked around Him had never heard 
 great truths put in such new and surprising 
 
 1 Stalker in " Imago Christi," p. 254. 
 
1 1 o Capturing the Emotions 
 
 ways. So fresh, so original, so unique are 
 these parables and illustrations that they 
 never grow old even to us who have heard 
 them over and over again, centuries after 
 they were first uttered. 
 
 The peculiar vividness of the Old Testament 
 stories and the parables of Jesus form a large 
 element in their charm for old and young. 
 
 The Hebrew language " had no words ex- 
 cept for the concrete objects of the external 
 world. All the words of the old Hebrew 
 went back to things of sense, and in conse- 
 quence even their every-day language was 
 figurative in a way which we can hardly im- 
 agine. The verb to be jealous was a regular 
 form of the word to glozu ; the noun truth 
 was derived from the verb meaning to prop ^ 
 to build or to make fir 7n. The word for self 
 was also the word for bone. Anger is ex- 
 pressed in Hebrew in a throng of ways, each 
 picturesque, and each borrowed from physio- 
 logical facts. Now the metaphor is taken from 
 the rapid and animated breathing which ac- 
 companies the passion, now from heat or 
 from boiling, now from the act of a noisy 
 
Interest ia Lesson Facts 1 1 1 
 
 breaking", now from shivering. Discoiirage- 
 incnt and despair are expressed by the melt- 
 ing of the heart, y^^r by the loosening of the 
 reins. Pride is portrayed by the holding 
 high of the head, with the figure straight and 
 stifl. Patience is a long breathing, impatie?ice 
 short breathing, desire is thirst or paleness. 
 Pardon is expressed by a throng of metaphors 
 borrowed from the idea of covering, of hid- 
 ing, of coating over the fault. In Job God 
 sews up sins in a sack, seals it, then throws 
 it behind Him ; all to signify that He forgets 
 them. Other more or less abstract ideas 
 have found their symbol in the Semitic lan- 
 guages in a like manner. The idea of beauty 
 is drawn from splendour, that of good from 
 straightness, that of evil from swerving or 
 the curved line, or from stench. To create is 
 primitively to mould, to decide is to cut, to 
 think is to speak." ^ 
 
 The great truths of the Bible are revealed 
 in the lives and experiences oi persons. " The 
 Bible should be studied," says Dr. Henry H. 
 Snyder, in " Religious Education," " accord- 
 
 ' Gardiner, "The Bible as English Literature," p. 113. 
 
1 1 2 Capturing the Emotions 
 
 ing to the method with which religious truth is 
 presented in it. This method is not theolog- 
 ical, not philosophical, not the abstract meth- 
 ods of a text-book on ethics. It is true that it 
 deals with the great themes out of which the- 
 ologies, philosophies, and systems of ethics 
 have grown — faith, God, righteousness, sin, 
 conduct, character, the redemption of man, — 
 themes world old and world long, and inevi- 
 tably fundamental to the first man who began 
 to think about himself, his place in the uni- 
 verse, his destiny, as they will be funda- 
 mental to the last man who, looking before 
 and after, strives to solve the problem of his 
 own narrow span as well as the problem of 
 the larger life of the race. The Bible is frankly, 
 directly and vitally a human book, and its 
 method of expressing religious truth is as far 
 from the abstract as the man that josdes you 
 on the street is from Pope's ' Essay on Man.' 
 "It is this human, this personal quality, 
 this embodying of the supreme truths of the 
 religious life in men and women of varying 
 types of character that makes a study of it, 
 from this point of view, so fruitful of religious 
 
Interest in Lesson Facts 113 
 
 value. What is the Bible, what is it that 
 stands out from its pages, gripping thought, 
 quickening conscience, and stirring religious 
 sentiments? Is it the familiar truths that 
 have been mentioned ? Yes, to be sure ; but 
 they come by way of personalities, — of 
 Moses, of Abraham, of Jacob, of Joseph, of 
 Samuel, of Saul, of David, of Peter, of Paul, 
 of Jesus. Sympathetically to interpret the 
 meaning of such lives, to discover and em- 
 phasize the forces that made them what they 
 were, how they thought, what they did, to rec- 
 ognize the human power with which each 
 wrought and also to recognize the power 
 not himself which made for righteousness in 
 the life of each— is to leave a deposit of 
 religious values in the mind of the average 
 student of far more significance than can be 
 had from a text-book on ethics or morals. All 
 this suggests that if the study of the Bible is 
 to be of distinctly religious value, it must con- 
 cern itself with the study of personalities pos- 
 sessed by religious ideals and controlled by 
 the religious spirit." ' 
 
 1 Op. cit., Vol. V, p. 57. 
 
114 Capturing the Emotions 
 
 Again the Bible is an intensely dramatic 
 book. Its narratives are full of movement 
 and thrilling action. Many of the incidents 
 could with but little change be thrown into 
 the dramatic form. The revelation it con- 
 tains is a revelation of God in action, and in 
 the great drama of redemption we are shown 
 the way of salvation and God's love for man- 
 kind. 
 
 These five simple laws of interest : famili- 
 arity, novelty, vividness, personality, and 
 dramatic action, will be of 
 A Touchstone great practical assistance to 
 
 the teacher in the preparation 
 and selection of the lesson material. Keep- 
 ing them constantly in mind, she will find 
 many things in the lesson helps that are not 
 available for her class. With growing skill 
 she will learn to select those things which will 
 not only attract and hold the attention, but 
 which will feed and nurture the mind of the 
 pupil. 
 
 We proceed now to consider certain other 
 laws of interest which apply more especially 
 to the presentation of the lesson. 
 
Interest in Lesson Facts 1 1 5 
 
 All feeling is contagious. It is well known 
 how rapidly fear will spread from one to an- 
 other in an army. The effect 
 Contagion which a chccrful or a gloomy 
 
 person has upon those about 
 him, the influence of an orator over his audi- 
 ence, the power of a great general to inspire his 
 men in battle, and the rapid spread of emotion 
 in great revivals are all illustrations of this 
 law. The teacher who would awaken emo- 
 tion in the minds of her pupils in the teach- 
 ing of the lesson must feel it herself. To be 
 thoroughly interested yourself is the first es- 
 sential to interesting others. In relating a 
 story, or using an illustration, the teacher 
 who does not feel it cannot tell it. 
 
 If the experience through which a person 
 in the lesson passed was such as to awaken 
 emotion in him, and if we through the 
 sympathetic imagination enter into his feel- 
 ings, he becomes an interesting object to us. 
 If we had been present in many Bible scenes, 
 the profound emotions of those participating 
 in them would have been communicated to 
 us. But we can by an effort of the imagina- 
 
1 16 Capturing the Emotions 
 
 tion thus put ourselves alongside of a Bible 
 character and share his emotion. We may 
 go further. We may put ourselves in his 
 place and for the moment feel that we are 
 passing through the experience and share in 
 the feeling awakened by it. When the 
 teacher has thus in imagination put herself 
 in close touch with the persons in the lesson 
 so as to feel their emotions, she may transfer 
 them to the pupil. Just in proportion to the 
 depth and force of the emotional appeal 
 which the story makes to her, will she be 
 able to bring it in power to his mind and 
 heart. 
 
 In this law we see a reason why the teacher 
 must get into close touch with Jesus. It is 
 . part of her work to pass on 
 wulTefuT the thoughts, feelings, plans, 
 
 and ideals of Jesus to her 
 pupils. Not until she herself has thus gotten 
 into close fellowship with Him, can she so 
 hold Him before the class that He will make 
 the impression that He ought to make upon 
 the hearts of her pupils. 
 
 The law of the contagion of feeling applies 
 
Interest in Lesson Facts 117 
 
 not only as between persons but as between 
 objects and ideas presented to the mind. 
 When an idea brings with it 
 Association a strong glow of intCFCst, and 
 
 another idea is then presented, 
 the feeling will quickly spread from one to 
 the other. When a lesson is approached 
 w-ith a good illustration, the interest aroused 
 tends to continue on through the lesson. By 
 interspersing such illustrations through the 
 lesson, interest may thus be maintained even 
 where the subject matter would otherwise be 
 dry and difficult to teach. 
 
 So when a truth enters the mind in a warm 
 glow of emotion, it is likely that when the 
 truth is afterwards recalled, some of the 
 original feeling accompanying it will also be 
 awakened. If we can capture the emotions 
 in teaching a lesson truth, we increase the 
 probability of that truth influencing the future 
 acts and choices of the pupil. 
 
 When emotion becomes associated with an 
 object, it may become a permanent interest 
 to the person. Each person, as we have 
 seen, starts with a few natural or inherited 
 
Il8 Capturing the Emotions 
 
 interests. Very early in life we begin to add 
 to these through the association of new objects 
 
 and ideas with old objects and 
 fntcTe^s'tr* ideas possessing this power. 
 
 So we go on all through life 
 acquiring new interests. Thus each person, 
 through his own experience, comes to have 
 his own peculiar interests. They are hidden 
 away in the depths of his own mind, and he 
 may not speak of them to others. The 
 teacher in presenting the lesson facts or re- 
 lating illustrations, may touch one of these 
 secret springs and a quick glow of interest is 
 the result which is communicated to the les- 
 son, and it may be that all unconsciously to 
 the teacher a bond is formed between the 
 pupil's former experience and the new lesson 
 which will have an influence upon his future 
 life. It is evident that the more intimately 
 the teacher is acquainted with the pupil, the 
 easier it will be for her thus to touch the per- 
 sonal interests of the pupil. 
 
 Under proper conditions interest ac- 
 companies self-activity. One psychologist 
 (Dewey) has declared his belief that "the 
 
Interest in Lesson Facts i 19 
 
 emotions are the reflex of actions." It is cer- 
 tainly true that there is a close connection 
 between action and feeling. 
 Self-Activity This law is subject, however, 
 
 to the following qualifications : 
 
 I. There must be ease in doing the task. 
 The sense of effort is like friction in nature ; 
 it hinders and retards the action and if too 
 great destroys the pleasure in it. Interest is 
 not usually present at the beginning of a 
 work. Not until the mind and body have 
 gotten into full swing does the sense of effort 
 disappear and pleasure and interest awaken. 
 A recent book on "How to Study" has a 
 chapter with the suggestive title " The Agony 
 of Beginning." 
 
 The beginning of the lesson is therefore a 
 critical moment. The teacher's problem is 
 how to overcome the natural inertia of the 
 mind, the friction, the sense of effort that is 
 almost sure to be present at first. This is 
 the point where she must be ready with the 
 map, the diagram, the picture, the story or 
 the illustration which will catch the attention 
 and start the mind of the pupil to working. 
 
120 Capturing the Emotions 
 
 2. There must be freedom in doing the 
 work. We do not enjoy working under the 
 control of others. We Hke to do things in 
 our own way, to exercise our own powers of 
 initiative and construction, and to use our 
 own wits in the solving of problems and 
 overcoming of difficulties. 
 
 3. There must be adaptation of the task 
 to our powers. We do not take an interest 
 in a task that is beyond our powers. Here 
 is the secret of failure in the teaching of 
 many lessons. Where the lessons are not 
 graded, they are apt to be too difficult for 
 the mind of the pupil to grasp. Making the 
 attempt and finding it beyond him, attention 
 and interest both relax, and his mind flies off 
 to other things. 
 
 Subject to these qualifications, this law runs 
 all through life. Watch a ten-year-old boy 
 at his play and see how hard he will work at 
 making a tent, or sand fort, or in building a 
 dam, or in playing a game of ball. 
 
 Many Sunday-schools are introducing what 
 are called " manual methods " of teaching. 
 The boys and girls in the Junior Depart- 
 
Interest in Lesson Facts 12 1 
 
 ment are put to work cutting out and pasting 
 pictures, illustrating hymns, making and col- 
 ouring maps, writing out the 
 ^^"''^' lesson story into note-books 
 
 Methods •' 
 
 with lettering and sketches, 
 etc. These all make their appeal to this law. 
 Interest is very marked in self-expression. 
 Of course all self-activity is in a sense self- 
 expression, but reference is 
 seif-Expression now made to sclf-cxpression 
 in language. We enjoy the 
 story we tell ourselves. Every speaker 
 knows the fascination of giving expression 
 to his ideas and feelings before an audience. 
 It is a frequent criticism of teachers that they 
 talk too much. The very act of giving ex- 
 pression to what they have learned about the 
 lesson awakens keen interest in them. The 
 teacher should not try to teach too much but 
 aim to give the pupil time to think and to 
 express his thoughts. Even though she does 
 not get through the lesson, or give out 
 everything she has learned, far more will be 
 learned by the pupil and he will take greater 
 interest in it and remember it better, be- 
 
122 Capturing the Emotions 
 
 cause of the part he has taken in what is 
 taught. 
 
 Two other phases of interest which are 
 more difficult of appHcation to lesson teach- 
 ing may be mentioned here 
 ourlefveT bccausc of their influence upon 
 
 our lives. We are each of us 
 interested in our own persons and everything 
 connected with them. We are interested in 
 our clothes because of their association with 
 ourselves. The reason that home is so dear 
 to us is because of the many things there that 
 have thus been associated with our experi- 
 ence. The old clock on the mantelpiece, the 
 picture on the wall, the old armchair, the 
 well, the path through the meadow, the little 
 red schoolhouse, old school-books, and other 
 books that have entered into our lives and 
 become closely associated with our person- 
 alities : how dear do they become to us, and 
 how deeply are memories of them engraven 
 upon our hearts ! 
 
 Especially are we interested in the play of 
 our own inner life. Of that wonderful drama 
 we never grow weary. In his fine essay on 
 
Interest in Lesson Facts 123 
 
 " The Lantern Bearers," Robert Louis Steven- 
 son tells of how when he was a boy in Scot- 
 land at certain seasons of the 
 h!l'efLifr°^'''' year, each of the boys would 
 purchase a tin bull's-eye lan- 
 tern. When the nights were black they 
 would sally forth, each with a tin lantern 
 buckled to his belt and over it a buttoned top- 
 coat. " They smelled noisomely of blistered 
 tin ; they never burned aright ; their use was 
 naught, yet a boy with a tin lantern asked 
 for nothing more. It was the essence of bliss 
 to walk by yourself in the black night, the 
 slide shut, the top-coat buttoned, not a ray 
 escaping, a mere pillar in the dark ; and all 
 the while deep down in the privacy of your 
 fool's heart to know you had a bull's-eye at 
 your belt and to exult and sing over the 
 knowledge. ... It has been said that a 
 poet died young in the breast of the most 
 stolid. It may be contended rather that this 
 (somewhat minor) bard in almost every case 
 survives, and is the spice of life to his pos- 
 sessor. Justice is not done to the unplumbed 
 childishness of man's imagination. His life 
 
124 Capturing the Emotions 
 
 from without may seem but a rude mound of 
 mud, there will be some golden chamber at 
 the heart of it in which he dwells delighted ; 
 and for as dark as his pathway seems to an 
 observer, he will have some kind of a bull's- 
 eye at his belt." ^ 
 
 By the contagion of her own feeling, by 
 association between the facts to be presented 
 and ideas naturally interesting to the pupil, or 
 of peculiar interest to him, by enlisting his 
 activity, by giving him the opportunity for 
 and leading him to self-expression, the skill- 
 ful teacher in the presentation of lesson facts 
 will awaken a response in feeling and lead 
 up to the capture of the rampart of the emo- 
 tions. 
 
 *" Across the Plains," p. 213. 
 
XII 
 
 INTEREST IN LESSON TRUTHS 
 
 THE laws of interest thus far con- 
 sidered relate more particularly to 
 the lesson facts and illustrations. 
 We come now to the question as to what will 
 make a lesson truth an object of interest to 
 the pupil. It is well known that the search 
 for truth may become an absorbing passion 
 in the lives of men. We are now to try and 
 discover why and when we may expect that a 
 lesson truth will awaken interest in the pupil. 
 There is a large class of interests which 
 spring from the desire to explain the un- 
 known and the mysterious. 
 fnt^M?*^* " Speculative interest inquires 
 
 into the relations and casual 
 connections of phenomena. It is not satisfied 
 with the simple play of variety, but seeks for 
 
 the genesis and outcome of things. It traces 
 125 
 
J 26 Capturing the Emotions 
 
 out similarities and sequences and detects 
 law and unity in nature. In fact it leads to 
 science or classified knowledge. Even a child 
 may be eager to know how a squirrel climbs 
 a tree, or cracks a nut ; where it stores its 
 winter food ; and how its nest is built ; its 
 manner of life in winter and summer ; why a 
 mole can burrow underground ; how it is 
 possible for a fish to breathe under water." * 
 So a great many things about the unknown, 
 the unseen, the mysterious are revealed in the 
 Bible. It contains the answers to life's hard- 
 est questions, the explanation of its deepest 
 mysteries. The teacher can make constant 
 appeal to this law of interest in the presenta- 
 tion of lesson truths. The interest with which 
 an adult class will discuss "foreordination," 
 "predestination," and similar hard doctrines is 
 an illustration of this law of interest. The 
 ability of a child to ask questions which a 
 learned scientist cannot answer is well known. 
 A lesson truth may be interesting because 
 of its relation to our needs. All our needs 
 are interesting to us, and there are times 
 
 ' McMurry, " Elements of General Method," p. 112. 
 
Interest in Lesson Truths 127 
 
 when the interest becomes painful in its 
 intensity. The truths of the Bible answer to 
 
 our simplest and smallest as 
 NeedB well as to our highest and 
 
 deepest needs. They point 
 out to us the way in which those needs may 
 be met. When we are oppressed with a sense 
 of our weakness, many Bible verses point us 
 to the source of strength, and His willingness 
 to give us help. When conscience is aroused 
 and a sense of sin weighs upon our hearts, 
 the Bible tells us of the way of salvation, and 
 of how we may escape from the guilt and 
 power of sin. When, facing the hard prob- 
 lems of life, we feel our ignorance, the Bible 
 has much to tell us of wisdom and where it 
 may be found. 
 
 In his study of the ** Psychology of Re- 
 ligion," Prof. J. B. Pratt has a chapter on the 
 
 " Value of God," in which he 
 The " Value of God " quotcs largely from answers 
 
 to a list of questions which he 
 sent out to various persons on the subject of 
 their religion. Commenting on these an- 
 swers, he says : " People are chiefly inter- 
 
128 Capturing the Emotions 
 
 ested not in what God is but in what He can 
 do. Two-thirds of my respondents describe 
 Him as ' Father/ * Friend,' the * ally of my 
 ideals' and equivalent expressions. Pro- 
 fessor Leuba seems to be right in the main 
 when he says, ' God is used rather than un- 
 derstood.' The religious consciousness cares 
 little who God is but wants to use Him for 
 various ends. ... It would be a mis- 
 take to suppose that the ends for which the 
 religious consciousness wishes to use God 
 are chiefly utilitarian ends, such as protector, 
 meat purveyor, etc. . . . Most people 
 want God for the same reason that they want 
 friends. God's relation to them is exactly 
 that of a very dear, a very lovable, a very 
 sympathizing friend. . . . The God whom 
 most people want and whom many people 
 have is a very real and sympathizing friend. 
 Like other friends He is to be sure not only 
 an end in Himself, but a means to other ends. 
 He can help one to many things that one 
 wants. These things are as a rule not ma- 
 terial benefits. They are chiefly of three 
 kinds: Comfort in trouble, hope for the fu- 
 
Interest in Lesson Truths 129 
 
 ture, and assistance in striving after right- 
 eousness." ' 
 
 Our desires may or may not be the same 
 as our needs, but they are always objects 
 
 of interest to us. There are 
 Desires many things which each of us 
 
 would like to possess, to be 
 and to do. Children have many ardent de- 
 sires. The teacher will recall many things 
 about which her longings and day-dreams 
 clustered as a child. Some of these were 
 perhaps peculiar to her ; others were similar 
 to the longings and desires of other children. 
 A lesson truth which relates itself to our de- 
 sires will at once become interesting. 
 
 Closely connected with our needs and our 
 desires are our hopes which also possess 
 
 deep interest to us. The les- 
 HopcB son which relates itself to our 
 
 hopes and gives us promise 
 of their realization will at once take on a 
 glow of interest. The hope of immortality 
 in the Gospel is one of the causes of its ap- 
 peal to men. When a dear friend is taken 
 
 1 Op. cit., p. 263 ff. 
 
130 Capturing the Emotions 
 
 from us, with what deep interest do we turn 
 to those chapters of the Bible in which the 
 immortal hope burns brightest. 
 
 When need, desire and hope crystallize 
 into definite plans, purposes and ideals, then 
 
 a lesson truth which relates 
 Purpose itself to thosc plans, purposes 
 
 and ideals becomes of great 
 interest. 
 
 This form of interest has been called in- 
 direct interest. It is not an interest in the 
 
 thing itself, but the interest 
 Indirect Interest ariscs becausc of the place a 
 
 thing has in the accomplish- 
 ment of a desire or purpose. But though 
 only indirect it is a form of interest that has 
 a powerful influence upon life. It is shown 
 in the way pupils will work for a prize or re- 
 ward, to win the head of the class, to make a 
 good record, etc. All the various methods 
 used in the Sunday-school to secure regular 
 attendance and the like make their appeal to 
 this form of interest. In business and daily 
 life it is amazing to see the toil and drudgery 
 that men will endure and the interest which 
 
Interest in Lesson Truths 131 
 
 they will take in things in themselves ugly, 
 painful and unattractive, because of their 
 connection with the plans and purposes of 
 life. 
 
 It is a part of the teacher's work to help 
 the pupil to form high ideals and to lead him 
 
 to form the purpose of giving 
 Ideals his life to the service of Christ. 
 
 When such ideals and purpose 
 have once been formed, then the Bible will 
 become a source of permanent interest to 
 him. It is full of truths concerning life's 
 highest ideal, the kingdom of God, and on 
 every page it spurs us on to the work of at- 
 taining that ideal in our own lives, and bring- 
 ing it to realization in the world. 
 
XIII 
 
 INDUCTION 
 
 WE have seen that all knowledge 
 consists of either individual notions 
 or general notions. Individual 
 notions we have identified with the facts of 
 the Bible lesson ; the general notion is that 
 element of the lesson which is 
 ^0*^* GeneJaf '''''^"'' commott to a large number of 
 individual notions, or groups 
 of individual notions. 
 
 General notions are the goal of all our 
 study. They are so for many reasons : 
 They are necessary to our 
 use of Genera. thinking J they are of great 
 help to us in expressing 
 thought ; they enable us to classify our 
 knowledge and use it readily ; they furnish us 
 with guides to action in the daily affairs of 
 
 life ; and they are a great help in acquiring 
 132 
 
Induction 1 33 
 
 new knowledge. " Each concept (general 
 notion) means a particular kind of thing, and 
 as things seem once for all to have been 
 created in kinds, a far more efficient handling 
 of a given bit of experience begins as soon as 
 we have classed the various parts of it. 
 Once classed, a thing can be treated by the 
 law of its class, and the advantages are end- 
 less. Both theoretically and practically this 
 power of framing abstract concepts is one of 
 the sublimest of our human prerogatives. 
 We come back into the concrete from our 
 journey into these abstractions with an in- 
 crease both of vision and power." ^ These 
 reasons apply to all classes of general notions. 
 But in addition to these, the general truths of 
 the Bible have an especial value in the devel- 
 opment of character and in aiding the human 
 soul to attain the chief purpose for which 
 God has created it. In bringing to light the 
 fundamental truths which lie imbedded in the 
 lesson facts, and lodging them firmly in the 
 mind of the pupil, the teacher is laying direct 
 siege to his will, and giving him that which 
 
 ' James, " A Pluralistic Universe," p. 217. 
 
1^4 Laying Siege to the Reason 
 
 will be of the greatest assistance to him in 
 the formation of his character. 
 
 Having gotten the lesson facts thoroughly 
 in her mind, the teacher is ready to select the 
 
 lesson truth. We have al- 
 TesSrut; ready suggested that ordi- 
 
 narily one truth to the lesson 
 will be all that the teacher will have time to 
 teach. In many of the lessons there will be 
 a number of these truths that will stand out 
 in the facts when the teacher has meditated 
 upon them for a sufficient length of time, and 
 when she has asked herself the question : 
 What is there in this lesson that is just as true 
 to-day as it was when these events took 
 place? What is the general, universal, 
 eternal element in this lesson ? When a 
 number of truths thus appear, the teacher 
 will have to make a selection from among 
 them, taking that one which is best suited to 
 the needs of the class, and having reference 
 to other truths taught in previous lessons. 
 
 When the lesson facts have been presented 
 to the class, the next step is the summing of 
 them up in a generalization. This may be 
 
Induction 135 
 
 done in several ways. It is often a wise plan 
 for the teacher to state the general truth 
 
 which she aims to teach at 
 IZTt':!' the commencement of the 
 
 lesson. This will help to keep 
 her from wandering too far afield, and will 
 tend to keep the main thought in mind all 
 through the lesson. Whether the truth is 
 thus actually stated or not, the teacher should 
 have it clearly in mind so that she could if 
 necessary state it at any time during the 
 teaching of the lesson. Again it will often 
 be wise to have the pupil state the lesson 
 truth in his own words as it appears to him 
 in the teaching. There is a pleasure in dis- 
 covering for one's self the truth of the lesson 
 and stating it to others of which the pupil 
 ought not to be deprived. If the lesson is 
 skillfully taught with some fundamental re- 
 ligious truth in view, the pupil will usually 
 have no difficulty in stating it. 
 
 When the central truth is thus discovered 
 and pointed out by the pupil or stated by the 
 teacher, it should then be summed up 
 and stated in some verse of Scripture. This 
 
136 Laying Siege to the Reason 
 
 can almost always be done. The Bible is 
 full of texts which thus sum up in a concise 
 manner and in beautiful and 
 sJiptlre sublime language the essen- 
 
 tial truths of religion. Some- 
 times it will be well to use a number of 
 different verses all of which may express 
 the same truth in slightly different words. 
 This is the place for the Golden Text, if it 
 suits the truth which the teacher has selected. 
 Often, however, the teacher will not care to 
 use the Golden Text, because it does not ex- 
 press the particular truth she wishes to bring 
 out. This is the place for Bible drills on 
 verses of Scripture which thus sum up the 
 lesson teaching. These Bible verses should 
 be frequently reviewed so that the pupil may 
 in time acquire a large number of such texts, 
 and so that they may be readily recalled in 
 future lessons which may teach the same 
 truths. 
 
 The method of study here advocated is what 
 is called the inductive method : the study of 
 facts and the drawing of inferences from 
 those facts. It is the method which has led 
 
Induction 137 
 
 to such wonderful discoveries in science and 
 which has done so much for the progress of 
 
 the world since it was first pro- 
 induction mulgated in its modern form 
 
 by Lord Bacon. The very re- 
 verse of this method is in use in many Sun- 
 day-school classes where, instead of studying- 
 the facts to discover one truth, the teacher 
 endeavours to see how many truths can be 
 drawn from a single verse, or even a single 
 clause of Scripture. 
 
XIV 
 
 DEDUCTION 
 
 IN laying siege to the reason the teacher's 
 task is not finished when she has lodged 
 the lesson truth in his mind. The draw- 
 ing of a general truth from a group of facts 
 is only the first step in the reasoning process. 
 When we have acquired knowledge of a 
 general notion, we next proceed to reason 
 from it back to individual cases again. 
 When a teacher has taught a class a rule in 
 arithmetic, she gives the pupils a number of 
 examples to work out in order that they may 
 learn how to apply the rule to new problems 
 as they arise. So when the teacher of a Bi- 
 ble lesson has drawn out the lesson truth 
 and presented it to the mind of the pupil, she 
 may next proceed to show how the truth 
 may be used in daily life. This process of 
 reasoning from generals to particulars is 
 
 called " Deduction." In Sunday-school teach- 
 
 138 
 
Deduction 139 
 
 ing it is usually called *' making the applica- 
 tion," or pointing the moral, or showing the 
 practical lesson. The phrase " pointing the 
 moral" applies more particularly to truths 
 drawn from human conduct. From specific 
 instances of right or wrong conduct we draw 
 general truths which we apply to the pupil's 
 conduct, by way of example or warning. It 
 is to be feared that this kind of Sunday- 
 school teaching has been very much over- 
 done. Being impressed with the importance 
 of right conduct on the part of the pupil, the 
 teacher loses no opportunity to point out to 
 the pupil the duties which he owes to God 
 and his fellows. Thus facts and truths may 
 be slurred over in haste to talk about the 
 lesson duties. 
 
 There are dangers in thus " pointing the 
 moral " against which the teacher must 
 guard. One is that the pupil 
 i^gThJiwJrar"'"^" =^ay plainly see the moral 
 himself, and therefore he does 
 not need to have it pointed out to him. 
 When the moral is so plain as not to need 
 stating, the pupil may rather resent such 
 
1 40 Laying Siege to the Reason 
 
 statement by the teacher as being an insult 
 to his intelligence. Even little children may 
 see the bearing of a story upon their own 
 conduct without always being told that the 
 awful fate which overtook the bad little boy 
 will surely be theirs if they are not good, or 
 that they can win the lovely reward which 
 the good little boy got, if they will only be- 
 have like him. Often when a good lesson 
 has impressed its own moral its effect will 
 only be weakened by the teacher stating it. 
 Again a teacher who invariably draws the 
 moral of the lesson will quite likely be guilty 
 of tiresome repetition. The lines of conduct 
 which the pupil should follow can only be 
 pointed out in a general and vague way, and 
 when we have been told with tiresome itera- 
 tion that we ought to be good, that we ought 
 to love father and mother, that we ought to 
 be obedient to teacher, or we ought to do 
 this or not do that, the injunctions are apt to 
 lose their force, and to fall on unheeding 
 ears at last. 
 
 On the other hand it would be a mistake 
 to omit the application of the lesson alto- 
 
Deduction 14 1 
 
 gether. There are many injunctions to con- 
 duct in the Bible. In the Epistles of Paul, 
 
 the statements of religious 
 EntVreiy'°"'""'' ^ruths are always followed by 
 
 injunctions to conduct. The 
 connection between them is always close. 
 It is in the glow of emotion aroused by the 
 apprehension of a great truth that Paul 
 passes on to urge the conduct which should 
 follow the knowledge of the truth. But we 
 do not find any tiresome repetitions of such 
 injunctions to conduct The proper time to 
 point the moral and the time to omit it must 
 be left to the wisdom and tact of the teacher. 
 Her knowledge of the life and needs of the 
 pupil will help her to judge what is best to 
 do. Often she may speak a word of exhor- 
 tation or of warning which may come just at 
 the right time to be of great influence on the 
 life of the pupil. The better she understands 
 him and the closer the fellowship between 
 them the easier will it be for her to know 
 when to speak and when to keep silent. As 
 a rule it may be said that the more skillfully 
 the lesson is taught, and the deeper the im- 
 
1 42 Laying Siege to tiie Reason 
 
 pression it makes, the less need there will be 
 for making the application. 
 
 Especially should the teacher study most 
 earnestly and prayerfully the question of 
 
 when and how to point out to 
 Decision for Christ the pupil his duty to take the 
 
 great step of public confession 
 of faith in Christ. There are some teachers 
 who believe that this should be done in every 
 lesson. The vv^isdom of this must be seriously 
 doubted. It is subject to the danger above 
 pointed out of losing its effectiveness by 
 frequent repetition. When the teacher is 
 cautious and tactful in pointing the moral, 
 and does not do it too frequently, it will come 
 with all the greater power when she does take 
 an opportunity which arises naturally out of 
 the lesson to press home his duty upon him. 
 There is a way in which the teacher may 
 make the application of the lesson which is 
 
 not subject to the dangers 
 t?a«oTs'"*"" above mentioned, and that is 
 
 by giving concrete illustra- 
 tions of how some person has used the truth 
 and put it into life and action, and thus by 
 
Deduction 143 
 
 the power of imitation and example, rather 
 than by direct exhortation, leading the pupil 
 to form moral judgments and act upon them. 
 This is what is meant by the saying, " Ex- 
 ample is better than precept." 
 
 Let the teacher ponder well these wise 
 words from one of our leading pubhc school 
 educators, Dr. Charles A. Mc- 
 Professor McMurry Murry, in " Elements of Gen- 
 eral Method": "The rela- 
 tions of persons to each other in society give 
 rise to morals. How ? The act of a person 
 — as when a fireman rescues a child from a 
 burning building — shows a disposition in the 
 actor. We praise or condemn this disposi- 
 tion as the deed is good or bad. But each 
 moral judgment given with honesty and feel- 
 ing leaves the child stronger. . . . To 
 study the conduct of persons as illustrating 
 right actions is, in quality, the highest form 
 of instruction. . . . Moral ideas spring 
 out of experience with persons either in real 
 life or in the books we read. Examples of 
 moral action drawn from life are the only 
 things that can give meaning to moral pre- 
 
144 Laying Siege to the Reason 
 
 cepts. If we see a harsh man beating his 
 horse, we get an ineffaceable impression of 
 harshness. By reading the story of ' Black 
 Beauty ' we acquire a lifetime sympathy for 
 animals. Moral ideas have always a con- 
 crete basis or origin. Some companion with 
 whose feelings and actions you are in close 
 personal contact, or some character from his- 
 tory or fiction by whose personality you have 
 been strongly attracted, gives you your keen- 
 est impressions of moral qualities. To be- 
 gin with abstract moral teaching or to put 
 faith in it is to misunderstand children. In 
 morals as in other forms of knowledge, chil- 
 dren are overwhelmingly interested in per- 
 sonal and individual examples, things which 
 have form, colour, action. The attempt to 
 sum up the important truths of a subject and 
 present them as abstractions to children is 
 almost certain to be a failure pedagogically 
 considered. 
 
 " A litde reflection will show that we are 
 only demanding object lessons in the field of 
 moral education, extensive, systematic object 
 lessons ; choice experiences, and episodes 
 
Deduction 1 45 
 
 from human life, simple, clear, painted in nat- 
 ural colours as shown by our best history and 
 literature. To appreciate virtues and vices, 
 to sympathize with better impulses, we must 
 travel beyond words and definitions till we 
 come in contact with the personal deeds 
 that first gave rise to them. The life of Mar- 
 tin Luther with its faults and merits honestly 
 represented is a powerful moral tonic to the 
 reader ; the autobiography of Franklin brings 
 out a great variety of homely truths in the 
 form of interesting episodes in his career; 
 Adam Bede and Romola impress us more 
 powerfully and permanently than the best 
 sermons, because the individual realism in 
 them leads to unequalled vividness of moral 
 judgment upon their acts. King Lear 
 teaches us the folly of rash judgments with 
 overwhelming force. Evangeline awakens 
 our sympathies as no moralist ever dreamed 
 of doing. Uncle Tom, in Mrs. Stowe's story, 
 was a stronger preacher than Wendell 
 Phillips. William Tell, in Schiller's play, 
 kindles our love for heroic deeds into enthu- 
 siasm. The best myths, histories, biogra- 
 
146 Laying Siege to the Reason 
 
 phies, novels and dramas are the richest 
 sources of moral stimulus because they lead 
 us into the immediate presence of those men 
 and women whose deeds stir up our moral 
 natures. In the presentations of the masters 
 we are in the presence of moral ideas clothed 
 in flesh and blood, real and yet idealized. 
 Generosity is not a name, but the act of a 
 person which wins our interest and favour. 
 To get the impress of kindness we must see 
 an act of kindness and feel the glow it pro- 
 duces. When Sir Philip Sidney, wounded 
 on the battle-field and suffering with thirst, 
 reached out his hand for a cup of water that 
 was brought, his glance fell upon a dying 
 soldier who viewed the cup with great de- 
 sire ; Sidney handed him the water with the 
 words, * Thy necessity is greater than mine.' 
 No one can refuse his approval for this act. 
 After telling the story of the man who went 
 down to Jericho and fell among thieves, and 
 then of the priest, the Levite and the Samaritan 
 who passed that way, Jesus put the question 
 to His critic, ' Who was neighbour to him 
 that fell among thieves ? ' And the answer 
 
Deduction 147 
 
 came with unwilling lips» ' He that showed 
 mercy.' . . . On the other hand it is 
 natural to condemn wrong deeds when pre- 
 sented clearly and objectively in the action 
 of another. . . . When Columbus was 
 thrown into chains instead of being re- 
 warded, we condemn the Spaniards. In the 
 same way the real world of persons about us, 
 the acts of parents, companions and teachers, 
 are powerful in giving good and bad tone to 
 our sentiments, because as living object les- 
 sons their impress is directly and constantly 
 upon us." ' 
 
 As the teacher must give careful thought to 
 the beginning of the lesson, so she must plan 
 its close. She should search her own mem- 
 ory, the lesson helps, newspapers, magazines 
 and books, to find the best possible concrete 
 illustrations of the truth which she wishes to 
 drive home. A good illustra- 
 
 Plannine the Close . • . i 
 
 of a Lesson tiott may evcn turn a poorly 
 
 taught lesson into a good one, 
 and thus snatch victory from the jaws of 
 defeat. 
 
 » Op. cit., p. 28 ff. 
 
XV 
 SPECIAL LESSONS 
 
 THE method of teaching outHned in 
 this book applies more especially to 
 lessons taken from the biographical 
 and historical narratives of Scripture, from 
 which the great majority of Sunday-school 
 lessons are taken. But now and then a les- 
 son is inserted in the series from the Psalms 
 or the Epistles, which do not contain so large 
 an element of fact, but which consist of gen- 
 eral statements of truth or injunctions to con- 
 duct. Such lessons will call for a somewhat 
 different treatment from that which has been 
 outlined in the foregoing chapters. But even 
 in teaching such lessons the teacher must not 
 lose sight of the difficulty of teaching abstract 
 or general truths, nor of the importance of 
 linking such abstract truths with concrete 
 facts which make their appeal to the imagi- 
 nation of the pupil. 
 
 148 
 
Special Lessons 149 
 
 In the teaching of a passage from one of 
 Paul's Epistles, such as Romans xiii. 8-14 
 
 which has been used a number 
 t^KpZcs"" of times in the International 
 
 series as a Temperance Lesson, 
 the teacher may find concrete material in the 
 study of the life of a church in the city of 
 Rome at the time this Epistle was written, 
 and also in the life of Paul. She may form a 
 mental picture of the Church at Rome ; of 
 their place of meeting ; the different members, 
 their occupations, their dress, and their 
 special temptations and difficulties in leading 
 a Christian life. With some study she will 
 be able to produce a fairly accurate and 
 complete picture of the life of a Roman 
 citizen in the great city at this time. She 
 can imagine the church holding a service at 
 which the Epistle is first read. She can put 
 herself in the place of one of those church- 
 members and imagine the eagerness which she 
 would feel when a letter from the Apostle was 
 announced. She can imagine herself making 
 a personal application of the many helpful 
 things in the Epistle, and think of the ways 
 
l^O Final Suggestions 
 
 in which as a dweller in Rome, in the first 
 century, she might put into practice the in- 
 junctions of the Apostle. Or she may try to 
 put herself in the place of the Apostle at the 
 time he wrote the letter, to picture his sitting 
 down with his amanuensis to dictate the let- 
 ter, his eager interest in the far distant 
 church which he had never seen, but of 
 which he had heard from a number of his in- 
 timate friends ; and his anxiety to write some- 
 thing that would help them in their every- 
 day life amid their heathen surroundings, 
 and thus through the sympathetic imagina- 
 tion, she may put herself into the very spirit 
 of the Epistle and catch something of its 
 wonderful spiritual glow and fervour. 
 
 So in the study of such a Psalm as the 
 twenty-third, or the thirty-second, or the fifty- 
 first, the teacher may put her- 
 fhe^islta^'" self back into the time and 
 circumstances under which 
 they were written, and put back of them the 
 concrete personalities and concrete life and 
 experience out of which they were written. 
 Let the teacher realize that all literature is an 
 
Special Lessons 151 
 
 expression of life, that it is rooted in human 
 experience ; that these writers first lived, and 
 felt and suffered, and then, after their lives 
 had been pressed perhaps for long years 
 against these facts of human experience, they 
 looked back upon them through the glow 
 which memory and imagination give to the 
 past, and they sat down to interpret these ex- 
 periences and to give expression to the feel- 
 ings stirred in their hearts by them and thus 
 they revealed in beautiful and sublime lan- 
 guage the thought and feelings arising from 
 their experience. The person and the life 
 must therefore be put back of the Psalm or 
 Poem, before we can enter into full sympathy 
 with it, and understand its meaning, and 
 grasp its message. What a wonderful piece 
 of writing the Twenty-third Psalm becomes 
 when studied in the light of David's experi- 
 ence as a shepherd, and of his subsequent 
 life under the providential guardianship of 
 God. 
 
XVI 
 
 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD 
 
 THIS is not a treatise on religion or 
 theology. It is a book on how to 
 teach and not on what to teach. 
 Yet in view of the aim set forth in the first 
 chapter, and of the insistence all through this 
 book upon the Citadel of the Will as being 
 the objective point of all Sunday-school 
 teaching, it seems fitting that something 
 should here be said as to the truths which 
 will have the greatest and most direct in- 
 fluence upon the will of the pupil. 
 
 The truths which are found in the Bible 
 
 may be divided into two classes: (i) those 
 
 which have to do with our re- 
 
 IfTruthr" lations to one another, and (2) 
 
 those which have to do with 
 
 God. The Bible is a very human book. 
 
 The stories and incidents related of its many 
 
 characters are told with such simplicity, 
 
 152 
 
The Consciousness of God 1 53 
 
 vividness, unconscious art, and truth to na- 
 ture, that as a text-book for the study of hu- 
 man life it has no equal. But this is not the 
 main purpose of the Bible. Its chief purpose 
 is to give to us a revelation of God. It is 
 " God's Word," the expression of His char- 
 acter, plan and purpose in the world. There- 
 fore the teacher will best use the Bible in ac- 
 cordance with its own purpose, if she seeks 
 to find in it the truth concerning God. It is 
 not meant here that the teacher is to put into 
 the lesson something that it does not clearly 
 and logically teach. Only such inferences 
 should be drawn as arise fairly out of the 
 facts. But whenever the facts of the lesson 
 will permit her to do so, the teacher should 
 seek to make God's personality, His character 
 and His will clear and vivid, showing God at 
 work in and through the characters and in- 
 cidents, selecting those facts which reveal God 
 best, and seeing to it that no Bible character 
 is held up before the pupil to the exclusion of 
 God, but that each person is shown with refer- 
 ence to the relationship which he occupies to 
 Him. Every actor in the lesson should be 
 
154 Final Suggestions 
 
 subordinate to the chief character in the drama 
 of redemption. Thus the teacher will seek 
 to bring the mind, heart and will of the pupil 
 into vital contact with the mind, heart and 
 will of God, so that the revelation of God in 
 the Bible shall make its fullest and deepest 
 impression upon him ; so that his conception 
 of God shall be constantly growing in depth, 
 richness and power ; and so that he may be 
 one of those of whom Paul speaks in the third 
 chapter of Second Corinthians when he says : 
 " But we all with unveiled face, beholding as 
 in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are trans- 
 formed into the same image from glory to 
 glory even as from the Lord the Spirit." 
 
 Here again let the teacher note that the 
 most powerful influences upon her own life 
 
 have been those emanating 
 Personal^/ f^om persons, not truths about 
 
 persons, but vivid mental pic- 
 tures of such persons, and rich mental con- 
 ceptions of their characters. Influence might 
 almost be defined to be " the motor response 
 to an imaged personality." The writer well 
 remembers the time when he first left home 
 
The Consciousness of God 155 
 
 to live in a distant city, and how when he 
 was tempted to go to doubtful places of 
 amusement, the face of his mother would 
 rise before him, and it seemed as though he 
 could hear her voice speaking to him in 
 gentle reproof and warning. The memory 
 of that face and of that voice barred the way 
 to sin many a time in his life. So the strong- 
 est possible influence upon the pupil's actions 
 and character will be a vivid realization of 
 God as a person, with a rich and true con- 
 ception of His character. 
 
 It is evident that such an aim and purpose 
 as this must have much influence on the 
 
 teacher's selection of lesson 
 R^vMiGod facts. Some teachers seem 
 
 to have a prejudice against 
 teaching facts. They feel that it is a waste 
 of time, for example, to talk about the distance 
 from Dan to Beersheba, or the height of 
 Mount Hermon, or how many times the 
 number seven is used in the Bible, etc. 
 There is a large amount of Bible lore that is 
 curious and which may be very interesting 
 to minds having a love for facts, but a 
 
156 Final Suggestions 
 
 knowledge of which does not help much in 
 spiritual insight or growth. It is hoped that 
 the preceding chapters have made it clear 
 that it is not the study of such facts as these 
 that is advocated in this book. The impor- 
 tant facts are those which reveal God at work 
 in the world and which by their appeal to 
 heart and imagination make His character 
 and purpose real and concrete to the pupil. 
 
 We are to strive then as teachers to make 
 the thought of God one of those which lie 
 
 cuitivatin the "^^'* ^^^ surface of the pupil's 
 Pupil's Conscious- miud, which will spring into 
 
 nessofGod '^ ** 
 
 the centre of his consciousness 
 frequently, and which will even work upon 
 his subconscious mind in a way to influence 
 his actions. We wish to make the thought 
 of God one which will be present not only at 
 rare intervals, as when he says his prayers, 
 or when he feels the sting of conscience, or 
 when he is in trouble, but so near to him and 
 so frequently recalled, that God will become 
 in thought as He is in reality, an ever-present 
 Saviour, helper and friend, sharing in his in- 
 nermost life, sympathizing with him in his 
 
The Consciousness of God 157 
 
 sorrow, grieving over his sins and failures, 
 and rejoicing with him in his happiness. 
 
 We are reminded again that it is the law 
 of association which governs the passage of 
 
 ideas from the subconscious 
 Association to the conscious mind. Those 
 
 ideas which lie nearest to the 
 surface of the subconscious mind are those 
 which have been most frequently in the mind, 
 which come out most plainly in the centre of 
 consciousness, and which thereby form the 
 largest number of associations. Hence the 
 oftener the thought of God is brought into 
 the consciousness of the pupil, the more real 
 the teacher can make him appear to the pupil, 
 and the closer she can help him to knit up 
 the thought of God with his daily life, the 
 better will she succeed in making that 
 thought the dominating influence on his life. 
 Let the teacher recall the growth of the 
 consciousness of God in her own mind. As 
 
 she has studied His Word and 
 ?<^rnVsl?;God"- given herself to His service. 
 
 she has found Him coming as 
 it were from the margin to the centre of her 
 
1 58 Final Suggestions 
 
 consciousness. He is no longer one among 
 many persons, He has become the chief per- 
 son ; He is no longer one with whom she 
 occupies a vague, far-off relationship ; He is 
 one with whom she has come into the closest 
 and most intimate companionship ; He is no 
 longer one who, on rare occasions, comes to 
 mind, but rather is He seldom absent from 
 it, so that even when she is busy about other 
 matters, the thought of Him is so near that 
 it may at any moment flash into her con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 A certain small boy known to the writer is 
 unusually fond of his mother. If you should 
 see him at play, you would 
 An Illustration think that his mind was en- 
 tirely fixed upon the toy he is 
 using or the companion with whom he is 
 playing. But watch him for a little while, 
 and you will see him drop his toy ; there is a 
 patter of feet up the steps and along the hall- 
 way ; there is a call to mother, and when she 
 is found, he puts his arm around her neck, 
 and says, " I just came in to give you a hug." 
 From his earliest years, the one dominant 
 
The Consciousness of God 159 
 
 fact of that boy's consciousness has been the 
 presence, love and care of his mother. So 
 she is hardly ever absent from his thought, 
 and when he is busiest, the thought of her is 
 so near the surface, that at the most unex- 
 pected moments it flashes into the centre of 
 his consciousness, and he must go and hug 
 her. This occurs many times a day. So if 
 we could only get the thought of God into 
 the minds of our pupils to that extent, what 
 would it not mean in help and comfort, in 
 power and joy in their lives ! 
 
 When God thus becomes enthroned in the 
 inner life, His will becomes the dominating 
 influence upon that life. 
 Obedience When wc think of Him 
 
 often, we are afraid to dis- 
 obey Him. It is because we forget Him, 
 and allow other thoughts to come in and take 
 possession of our minds, that we sin against 
 Him so often. 
 
 Again when God is enthroned in con- 
 sciousness, love for Him will grow deep and 
 strong. It is another law of our minds that 
 we learn to love those things and persons 
 
l6o Final Suggestions 
 
 that are oftenest present there. We have al- 
 ready referred to our love of home. It is be- 
 cause the objects there are 
 Love brought before our minds so 
 
 often that we learn to love even 
 the inanimate things because of their intimate 
 association with our lives. How much more 
 true this is of the persons in the home. The 
 strong and tender ties which bind husband 
 and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, 
 together show how natural it is for us to love 
 those with whom we are closely associated, 
 and since God is so worthy to be loved, and 
 since His care, His kindness and His love 
 are so much greater than those of any earthly 
 friend, we can be sure that if the thought of 
 Him is often present in the minds of our 
 pupils, they will learn to love Him. 
 
 The thought of God was the dominating 
 
 influence in the life and teachings of Christ. 
 
 At the age of twelve, His first 
 
 ^.^T'^G?/"'""' recorded utterance shows Him 
 
 ness ot uod 
 
 in conscious, loving and obe- 
 dient relationship to God, " Wist ye not I 
 must be about My Father's business?" The 
 
The Consciousness of God i6i 
 
 Gospel of John might ahnost be said to be 
 a study ot the consciousness of Jesus, and 
 shows that the thought of God was never 
 absent from his mind. He and the Father 
 are one, and seventy times in those few chap- 
 ters does the thought of God come out in 
 His speech. He loved to talk about Him; 
 He talked of hardly anything else. " This is 
 life eternal that men should know Thee, the 
 only living and true God and Jesus Christ 
 whom Thou hast sent." For this He came 
 down from heaven ; for this He lived and 
 taught ; for this He died on the cross ; for 
 this He arose from the dead ; for this He 
 lives and rules : to bring the human race into 
 conscious, loving and obedient relationship 
 to God ; for this He will continue to reign 
 until the knowledge of the Lord shall cover 
 the earth as the waters cover the sea, until 
 the end shall come when He shall have de- 
 livered up the kingdom to God, even the 
 Father, and God shall be all in all. 
 
 So it is in Jesus Christ that we have the 
 full revelation of God. It is by looking into 
 His face, studying His life, following in 
 
l62 Final Suggestions 
 
 His footsteps, and giving our lives to His 
 
 service, that we come into closest fellowship 
 
 with God. And so it is the 
 
 Jesus Christ the j f the Sundav-school as 
 
 Revelation of God J 
 
 Stated in the first chapter : 
 ** To bring the pupil to Christ, to build him 
 up in Christ, and to send him forth to work 
 for Christ." 
 

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