Sunday-School Success

There is especial need in teaching the psalms to explain how the force of imagery varies with varying conditions of climate and modes of life; how much more, for instance, was meant to David than to us by such symbols as "a rock," "shadow," "sun," "shield," "water-courses"!

Children are fond of metaphors, but they make comical blunders with them, and deal, unless we are careful, all too literally with such passages as "a table in the presence of mine enemies," "the wicked are like the chaff," "the congregation of the righteous," "break them with a rod of iron." If the teacher is in doubt just how far to carry these metaphors, I know no better example of the wise and beautiful use of them than Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." The reading of that book will make a capital preparation for the teaching of the psalms.

Few lessons in the seven years' course will be so admirable as these for committing to memory. If you want to inspire your class to better work in that line, now is your time.

Note that the psalms are all optimistic. Sound their key-note of peace and joy.

Here, if anywhere in the Bible, spiritual teaching is needed. An essential part of the preparation for teaching the psalms is devout prayer.

Chapter XVII

Those Temperance and Missionary Lessons

Intemperance is the church's greatest foe, missions her greatest task. Around these two topics cluster the highest chivalry, the most splendid romance, of our modern world. The shout of the battle is in them, the sweep of the regiment. No lessons are more important than those devoted to these two great themes, and none can be made more interesting.

And yet to many a teacher they are bugbears. To these eight lessons—one sixth of the whole—they go with dull hearts. They do wish the Lesson Committee would leave them out of the list.

What is the trouble? There is no life back of the lesson. They have "got up" their lesson as best they can; but a lesson is not got up, it grows up. They do not know enough about missions and the temperance reform to be interested in them. No information, no inspiration.

To be sure, there are few passages in the Bible suitable for use in temperance lessons, and but few referring directly to such enterprises as modern missions. The Acts record merely the beginnings of missions, and intemperance was scarcely a problem in New Testament days. Nevertheless, both temperance and missions find in the Book their fundamental and sufficient inspiration; and taking our starting-point from the lesson text, we may fairly launch forth into seas as wide as the world of men and action.

Indeed, so multiform are the phases of these two topics that to avoid confusion and leave clear impressions every temperance or missionary lesson should have a specialty. Let me indicate a few of the many possible themes.

1. A Bible Search.—Spend the hour hunting out everything the Bible says upon temperance, or all the leading passages bearing on missions. The scholars will read them aloud. Some verses they will repeat from memory. They will mark them with colored pencils in their Bibles. They will discover the central thought in each reference and write it on the blackboard, thus building up a compact summary. The exercise has an air of finality that will please the scholars.

2. A Biographical Lesson.—Let everything cluster around some great leader in missions or the temperance reform. For the latter, select John B. Gough, Miss Willard, Lady Henry Somerset, Father Mathew, Francis Murphy. For the great missionaries,—India: Carey, Heber, Martyn; Burmah: Judson; China: Nevius, Morrison, Gilmour; Japan: Neesima; Oceanica: Coan, Paton, Patteson; America: Gardiner, Eliot, Whitman, Brainerd; Turkey: Schauffler, Dwight, Hamlin; Africa: Livingstone, Mackay, Moffat, Taylor, Hannington. There is material enough for a lifetime of teaching!

Get as many scholars as possible to read beforehand in the encyclopedia a short account of the chosen life. One of the class may write a five-minute essay upon the hero. Characteristic anecdotes concerning him may be distributed among the scholars for each to relate. No better series of short missionary biographies was ever published than that sold by the publishers of this book at the low price of 50 or 75 cents a volume. Use them. If the class during the hour can really make the acquaintance of a great missionary or reformer, it will be vast gain.

Another and most profitable kind of biographical meeting may be based, not upon single lives, but upon a group of lives. Study "The Great Missionaries of the Bible," "Bible Heroes of Temperance," "Some Noble Lives Spoiled by Intemperance," "Some Magnificent Missionaries of Our Denomination."

3. An Historical Lesson.—The temperance reform has already a notable history, with many chapters worth careful study. Spend an hour with the Woman's Crusade,—its origin, its leaders, its many thrilling scenes, its notable results. The Washingtonian movement, the blue-ribbon movement, the World's Petition, "temperance in the White House,"—these are themes for other studies.

And as for missions, the puzzle will be to know where to end, when there are, for instance, the "Serampore Brotherhood" to study, the "Lone Star" mission, the Madagascar martyrs, the China Inland Mission, the all-but-miracle of Metlakahtla, the conquest of Hawaii, the transformation of Fiji, the bloody chronicles of Uganda. With any one of these stories for a nucleus, your missionary lesson will be certain of leaving a deep impression.

4. An Organization Lesson.—Study one or more of the great temperance organizations,—its origin, its noble leaders, its methods and aims, its practical results. The W. C. T. U. and the "Y's," the Good Templars, the National Temperance Society, the temperance work of Christian Endeavor societies, may be studied in this way.

This plan is especially valuable for the missionary lessons, which should render your scholars familiar with the history and triumphs of each missionary board of your denomination, home and foreign. The remarkable circumstances of its founding, the heroic men and women it has sent forth (exhibit portraits), the places where it labors (show views), the periodicals it publishes (have samples to give away), a few round figures to set forth the results of it all,—that is a scanty outline. The larger work of the church would profit immensely by such use of an occasional missionary lesson.

5. A Newspaper Lesson.—In another chapter I discuss the use that may wisely be made of the newspaper in our Sunday-school teaching. Once in a while the specialty of a lesson may be a study of current events in their bearing on missions or on the temperance reform.

Some temperance orator has made a noble speech which you find well reported. The W. C. T. U. has just held its annual convention. Neal Dow's birthday has been widely celebrated. South Carolina has adopted its system of State dispensaries. A hot campaign for prohibition is in progress in Canada. The teacher that centers his lesson on one of these themes is sure of lively interest which may be led to practical result.

Or, if it is missionary Sunday, let the teacher utilize the most absorbing topics of foreign news. It may be the Spanish seizure of the Caroline Islands, the French capture of Madagascar, the Japanese campaign in Formosa or that of the English in Matabeleland or the Soudan, the Italian war with Abyssinia, the Indian famine, the troubles in Crete, the massacres in Armenia. What scholar, after a lesson shrewdly introduced by such recitals, will fail to see that missions are a topic very much alive?

6. A Map Lesson.—Few things condense, combine, and clarify bits of information like a map, provided you can put your information upon it. A map may be utilized in a temperance lesson in two good ways. If you are in a city, draw the streets of some section, or of the entire city, if possible. Send your scholars out along all streets, dividing them up, and have them count the saloons in each block, locating also the churches and schoolhouses. I suppose, of course, that your scholars are of suitable age for this work. Next Sunday, as they report, put a black spot on the map for every saloon, and a blue spot for every church and schoolhouse. Your map will point its own moral.

At another time draw a map of the United States, and give a graphic view of the temperance laws of the land, coloring the prohibition States one color, using a different color to designate the Massachusetts plan, the South Carolina plan, and so on.

More can be done with a map in a missionary lesson. For instance, you may select a single country, say India. Provide "stickers" of bright-colored paper. Let some be large and circular. As you talk about the four or five great languages of that many-tongued empire, get the scholars to fasten these "stickers" in the centers of the various language areas. Let other "stickers" be cut into small stars. Three of these, of one color, fastened in the neighborhoods of Bombay, Madura, and Ceylon, will represent the Congregational missions. In the same way you will show the location of the Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian missions and those of other denominations. Population "stickers" may also be used, and "stickers" with the names of great missionaries may show where they labored.

On another day you may take a map of the entire world, and thus indicate the location of all the mission fields of your denomination. If this map is kept before the class from that time, every item of missionary information will have fresh interest and point.

7. A Statistics Lesson.—At this lesson distribute, for the scholars to read aloud, slips of paper containing temperance or missionary statistics,—the numbers of saloons or missionaries, of drunkards dying or converts made each day, the cost of missions or of strong drink compared with other expenditures, and the like. Get the class to cut strips of paper of various lengths to represent graphically the comparative costs. Drill the scholars in temperance or missionary arithmetic. Telling them the number of heathen in China, ask how long a procession they would make, marching in single file one foot apart. Giving them the liquor expenditure for a year, have them measure a pile of silver dollars and calculate how tall a pile would equal the annual cost of drink. Such books as "The Missionary Pastor," published by the Fleming H. Revell Company, and "Weapons for Temperance Warfare" and "Fuel for Missionary Fires," published by the United Society of Christian Endeavor, will suggest many similar exercises.

8. A Quotations Lesson.—The teacher holds in his hand a bunch of papers, on each of which is written an interesting quotation bearing on missions or temperance. The collection will include longer anecdotes as well as brisk sentences. Many will bear famous names. Each scholar will choose a quotation at random and read it aloud. The teacher will draw out its meaning by questions, will add illustrations and practical comments, will tell something about the author of the quotation, or will show the connection of the thought or anecdote with the day's lesson. In some classes the scholars themselves may be trusted to bring their own quotations or anecdotes.

Let me mention briefly a few more devices out of the many that may add interest to these lessons. Get a trained worker along temperance or missionary lines to come in and address the class. Carry out a series of simple experiments showing the physiological effects of alcohol. Make a study of the best missionary hymns, their authors, and the events that prompted them. Try a fifteen-minute debate on some missionary or temperance topic. Get the scholars now and then to write five-minute essays or give five-minute talks on appropriate themes. Let one edit a temperance or missionary paper,—in manuscript, of course,—collecting contributions from each scholar, and reading the result before the class as a sample number of the "Cold Water Herald" or the "Missionary Monitor." Some Sunday, call on every member of the class to sign the pledge. On a mission Sabbath make an appeal for tithe-giving and present a tithe-givers' pledge. Give the wonderful history of the Student Volunteer movement, and urge the scholars to consider the mission field as a possibility for each one of them. Enliven some missionary lesson with entertaining accounts of the strange customs of the country under discussion, and get together all the illustrative material you and your scholars can find. The Sunday-school and the Christian Endeavor society will do well to make a collection of curios for such purposes.

It is an admirable plan to set each of your scholars to doing some steady work in preparation for these lessons. One may watch the newspapers and collect temperance facts and illustrations of the evils of strong drink. The various missionary societies of the denomination may be divided among the scholars, each to gather interesting bits concerning the work of the board assigned to him. In the same way the mission lands may be apportioned out, and "the gentleman from India" or "our representative in China" be called upon to report the latest news from his field. In this plan the children will coöperate very zealously.

Of course it goes without saying (does it, though?) that each teacher will be a subscriber to the missionary magazines of his own denomination, as well as to that common denominator of all the missionary magazines, the "Missionary Review of the World."

He will also take, if possible, a good temperance paper, such as the "Union Signal" or the "National Temperance Advocate"; and if he can afford them, he will not be without the temperance and missionary encyclopedias.

Indeed, the theme branches out into channels so many and so wide that, when once the teacher is started upon them, his greatest lack will be of time for exploration; and so far from desiring the temperance and missionary lessons fewer than eight, he will wish it were possible for them to come every month!

Chapter XVIII

Topical Lessons

The Bible is so full of suggestion that it is impossible, in the brief Sunday-school half-hour, to view the many fields of thought opened before us with any degree of satisfying completeness. That fact, indeed, constitutes one of the greatest satisfactions of the Book.

Neither teacher nor scholar can go very far with earnestness in Bible study without feeling an intense desire to collate and compare, to go to the bottom, to take views single in purpose, but wide in reach. This wish to read the Scriptures as a whole has ever been held a sign of healthful growth in Christian endeavor. How may we encourage and satisfy this desire? Here is a method I have repeatedly found helpful to my class and myself.

I prepare for myself what I call topical lessons. I have noticed especial interest in some one topic,—the use of Sunday, say, or future punishment, heaven, prayer, abuse of money, missions, the nature of sin. On some Sunday, then, I announce that one of these topics is to be discussed at next week's meeting. I ask the scholars to think the matter over, and look up texts. Some do, some do not, as is usual in such matters. Sunday come, I have in large script, pinned to the wall in view of the class, an outline of the topic chosen, with the texts to be used indicated in clear figures. It is intended for a lesson in methods of Bible study as much as in Bible contents, and so aims to be complete and thorough in its range. The plan is explained, and the scope of the subject. We take it up by natural divisions.

All have Bibles, of course. The references are numbered. "Mr. Brown, please find No. 1; Mr. Jones, No. 2; Mr. Robinson, No. 3," and so on. In a few seconds we are ready for a discussion of the first division. I shall trust to the scholars' memory for the commoner quotations, and not trust in vain, if I have done my duty previously. This division disposed of, more or less to our satisfaction, we pass to another point, then to another, rapidly or leisurely, as the time permits, being careful that in the half-hour the general scope of Bible thought in the matter, its largeness and depth, its insight and minuteness of detail, be adequately exhibited.

May I show you a sample outline?

FAITH.

1. What is it? (Heb. 11:1; John 20:29.)

2. Whence comes it?

(a) From God (Rom. 12:3; 1 Cor. 2:4, 5;

12:4, 8, 9; 1 Pet. 1:4, 5).

(b) From Christ (Heb. 12:2).

(c) From the Bible (John 17:20; 20:31; Rom.

15:4; 2 Tim. 3:15).

(d) From preaching (Rom. 10:14; 1 Cor. 3:5).

(e) But all one (Eph. 4:5; 4:13; Jude 3).

(f) Not from works (Eph. 2:8, 9; Rom. 3:27,

28; Gal. 3:11, 12; 2:16).

3. What does it do?

(1) The works of faith:

(a) It is a work (John 6:28, 29; Rom. 4:5).

(b) Which draws us to God (Rom. 5:1, 2;

Eph. 3:12; 3:17; Jas. 1:5, 6).

(c) Thus pleasing him (Heb. 11:6).

(d) Which frees us from sin (2 Pet. 1:5; Acts

13:38, 39; Rom. 3:21, 26; Acts 15:9).

(e) Leads us into salvation (Mark 16:16; John

1:12, 13).

(f) Conquers this world (1 John 5:4, 5).

(g) Gives us peace therein (Eph. 6:16; Rom.

5:1).

(h) And finally eternal life (Rom. 1:17; John

3:16; 3:36).

(2) The works from faith:

(a) Faith alone is dead (Eph. 2:10; Jas. 2:14-26).

(b) Faith a beginning (Jude 20; Col. 2:6, 7).

(c) Of wondrous power (Mark 9:23; 11:22-24;

Luke 17:5, 6).

(d) Working out through love (1 Thess. 5:8;

1 Cor. 13:2; 13:13; Gal. 5:6; 1 John

3:23).

(e) In miracle (Matt. 9:22; 9:29; Luke 8:50;

Acts 3:16).

(f) In history (Heb. 11: 32-34; Matt. 16:16;

John 1:49; 11:25, 27; Acts 6:5; 8:37;

11:24).

4. Have I it?

(a) There is false faith (1 Tim. 1:5).

(b) The testing (2 Cor. 13:5; Jas. 1:3; 1 Pet.

1:6, 7).

(c) The seeking (Phil. 1:27; Jude 3).

(d) The keeping (1 Cor. 16:13; Heb. 10:38;

Col. 1:23; 1 Tim. 1:18, 19; 6:12;

1 Pet. 5:8, 9).

5. Now and hereafter (2 Cor. 5:7; 1 Cor. 13:12).

Manifestly, when this plan is carried out, there will be scant time for the regular lesson; probably no time at all. The next Sunday two lessons must be recited. But your topical study has grown out of the regular lessons, and in its turn will excite in them fresh interest.

It is obvious that each teacher must choose his own topics and make his own outlines, suited to his own methods of thought, and to the age and intelligence of his class. The above was used in a class of young men, college students in part. Themes of an entirely different nature might well be chosen,—a view of Christ's miracles or parables or sermons, of Old Testament miracles, or of sacred history in some one line. It might even be found profitable, as it surely would be interesting, to collate, arrange, and discuss Scripture references to the eye, the ear, birds, flowers, trumpets. To my mind, some such occasional excursion as this seems to lead the scholars, especially those approaching manhood and womanhood, to a more comprehensive and methodical knowledge of the riches of the best Book, and to one of the most resultful methods of studying it.

Chapter XIX

Introducing Thoughts

A little child once declared that she liked a certain sermon because there were so many "likes" in it. For the same reason, that same child would have liked Christ as a Sunday-school teacher. And we teachers will gain Christ's success in the same measure as we gain his power of putting the whole universe back of our thought.

For a thought comes forcibly from our minds in proportion as we see its relatedness. If we have put it into connection with a score of things, that score get behind it and push. An unrelated thought comes as tamely from the mind as a Jack from its box when the spring is broken. And so when a Sunday-school teacher would present a truth energetically, he must look all around the truth, crowd his mind with applications of the truth, fall in love with its beauty from many points of view; in brief, become thoroughly acquainted with the truth, and its enthusiastic friend.

How, now, shall we introduce the truth to the child? It is the manner of some to take the truth and the child, and bump heads together,—a process which very naturally develops a mutual shyness.

The true teacher, on the contrary, is a skilled master of ceremonies. From the crowd of likenesses, illustrations, and applications which have made him and the truth acquainted, he chooses one to go with it and act as mutual friend, to introduce the stranger thought to the child's mind, and put the two on easy terms together.

He does not make the common mistake of sending along the entire crowd, so that the introduced is lost in the throng of masters of ceremonies, so that the truth is confused, and acquaintanceship embarrassed by the parade of illustration. He knows that where one parable makes, two mar, and three ruin.

Nor will the shrewd teacher ever attempt introduction by something other than a mutual friend of both parties,—the truth and the child's mind. The myth of Alcestis may be connected with your own thought of the resurrection, but it is itself a stranger to the child's mind. The true mutual friend would be the metamorphosis of the butterfly.

Is that comparison stale? In seeking for fresh and brilliant illustrations, we are apt to forget that the longer the mutual friend has known both parties, the more apt will he be at furthering their acquaintance. The butterfly is truly to us a trite illustration of the resurrection, but not to the child.

Do not push forward the thought first, and after a ten minutes' awkward, floundering parley between it and the child's mind, proceed to introduce them by your illustration. After two people have talked together for ten minutes, they either need no introduction by that time, or have destroyed the possibility of acquaintanceship. Illustration first.

And after the introduction two mistakes may be made. The introducing illustration may keep on chattering, not allowing the truth and the mind of the child to say a word to each other. A master of ceremonies, who knows his business, knows when to draw quietly back, and leave the new acquaintanceship room to grow. The illustration is not the end, but the means.

The other mistake is in allowing the mutual friend to withdraw abruptly, before the two, the stranger thought and the child's mind, have broken the ice. Let him stay and put in a clever word now and then, until the acquaintanceship can stand by itself.

Nor is there any reason why, with every fresh truth, a fresh illustration should strut forward. Those social assemblies are best managed which are planned by one wise woman, and permeated throughout by her thoughtfulness, words of tact, and shrewd bits of engineering. One mistress to a party, as one cook to the broth. And so if you can find one illustration which is on good terms with all the truths in the lesson, and familiar also to the child's mind, by all means let that one illustration hold sway, as a genial host, throughout the entire half-hour, and associate the whole together.

But when the illustration ceases to illustrate, part with it, regretfully but promptly; as I, following my own advice, must here part with the illustration which has done duty hitherto.

In this whole matter, as in all others, only painstaking deserves or gains success. A genius for parable is rare. Gift here means the poet's power, his breadth of vision, his depth of sympathy, his tact and sense of fitness. But though it is a poet's gift, it need not be born in one. How may we gain skill in illustration?

In the first place, by gaining knowledge. How can we expect Jewish history to seem real, isolated, as it so often is, from all other history? We, too, have a Father Abraham. Cæsar crossed a river once, as, and yet not as, did Joshua. Compare Washington's farewell address with Samuel's. And, too, without science, such sciences as geology and astronomy, a Sunday-school teacher is but half armed. How wonderfully and inspiringly God's two books supplement each other, no one can guess who has not put the two together. In brief, for the theme is infinite, almost any fact, once learned, has constant surprises of usefulness, and in no ways more frequently than this of illustration.