Sunday-School Success. Wells Amos Russel
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lives. Should you not use it in leading them to me? Have you not seen how teaching your scholars in holy things the first day of the week draws them closer to you in your secular teaching of the other days? Do you not rejoice in the opportunity this work gives you to get an insight into your scholars' characters and mold them more directly than by the roundabout route of grammar and geography? Indeed, if I excuse any from my Sunday-school, you, to whom I have intrusted in especial measure the teaching gift, must not be the one."
The business man rejected the proposal with emphasis, saying: "As a matter of course, Sunday-school teaching is quite out of my line. My days are kept in close contact with dull matter, with cloth and coal and wood and iron. I have no time for books, except day-books and ledgers. My mechanical, routine business quite unfits me for religious teaching." To that the Master replied, smiling kindly: "I was a carpenter, my son, but holy thoughts kept pace with my plane, and firm conclusions were clinched with my hammer. And at evening, work done, I found time for prayer and meditation and calling young children about me to talk with them. Your contact with men and things makes you one of the most valuable of Sunday-school teachers. What parables are acted all around you, in nature, in your work, in the lives of your helpers! What illustrations lie heaped up in your business experience, ready to your hand! Most of these young people in my Sunday-school will choose some business like yours. How happy for them, then, if they could have you to tell them beforehand of its perils, strengthen them for its difficulties, point them the road to success and true happiness! No; I can better miss preacher and teacher from my Sunday-school than you men of affairs."
Then came the care-worn housewife. "Master," said she, "I am perplexed and troubled about many things. My days, and often my nights, are crowded with a woman's myriad unheralded tasks. The children are ever with me. Why need I go to Sunday-school to teach them? Why not each home the mother's Sunday-school?" "Why not each home the prayer-meeting?" the Master asked her. "There come from numbers an interest, a help and inspiration, which you cannot get in the holiest family circle, and which you dare not miss. And what of the little ones whose mothers are less faithful than you? Have you no love to spare for them? I have implanted in the very nature of you mothers my most earnest call to Sunday-school teaching. What is it? The greatest love of little children."
And then came up two young people, a youth and a maiden, and said to the Master: "We are too young. We have had as yet no wonderful experience. We know nothing of death, of disease, of great sorrows, of heavy responsibilities. We are not wise in these high matters. We do not understand theology. We cannot teach." "Why," answered the Master, "neither do my little ones in the Sunday-school want to know about death or disease or heavy responsibilities. I would not have them taught what you think of as theology. But you are wiser than they. You see beyond their little worries and mysteries. Help them to your own measure of grace and strength, and as you teach and they grow, will not you grow, too, for further teaching ever? No, my young man and maid, with your ardent and fresh-hearted zeal; you can come very close to my little children, and I cannot spare you from my Sunday-school."
Long stood the Master there by the door of the Sunday-school, and many were those whom he called to the work, and many excuses were made. One pleaded ignorance. "But," gently questioned the Master, "have you a mind, to learn?" One urged timidity. "But I will be with you," said the Master. "There are others who can do it better," insisted one. "Will you not get them to do it, then?" begged the Master. "And if they will not do it, then you will be the best, and cannot refuse."
It was not long before a strong little group stood by the Master's side, ready for service, and as the regular teachers of the school came up, the Lord of whom they taught received them lovingly, or sadly turned them back. As hard-faced, unsympathetic Mr. Grim would enter—he whom all the children fear and elders do not love; he to whom a boy is only the necessary inconvenient early stage of a man, of promise only as he can commit to memory Bible verses—when he would enter the Master turned him back. "You must not teach my children," said the blessed One, "until you become as a little child."
He barred out also Mr. Brainy, whose ideal recitation is an argument, and whose scholars are far more familiar with points of skeptical controversy than with the Bible. He would not admit Miss Tangent, whose sole preparation for the lesson is the culling from her book of extracts of choice sentiments, pretty fables, and striking bits of verse of mysterious relevancy, which she recites for her scholars' admiration, and makes them learn. He turned back also Mrs. Scold, with her sharp tongue and cold eyes. He rejected Mrs. Job, who taught only from a sense of duty, and only with a long face.
But ah, the warm smile, the eager greeting, with which the Master welcomed the school's workers! There was Jack Manly, who had not waited for the desire to begin teaching, but had seen the need and filled it, not knowing how soon and largely the love for the work would come and grow. There was Lucy Gentle, who did not feel able to teach, yet considered, not her ability, but the need, knowing that duty is measured rather by the seeing eye than by the feeble hand. There was Mrs. Patient, who had hesitated to begin the work because of her ignorance of the Bible, but who by quiet and faithful study for her class had become a wise and thorough scholar of the Word. There was old Squire Greatheart, who taught a group of full-grown men and women whom he had gathered into a class when they were boys and girls, and had led ever since in hard study of God's Book.
There were many others whom the Master received, of many varied talents, for the Sunday-school can use a wide range of powers; but all were alike in consciousness of their weakness compared with the greatness of their task, in willingness to resign their work to any better able who could be got to take it, in gladness to go on with it if their betters would not assume it, relying for success on the God of it. Their credentials were that they saw the need of the work, that they saw their own unfitness to do it, that they knew their fitness and power were assured when God assigned the task.
Thus the Master chose his teachers and blessed them; and though there was no genius there, no mighty mind, no trained skill, but only humble readiness to serve, he poured out on them the fullness of his love and power, and they left the Sunday-school room ever bearing precious sheaves.
That is the end of my parable. Oh that all might know, as we, dear fellow-teachers, know it, the joy of our Sunday-school ministry! Then superintendents would have no search to find teachers, no trouble to keep them. Then to the enlarging band of teachers would come a constantly enlarging band of scholars, and all together would soon bring the multitudes of the world into the host of the redeemed.
Chapter III
Preparing the Lesson
Some teachers think that preparing the lesson is merely the loading of a cannon with powder, that it may go off with a big bang in the presence of admiring scholars. And the more powder, the bigger bang. So they load up with scintillating similes, and pretty parables, and striking stories.
Other teachers have set up some historical or theological or ethical target-board off at a distance from their class, and load their cannon with ball, that their scholars may see how accurate is their aim and how fairly they can hit the bull's-eye. So they prepare a mass of facts and figures, arguments and evidences.
But the wise teacher rejects in toto the cannon notion. He sees in each lesson a ledge of that grand mountain of life—of Christ-serving, strong life—up to which he must lead his little band, on which he must plant their feet so firmly that they may not slip back during the six days' interval, but may be ready for the next fair terrace, and the next.
So the wise teacher, in preparing the lesson, knows that he must first reach that ledge himself; must repeat the journey over and over until he has learned the easiest way for little feet; must make ladders with rounds close together; must spread sand on slippery places and stretch ropes along the edge of the cliff. He, too, lays in supplies of stories and pretty parables, not, however, in the form of powder, to make a show, but (if this is not too severe a twist of the simile) as dainty food to keep the young travelers fresh and hearty. He, too, has facts and figures and arguments and evidences, not, however, as cannon-balls, but in the shape of iron bridges and railings and ropes, that the way may be solid and safe.
There are some teachers that do not study at all. It is as if a will-o'-the-wisp should undertake to guide one on an important journey. Those teachers are going they know not whither, over they know not what