Sunday-School Success Part 9

(_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 G.o.d (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 cla.s.s. The above was used in a cla.s.s 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 b.u.mp 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, ill.u.s.trations, 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 acquaintances.h.i.+p embarra.s.sed by the parade of ill.u.s.tration. 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 b.u.t.terfly.

Is that comparison stale? In seeking for fresh and brilliant ill.u.s.trations, 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 b.u.t.terfly is truly to us a trite ill.u.s.tration 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 ill.u.s.tration. After two people have talked together for ten minutes, they either need no introduction by that time, or have destroyed the possibility of acquaintances.h.i.+p. Ill.u.s.tration first.

And after the introduction two mistakes may be made. The introducing ill.u.s.tration 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 acquaintances.h.i.+p room to grow. The ill.u.s.tration 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 acquaintances.h.i.+p can stand by itself.

Nor is there any reason why, with every fresh truth, a fresh ill.u.s.tration should strut forward. Those social a.s.semblies 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 ill.u.s.tration hold sway, as a genial host, throughout the entire half-hour, and a.s.sociate the whole together.

But when the ill.u.s.tration ceases to ill.u.s.trate, part with it, regretfully but promptly; as I, following my own advice, must here part with the ill.u.s.tration 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 ill.u.s.tration?