Sunday-School Success Part 10

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. Caesar 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 G.o.d'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 ill.u.s.tration.

In the next place, by gaining sympathy. No one can well use ill.u.s.trations who is out of touch with his fellows. The best possible illumination of life questions is the story of the lives around you,--their trials and triumphs. Do you know a child who has done a heroic deed, though quietly, for the Master? Have you a friend who has conquered some sore temptation? Have you met a good man struggling against some inherited evil tendency? Have you knowledge of the disastrous results of some single life? Life comes closest to life, and experience furnishes the best similes.

And then we may study books, and learn how effective writers have used ill.u.s.trations. A note-book collection of these will be helpful, even though the making of it is the end of it; for this study will help us toward the teacher's chief goal,--the power of putting things in the best way.

The newspapers should be one of the most fruitful fields for the gleaning of ill.u.s.trations; and so they will be, when they learn to chronicle the good as thoroughly and brilliantly as they now chronicle the bad.

Of course,--though an "of course" seldom practically accepted,--a Bible character is the very best ill.u.s.tration of a Bible character, the Old Testament of the New, the last lesson of this, Moses of Paul, and Sinai of Hermon.

And of course, too,--though again a belied "of course,"--the less the ill.u.s.tration given by the teacher, and the more given by the scholar in answer to questions, the more vivid the impression. Too often we teachers smack our lips at the coming of the similes, and launch out into harangue.

Let us see in all this much more than a scheme of indirections. It is no easy task to find the best way into a child's mind, nor quite without pains and difficulty is the imitation of the Teacher who spoke many things in parables.

Chapter XX

Ill.u.s.trations and Applications

Sunday-school teachers often make the mistake of confounding "lesson ill.u.s.trations" with "practical applications." A lesson ill.u.s.tration is a picture of the truth you are studying as exemplified in spheres of life foreign to your scholars; practical application pictures the truth in their own lives. In other words, a practical application is an ill.u.s.tration that the scholars can practice. The point I want to make is, that the practical application should be used, in our own precious half-hour, not to the exclusion of the lesson ill.u.s.tration, but largely predominating over it.

For instance, if you were discussing the great cloud of invisible witnesses that compa.s.s us about, you might ill.u.s.trate the truth by the famous story of Napoleon's speech to the troops in Egypt, "From yonder pyramids, my men, forty centuries look down upon us"; but, if you have not time for both, a practical application would be far better: "John, who is one of this great cloud of witnesses that is most tenderly and anxiously watching your life?" "My father." "And who, Harry, is among your invisible guardians?" "My mother." That is more forcible than "forty centuries."

Again, one of the finest ill.u.s.trations of devotion to principle is afforded by the conversion to the Baptist faith of one of our first American foreign missionaries, the immortal Judson, who, at the bidding of conscience and conviction, cast loose in mid-ocean from the only missionary society in America, and his only a.s.sured support. That is magnificent, but it is only an ill.u.s.tration, one needing to be translated into terms of child life thus: "Suppose you are in a school examination, and your neighbor on one side hands you a bit of folded paper to pa.s.s to your neighbor on the other side, and you are pretty sure it is to help him cheat in the examination, and suppose the whole school will think you mean and stuck up if you refuse to pa.s.s the paper, what are you going to do?" That is a test of devotion to principle such as the child is likely to meet.

To be sure, there are ill.u.s.trations which come so close to average circ.u.mstances that they are also applications. For instance, to take another great missionary, William Carey, his boyish fall from the tree he was climbing, with the result of breaking his leg, and, on recovery, his immediate set-to at the same tree again; his saying that his business was preaching the gospel, but that he cobbled shoes "to pay expenses"; his bidding the Christians left at home to "hold the ropes while he went down,"--all these are very practical ill.u.s.trations, quite within the children's sphere, since it is well for them also to have grit even about tree-climbing, since they are to hold their ordinary duties subordinate to their spiritual life, and since they have missionary money to spend and missionary prayers to make. If, however, I were teaching the pa.s.sage in the Acts that relates how the disciples had all things in common, though I might tell about the splendid carrying out of that principle in Carey's Serampore brotherhood, yet, if I had time for only the one, I should certainly prefer a practical application of the text to the sharing of apples and the lending of bicycles.

It is helpful to a boy, of course, if he would cultivate patience, to have before his eyes the picture of that cave looking out over Scottish hills and heather, and of the spider at the cave's mouth teaching its beautiful lesson to the Bruce within; but the picture remains only a picture unless the spider of the boy's imagination is taught to run lines connecting every point of the picture with his geography lesson and his garden weeding. Far too many war stories are told in our Sunday-schools. They do not build up very rapidly the Christian soldier. Far too many ill.u.s.trations are drawn from what is wrongly called the distinctive "heroic age" of the world. Not thus is the Christian hero furnished for his nineteenth-century toils.

A similar remark is to be made regarding ill.u.s.trations from science.

They must not be permitted to detract from or exclude the practical application. If we are teaching our boys and girls how all things work together for good to those that love G.o.d, we may use the ill.u.s.tration of the rainbow, explaining that it is on the very raindrops of the storm itself that G.o.d paints his wonderful symbol of hope and trust. That is poetical and true, but the lesson remains as misty as the rainbow itself unless you go on to show your scholars how the lame boy among them gets more time for study on account of his lameness, how the boy who has been sick has learned far more than he knew before about the love of his dear ones and about the great Physician, how the boy who has had to leave school and go to work is none the less getting a priceless schooling in patience and determination and energy and faithfulness.

Many of these practical ill.u.s.trations you may by questions draw out from the boys themselves. "Blessed are the peacemakers." Call for stories of boyish quarrels settled by some boy Solon. That is better than telling about the Ma.s.sachusetts boards of arbitration in strikes.

"My cup runneth over." Draw out a list of their own boyish blessings, which are more to them than those of any saint or psalmist.

But especially this practical application, to be successful, must be the work of a consecrated imagination. A Sunday-school teacher must think himself into the lives of others. "Bear ye one another's burdens." Now don't rake up from your encyclopedias the story of St.

Christopher, beautiful as it is, and try to twist it into an ill.u.s.tration of the text. No. Ask the bright scholar what he does to help his duller friends understand the knotty problems at school. Ask the merry boys what they do when mother is tired amusing the baby. Ask the selfish boy what a lad that greatly wanted a new sled could do to help his father bear his burden of poverty.

To get these applications you have had to "put yourself in his place,"

to picture to your mind your scholars' joys and sorrows, desires and disappointments, hopes and fears, labor and play. And in the process, and as its result, have come two rewards that no thumbing of dictionaries of biography, and manuals of mythology, and encyclopedias of ill.u.s.trations, could ever give. You have come closer to the lives of your scholars, and you have drawn those lives closer to the present, practical Christ.

Chapter XXI

Righteous Padding

It is marvelous how rich in suggestion all pa.s.sages of the Bible are to the thoughtful, studious mind. It is no less marvelous how bare and barren the wealthiest portions become when filtered through a bare and barren mind.

Truth is valuable only as it is _extended_ into life. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see G.o.d"; that means to the child very little, packed into this condensed form. But let the teacher set about _extending_ that blessed truth. Let him picture a man, cross, ugly, besotted, selfish, greedy, his heart all rotten with pa.s.sion and pride. Go through a day with him, from the sullen greetings in the morning and his breakfast-table quarrels, through his business hours all stern and crabbed, to his morose and unlovely evening. Ask the children how much he sees and enjoys of the beautiful world, how much he gets from n.o.ble books, what perception he has of the character of his charming wife and children. He is blind to all these things. Why?

Because of his impure heart.

Show how this baseness follows him to church, holds him down from praying, weights his songs, dulls his vision of spiritual things. Ask them how it will be at death, when he goes out of this world with a soul taught to see only money and self. _How can he see G.o.d?_

Then go on to tell them of their loving, gentle-hearted mothers, and how much good _they_ can see in this world, in their friends, in their children, because their hearts are unselfish and pure. How easily they pray. How cheerily they sing. How near G.o.d is to them. Will there be any difficulty in _their_ seeing G.o.d in the next world, when they can see so much of him in this?

You have made quite a sermon out of that text. It has been extended largely, and yet the meaning of it has merely begun to dawn on those childish minds.

Suppose you had taught it in this way: "Verse eight. Read it, Tommy.

Now, who are blessed, Mary? And why are they blessed, Willie? Now don't forget that, children. Pay attention. Always remember it. The pure in heart see G.o.d. Why should we be pure in heart, Lucy? And how can we see G.o.d, Susy? Now don't forget it, children. Pay attention.

Always remember it. The pure in heart see G.o.d. What have we learned in this verse, Lizzie? Yes, that's right. You all want to be pure in heart, children, now don't you? Why? Yes, that's right. I see you have paid attention." But they haven't, as any such teacher may find out by a question next Sunday.

A teacher of children must learn the art of righteous padding. He must learn how to fill in outlines, how to expand texts. He must ill.u.s.trate with imagery, parable, allegory, personal experience, use of material objects, pictures, action of the children.

Especially valuable is the last, when it can be used. The teacher's cry for attention might well be translated into the highwayman's, "Hold up your hands." At any rate, if you can manage to keep them busy with their hands, you have their eyes, tongues, and brains.

Set them to hunting up verses in their Bibles. You will have the experience of a friend of mine who came to me once after trying it, and despairingly said that the children now wanted to do nothing else.

Nearly every verse can be ill.u.s.trated by a stanza from some common song. Get the children to sing it softly, first making them see how the song fits the Bible. Make liberal use of concert repet.i.tion of Bible verses. There is nothing better than this good old device for unifying and freshening the attention of a cla.s.s.

And pictures. Teachers do not yet know one-tenth of the teaching power of pictures. Take the Twenty-third Psalm for a familiar example. "The shepherd, want, green pastures, lie down, leadeth me, still waters, the paths of righteousness, the valley of the shadow, thy rod and staff, a table prepared, mine enemies, anointing, cup runneth over, the house of the Lord"--as you read that list did not fourteen pictures rise at once in your mind? Find them, and show them to the children. They will pay even better attention to your printed pictures than to your word-pictures.

Experience will soon teach the teacher, if his eyes are open, the need of copious ill.u.s.tration. Astronomers tell us that it is very difficult to see the smallest objects visible to us in the sky, if they are in the form of little dots. They may have dimensions very much smaller and still be visible easily, if they are extended into lines of light.

So with the points of our lessons. They will miss attention entirely or gain it with difficulty, while they remain merely points. We must extend them, by the use of consecrated wits.

Chapter XXII

The Sunday-School and the Newspaper

On several pages of this book I have hinted at the use of the newspaper in our teaching; but the theme deserves a chapter to itself.

An up-to-date teacher is respected, and it is largely the newspaper that brings one up to date. We must put our lessons into touch with life, and the newspaper is our modern compendium of life--very faulty, but all we have. The best ill.u.s.tration of the lesson is one your scholars find; the next best, one you find yourself; and only the third best, one found for you by the skilful writers of your lesson helps. The newspapers are mines of original ill.u.s.trations.

They const.i.tute, for example, a magazine of warnings. Hardly a number but tells of a defalcation sprung from gambling, of the ruin accomplished by the theater and dance-hall, of the mischief caused by sensational literature, and everywhere and always of the rum-fiend's devilish work. Why Saul fell, and David, and Solomon,--your scholars must know that; but their sense of the reality of sin and its fearful power will be deepened by noting the fall of men and women in this present world, and learning what brought shipwreck to their souls. A misplaced switch last week threw a train from the track and killed a man. What a warning against carelessness! Early Wednesday morning a drunken woman was found asleep on an ash-pile, her little girl sobbing by her side. What a lesson on the evil wrought by rum! Of all the sins and faults against which the Bible utters its great warnings, there is none we may not ill.u.s.trate freshly and vividly from the newspaper.

But that is only half, and the lower half. By sharp search we may find in our papers many a thrilling example of heroism and n.o.ble service.

Would that our reporters more frequently chronicled the good! Yet here is a fire at which a fireman risked his life to save a little child.

And here is a cashier that braved death rather than open the safe for the robbers. And here is a lad whose shoulder was dislocated by stopping a runaway horse. And here is a heroic rescue of men and women from a shipwreck. We do not get from the newspaper the daily acts of devotion and faithfulness so honored in the eye of heaven; but we do get the splendid deeds, the stirring, romantic victories, that will move the girls and boys to knightly action.

Newspapers, too, give an outlook over the world. The confining walls melt away, and your lesson takes wide sweeps under a broad sky. Every session of Congress considers many matters of the highest import for the kingdom of G.o.d. Our great offices are filled with men of strong character, acting out upon a grand scale lives potent for good or evil. In the lands across the seas great events are occurring, each exhibiting some phase of G.o.dliness or sin. You will exalt the gospel mightily in the minds of your scholars if you can show them how its principles solve the problems of our government, and underlie all wise action of the nations of the world.

It has already been indicated how the temperance lesson, that quarterly bugbear of some teachers, may be illuminated by the newspaper. Thus also may the missionary lesson. So profoundly do missions affect any nation they touch, and so closely are they interwoven with its life, that whatever of importance befalls any people has its missionary bearings. The Sultan cannot ma.s.sacre the Armenians, or France seize Madagascar, or j.a.pan fight China, or Hawaii depose its queen, or a revolution occur in South America, without entanglement with the omnipresent missionaries of the cross. To make the scholars feel this through wise references to current events is immensely to broaden their conception of the church and its work.