Centre Street Teachers’ Meeting.
“CLEARLY, Thursday evening after prayer-meeting won’t do any longer,” remarked the superintendent of Centre Street Sunday-school, one rainy evening, to the half dozen discouraged members of his staff who stayed to study the lesson. “The ladies won’t stay so late, and the rest of us are all tired out and depressed by our inability to comment after the minister. After this, we’ll have one night in the week to ourselves—say Friday.” And to the fact that the superintendent carried his point may be found one reason why every Sunday-school worker concedes Centre Street teachers’ meetings a success. There are a good many other reasons, but the class certainly owes its individuality to that one. Its separate existence gave it courage. Controlling one evening a week, it began to assert itself, and to be imperative as to attendance and preparation. The result, the very palpable and pleasant result, is that the teachers love it, the Bible class students, always invited, pronounce it “splendid,” and even an elder drops in occasionally to beam benevolently over his spectacles and maintain orthodoxy. About a quarter to eight they begin to gather in the comfortable little class-room; and each newcomer is greeted with a nod and a smile all around, for everybody is acquainted with everybody else. There is much pleasant chat among the teachers, which increases when the superintendent arrives with somebody to introduce. The room was bright before he came; it is brighter now. His interest in his teachers and their wants goes straight to every heart, and warms it into reciprocity. Presently some one hands around the little red hymn books, and there is no more talking. They draw closer around the table, with its big Bible and bright crimson cloth, and if the secretary of the Y. M. C. A. isn’t late, and the minister’s wife is there, the singing will be very pleasant to listen to. Anyway, it is hearty and contagious. Then the superintendent prays. He doesn’t pray for the government, or the heathen in Africa, or “those detained by the inclemency of the weather.” Perhaps his prayer isn’t comprehensive enough. But he asks for those things for his teachers, and his Sunday-school, and himself, that are special needs. And his teachers pray for him, feeling that his desires are theirs. They talk a little about every verse in the lesson if there is time, and everybody brings a new thought, or a fresh fact, or a different illustration. The leader is open to any question, and occasionally, under the guise of the lesson, other points are brought up, and help is sought and obtained upon many a perplexing point in the teacher’s daily life. Nobody sees the question motive, but the answer is given in sympathy, and there is one worry less next week. Last Friday night they ventilated the attendance question, and plans for securing perfect quiet during the opening exercises will come up next week. Old Mr. McNeish will propose a Disciplinary Committee, and a system of reporting to this august and awful body. There will be lively debate, and the Disciplinary Committee will go to the wall—not, however, until better plans have been advanced by the teacher of the primary class, timidly approved by the minister’s wife, heartily supported by the superintendent, and accepted by everybody but Mr. McNeish. Of course, Centre Street teachers’ meeting is not without its drawbacks. There are people around that red table-cloth from whom you couldn’t get an idea with a hydraulic press. And there is a stern old Scotchman, invulnerable in the “catechism,” who won’t allow anybody to differ with it; and a mild-voiced little lady who persists in quoting from the fourteenth chapter of John, without the slightest reference to the lesson. Then some of the ladies will whisper their comments to one another, instead of making them audible to the class; and certainly two or three of the older teachers have a tendency to become doctrinal rather than practical. But the Scotchman is unassailed, and the irrelevant texts are listened to, and there is very little discussion that is not valuable to the teachers, either on Sunday or week-day. So the chief critics of the meeting, and the way it is conducted, are those who come often enough to be struck by these small things. They are people like that. But in the estimation of most of the teachers, their superintendent, and a good many of the heartily welcomed Bible class, no other service is so pleasant a privilege as Centre Street teachers’ meeting.—S. S. Times.