REGULAR ATTENDANCE OF SABBATH-SCHOOL TEACHERS.
By Hart
IRREGULAR attendance of the teacher is a source of multiplied evils in the school, besides those produced in his own class. Eight or ten scholars left to themselves, without any one to engage their attention or keep them in order, are a source of annoyance to all the classes in the neighborhood. If the superintendent distributes them, they still constitute a discordant and disturbing element in every class to which any portion of them is assigned. The superintendent is generally obliged to dispose of vacant classes in this way, in order to prevent disquiet. But it puts a heavy drag upon some three or four other classes. Let every teacher, then, who is absent, remember, first, that all benefit to his own class for that week, and almost all for the week to come, is lost; secondly, that his class will receive a positive injury; thirdly, that he puts a heavy weight and hindrance upon at least three or four of his fellow-teachers; fourthly, that he adds grievously to the cares and perplexities of the superintendent; fifthly, that he contributes more directly and efficiently than any other cause to the promotion of disorder and disquiet in the school; and finally, that it will take him at least three Sabbaths of faithful and diligent attendance to repair the evils of one day's absence. What would be thought of a preacher who should fail to meet his congregation at the appointed hour?—of a physician who should neglect to visit his patient?—of a clerk who did not attend the appointed hours of business?—of a lawyer who was not in court when his case was called up?—of a servant who should neglect to prepare the family dinner?—of a man or woman in any relation of life, who should fail to meet a stated engagement, and not only make no provision for the contingency, but neglect even to apprise the parties concerned of the failure, until it was too late to make other arrangements? There is not a business in life that would not be utterly disarranged and brought to a stand-still, if the parties engaged in it were to pursue the course adopted without apparent compunction by some teachers of Sabbath-schools. Such a course adopted by an employé in a bank, a counting-house, a day-school, or in any other public or private business, would insure immediate dismissal from service. It would ruin any man in any of the public professions. It would imply a breach of contract, and entail inevitable loss of character. Is the obligation of a teacher to meet his class any less binding because it has been voluntarily assumed, and because the labor is not performed for a pecuniary equivalent? Is a service in which one engages for the sake of Christ any less obligatory than one entered upon for a worldly advantage? May a teacher with good conscience be absent from his class for any cause that would not justify him in failing to meet a business engagement? In case of such necessary absence, is he not bound to give timely notice to the superintendent and to procure a substitute, just as a lawyer, a physician, or a minister would do, in a similar case? If at half past ten on Sabbath morning, when the people were all assembled for public worship, the elders or the sexton were to receive a message that the minister did not feel very well and would not be there that morning, or that he had been called out of town the day before, and they must get somebody else to preach for them, would the congregation be well satisfied with such a course? The unfaithfulness of a teacher to his class may as grave an offense as the one supposed. Is it truly a sin in the sight of God? Is there any difference in kind, except as there is a difference between a fraud of a thousand dollars and a fraud of a hundred? I urge these questions with earnestness. No one can visit a large school and see—as he will see—class after class vacant, sometimes half a dozen at once, without feeling that the attention of those who undertake to teach in the Sabbath-schools needs to be directed seriously to this point. Every superintendent who reads these remarks knows, from painful experience, that I have not beaten the air.—Hart.