The Teacher's Praying

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 23, 1882

The Teacher's Praying.

WHEN the apostles described the special work to which they had been set apart, they spoke of it under two aspects—prayer and the ministry of the word. The one was as essential as the other, and both were necessary to the right fulfillment of their mission. These exercises are correlative means of usefulness, and must go hand in hand. The most devotional teacher is the most faithful in his labors. Prayer and effort are the secret of his success: but the latter is the public, and the former the private exercise. There is, therefore, more danger of neglecting the closet than the school. Except where there is a deep conscientiousness and much of the Spirit of God in a teacher's soul, public duties are likely to get advantage of the private, and effort to be greater than prayer. In this matter it is specially important to stir up the pure minds of Sabbath-school teachers by way of remembrance, and to urge upon our readers the necessity, privilege, and advantage of prayer. It is good to prepare at home to teach a class in the school, to visit the scholars at their residences, to attend meetings of teachers; but private prayer must not be neglected. The blessing of God is promised in answer to earnest supplication. The efficacy of the Spirit, which is so essential to spiritual instruction, is not obtained by faithful labor, except when that is conjoined with believing prayer. As the seed is not fruitful unless it is refreshed with rain from heaven, so the word of life is profitable to the conversion of souls only when the Holy Spirit, in answer to prayer, descends on the heart where it is planted.

The Sabbath-school teacher ought to be much in prayer for himself and for his class.

He needs to be prayerful for himself. Personal religion is necessary to his efficient teaching, and this is got by communion with God. The teacher who is engaged in teaching a class ought to be himself religious, experimentally acquainted with the truth of God, and with saving faith in Jesus Christ. "For any one," says an old Puritan, Antony Burgess, "to speak of regeneration, of faith, when a man has no spiritual understanding of these things, is to talk of the sweetness of honey when we have never tasted it; or of the excellence of such a country, which we were never in, but know by maps only. If thou knowest the truth of God but by books, by authors only, and thy own heart feeleth not the power of these things; thou art but as the conduit, that letteth out wine or refreshing water to others, but thou thyself tastest not of it; or like the hand that directeth the passenger, but thou thyself standest still." Attention to personal piety is a blessed preparation for public usefulness.—Christian Teacher.