Educational Sabbaths by W. E. H.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Feb 12, 1914

Educational Sabbaths

By W. E. H.

OUR readers are already familiar with an action taken at the autumn council setting apart two Sabbaths in the year for educational endeavor in all the churches. It now remains for every believer in Christian education, especially the educators themselves, to make the most of these occasions. They are not intended merely to occupy the time of the church services, nor to provide a program that will divert or entertain the people; they are to be solemn occasions for seeking the Lord earnestly, for drawing near to him by repentance and confession, and for studying seriously the instruction he has given for our guidance in the education of our children and youth.

Our denominational leaders have granted these two days, at the earnest request of the Educational Department, with the deep conviction that the time is due when the third angel’s message should be given a mighty impetus forward, and that one effective means of accomplishing this is to gather all the children and youth into our own schools, and to rally all the people everywhere to more adequate provision for their proper instruction.

Our schools are recruiting stations for the field forces. They are places of refuge where our young people may escape the corrupting influences so prevalent in the world in these last days. Christian schools were originated by divine direction, and have been revived in our day, to supplement, reenforce, and carry on to perfection the work of character building and training begun in the home. The Christian home is the center of supply for missionary advance. In the circle around the hearthstone of many a devoted father and mother in Israel, there is a vacant chair. The accustomed occupant has gone forth to a recruiting station to train for service, and perhaps already enlisted at the front. Before this work is finished, especially if it is cut short in righteousness, more chairs at home will have to be vacated, and more homes share in the blessed sacrifice.

Our leaders are setting the example. At this writing many chairs in our General Conference and North American offices are vacant. Their occupants have gone forth, some for weeks, some for as long as five months, laboring night and day from place to place, to preach repentance, revive the hearts of the people, and counsel with officers and workers on how to press the work more speedily to a finish. God is witnessing to their efforts, and so he will to ours in the home churches if we but rise at the Lord’s behest and let him work out his own purposes through the means that he himself has ordained.

Equally important to recruiting forces at the front, is the strengthening of every hand and heart at home. No Christian parent can afford, in this time of spiritual peril, to be lax or negligent of the highest charge committed to men, — the care and training of his own children. He cannot follow the example of the worldling in his own home; how can he, then, intrust the instruction of his children to the worldling in the home annex — the school? Yet by our slowness in training competent teachers and in properly equipping and establishing schools, we are compelling parents to place their children under instruction that is manifestly and professedly for this world only. Some will weather the storm if influences at home are right, but some will fall by the way, and all are constantly exposed to great spiritual danger.

It is true that in our efforts to provide proper instruction for our children we are hampered by the lack of efficient, seasoned teachers. We must do more vigorous work in developing teachers from the inexperienced but promising youth in our advanced schools; yet meanwhile we cannot ignore the fact that the secular schools are taking a large toll from the teaching talent among us. While we may not say that it is any less justifiable in some cases for a teacher to sell his services to the world than for a carpenter to do so, or for the farmer to pursue his semi-secular occupation and sell his products in the open market, yet there is this essential difference, that the teacher deals primarily with minds and hearts, and virtually pledges himself to teach certain things and not to teach others; and this important difference also in the interests of our work, that whereas we have enough carpenters to meet our needs, we seriously lack qualified teachers to man our schools as they deserve.

Shall the Lord’s work be permitted to

languish while believers of talent who are looking for the soon coming of Christ go on serving tables? Shall we rest content to have but five of our children of school age attending our own schools while four are learning the ways of the world? We lay no blame on any one. We are only endeavoring faithfully to portray the situation as it is, and to raise the question, What can we do to turn our denominational resources to more effective ends than we are now doing? The time is not far hence when loyal Seventh-day Adventist believers of all ages, down to the children in the elementary grades, will take an active part in giving the last warning message to a perishing world. Are we doing all we might to lay the foundation and develop our forces for such a movement of triumph?

These are some of the reasons, briefly touched upon, why two Sabbaths have been appointed when every Seventh-day Adventist believer in all the land may focus attention upon the conditions and possibilities in our educational work, and with earnest heart searching and prayer, study with others how we may institute a decided forward movement in caring for our children and youth and in recruiting our field forces.

The first Educational Sabbath has been appointed for March 7, and will be devoted to the interests of the church schools. The second will probably be in August, and deal with advanced education and the filling of our schools. A suggestive schedule and the material for the program on the first Sabbath will appear in the March issue of our magazine Christian Education, which is to be ready for the mail February 20. The entire contents of this number will be adapted as far as consistent to the interests of this important occasion, and a copy supplied to every local church elder. Look for further announcements, and pray that God may pour out a blessing on his people at that time whose influence will be felt to the end. W. E. H.