To Sabbath-School Workers in Kansas.
By J. N. Ayers
Dear Brethren: You are engaged in a great, a noble work. Among the several agencies which God designs to bless to the upbuilding of his cause and kingdom the Sabbath-school ranks second to few, perhaps to none. Here we feed the “lambs” as well as the “sheep.” Here we give our “babes in Christ” the “sincere milk of the word,” thus securing their growth in grace and in the knowledge of truth. But we are fully persuaded that our present Sabbath-school system, if system it may be called, is very defective, and very little is accomplished compared with what may be done by a good system properly carried out. One great need of our schools is co-operation, that each may help the other. This will almost at once bring the poorer schools up to the standard of the better ones, and then all can advance together. But in order to secure this co-operation, we must have organization. With this the needed reformation can be brought about. Our churches accomplished comparatively little before they formed Conferences. But since this general organization has been effected their efforts have been most signally blessed. The haphazard distribution of tracts and other publications during a period of twenty-five years, makes a very unfavorable show compared with what has been done since the organization of the T. & M. Society. This shows the difference between system and the want of it. While we cannot do everything at once, we can begin to do something now; and we earnestly recommend every school that has not already done so to immediately obtain a “Bible Lessons for Youth” by Bro. G. H. Bell; and let not the youth only, but the older ones also, carefully study it, lesson by lesson. Most persons will be surprised to see how much better they can explain and defend the great truths of the Bible after a thorough study of this book than before. After this is done and we have a complete State organization, lesson papers can be prepared on the same plan that the International Sunday-school leaves now are. Then with regular reviews, Institutes, lectures, etc., our Sabbath-schools will be what they ought to be. Rock Creek, Kan., Aug. 2, 1876.