Cautions for Sabbath-Schools.
By Editor
Our efforts have been unceasing to impress upon the officers and teachers of Sabbath-schools, that the object of the school is not the acquisition of a certain amount of Bible knowledge, but the receiving of spiritual benefit. The school ought to be, what it is often called, "the nursery of the church." But a wail is coming up all over the land that the Sunday-schools are not the nursery of the church, but the rival of the church; that as the interest in the Sunday-school increases, the interest in the church and in its worship decreases. We have seen the same tendency, sometimes, in some of our Sabbath-schools. We find an article in the S. F. Chronicle on "The Sunday-school System," from which we gather some interesting facts. The Churchman, commenting on Dr. Huntington's attack on the evils of the Sunday-school system, says: "There is no nobler work than the religious education of children. There are no greater evils than those which have grown up in connection with that education in Sunday-schools." The Christian Intelligencer complains of the Sunday-school as the successful rival of public worship, saying: "The pews are not filled, so as to show that church-going is made a family matter and a Medo-Persian law of the home. The children, like the angels, are few and far between. They go to Sunday-school!" In a recent convention address, a bishop declared: "There is a great deal to cause anxiety in the condition of many of our Sunday-schools, or, rather, in the wholly inadequate provision made in them for the only task that warrants their existence—the religious training of children." Commenting on the late discussion of Sunday-schools by the Central Council of the Diocesan Conference in England, the Church Standard says: "We hope that it will be long before the Church in England sets aside, ignores altogether, and attempts to supersede the responsibility which rests upon parents, guardians, sponsors, or other suitable persons to train those whom God has placed in their charge. No Sunday-school system, no matter how admirably devised and how thoroughly carried out, can undertake this duty and relieve those to whom God has committed a trust." At this Conference Canon Elwyn related some amusing incidents to show that, while the classes were instructed in a routine work, they were essentially lacking in correct ideas of the object of the Sunday-school and of worship. The Guardian gives much space to a review of a recent pamphlet entitled, "Sunday-Schools, Measured by Acknowledged Christian Principles and Proved Unwarranted and Destructive." The letters on Sunday-schools, the author says, were "accepted by the Episcopal Register and printed as far as Letter No. 3, when the Sunday-school Association of Philadelphia interfered with the publisher of the Register against printing any further letters, and the fourth and last letter, though in type, was suppressed." The Guardian says of them: "We are glad to see this pamphlet, for we know of no subject which better deserves the attention of churchmen to-day;" and though it is of opinion that the writer has stated the case too strongly, it thinks "there are evils in connection with Sunday-schools as conducted in some places which demand to be corrected, and which well deserve his strong language of rebuke." The Christian Advocate has published a series of articles under the title, "The Church or the Sunday-School, which?" The conference of the Second Moravian District of Pennsylvania declared itself pressed by the question, and among the conclusions reached and formulated; this seemed to be the most largely accepted, viz.: "The Sunday-schools must be revolutionized from the very bottom if it is hoped to make the children Christians." At a quarterly meeting of the Presbytery of Philadelphia Central, a Committee on Sunday-schools reported: "Cases are before us in which the Sessions are represented as having no influence whatever in the schools, so that a continual friction, if not an irrepressible conflict, is engendered between the Sessions and the schools." And the unavoidable tendency of such a state of things is to make the Sunday-school scholar look with contempt upon the church; to lose all reverence, and all regard for worship. It is not a wonder that the question is asked, "The church or the Sunday-school, which?" We once saw a school of a Seventh-day Adventist Church close, when the superintendent, a number of the teachers, and most of the scholars, deliberately took their books and marched to their homes, leaving the minister, who was to conduct the services, with half a congregation, smarting under the indignity offered to the worship of which he had to take charge. Fortunately, he so forcibly denounced the unseemly proceeding that the school was turned into a different channel, and its influence for evil immediately checked. This was an extreme case, but it shows the necessity for watchfulness, lest the object of the school be lost sight of, and it prove a stumbling-block to those who ought to be only benefited by it. We append a few rules which we consider essential to the efficiency of Sabbath-schools. 1. The parents must take an interest in the school, and assist their children to learn and understand their lessons. And this should be a subject of prayer with them. The children should not be sent to school to learn their lessons. 2. The teacher should strive above all else to make, what our fathers used to call, an "improvement" of the lesson. The great central ideas of the Scriptures are obedience to God, and a Saviour from sin. A personal Saviour should be the ever-present thought with the teacher. Every lesson should be made to tend to that point. 3. The teacher should make personal appeals to the scholars, and, by kind inquiry, know the state of their feelings in regard to salvation. 4. The teachers must pray for their classes. Let them know that you do pray for them. 5. Make the scholars feel at home with you. Give each a kind greeting at the opening of the exercises. Cultivate familiarity, but not irreverence.