p. 327 | How Not to Do It

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 28, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 21.

How Not to Do It.

IN his Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin tells of a sermon which he heard on one of the verses in the passage assigned by the Committee for the Sunday-school lesson of May 17. The incident is worth recalling in this connection, as an illustration of how not to teach this lesson. Franklin paid his annual subscription, he says, for the support of the only Presbyterian minister in Philadelphia, and attended the church, though not with any great regularity, as the sermons seemed to him aimed rather to make his hearers Presbyterians than good citizens.

"At length he took for his text that verse of the fourth chapter of Philippians, 'Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, or of good report, if there be any virtue, or any praise, think on these things.' And I imagined, in a sermon on such a text, we could not miss of having some morality. But he confined himself to five points only, as meant by the apostles; viz., 1. Keeping holy the Sabbath day; 2. Being diligent in reading the Holy Scriptures; 3. Attending duly the public worship; 4. Partaking of the sacrament; 5. Paying a due respect to God's ministers. These might be all good things; but, as they were not the kind of good things I expected from that text, I despaired of ever meeting them from any other, was disgusted, and attended his preaching no more." —Christian Union.