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Chapter XXXVIII
A Praying Sunday-School

In no way can more Christianity be taught in less time than by a good prayer. A Sunday-school that is not opened with the right kind of prayer remains tight shut until the teachers get hold of it, while the right kind of prayer at the close of the lesson hour rivets the lesson on the week to come.

Yet I know of no point in Sunday-school management regarding which superintendents are more careless. The children must listen to Magellan prayers that circumnavigate the globe; to mechanical prayers, cast in stereotyped forms; to officious prayers that volunteer to teach the coming lesson; to peacock prayers that flaunt big words and fine phrases; to wrinkled prayers, dealing with experiences into which the children will not grow for three decades. In some schools the superintendent always makes the prayer himself, praying in the same terms and tones and order for the same things. Elsewhere the superintendent invites others to perform this service, but, with pitiless impartiality, calls upon all that will, heedless whether they are capable or totally unfit for the difficult duty.

For it is not easy to guide the devotions of these varied ages and characters. The words must be so simple that the youngest can understand them. The thoughts must be so noble as to furnish an uplift to the oldest. The expressions must be direct, as in the realized presence of Christ. The prayer must be brief, and bright, and deeply in earnest, sincere as a child.

To perform this task, therefore, no one should be invited merely for policy's sake, merely because he is a visiting clergyman, a church officer, or a good-hearted layman. Ask no one that does not know the glorious language of a child's prayer. Give notice beforehand, since this prayer, if any, should be thought over and prayed over. And if you fear the prayer will lack a certain quality, shrewdly incorporate its name in your invitation, asking for a brief prayer, or a simple prayer, or a prayer about few things.

I wonder that this exercise is so seldom fixed upon the children's attention and interest by their own vocal participation in it. Indeed, it is not always that the school is able to repeat the Lord's Prayer together with the freedom and force born of long custom. The school may easily be taught to chant the Lord's Prayer, and that may be made most genuine praying. There are many suitable short Bible prayers that children might learn to say together, such as "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer." Indeed, there are many prayer psalms that could be learned entire, the concert repetition of which would greatly enrich the Sunday-school hour. If yours is a model school, every scholar has his Bible, and Scripture prayers, not committed to memory, may be read in concert. And, besides, what more impressive conclusion to the session than the "Mizpah benediction," in which all voices join, or, perhaps better, the beautiful benediction in Numbers 6:24-26, "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee," etc.?

Then there is the hymn-book. If it is a good one, it contains many beautiful prayer hymns. Let the scholars all bow their heads, and sing softly Miss Havergal's tender consecration hymn, or "Nearer, my God, to thee," and you will find all hearts indeed drawn nearer heaven. Occasionally let the school read together one of these same hymns, also with their heads bowed.

And, by the way,—though it deserves more than a "by the way,"—insist on the bowing of the head,—not that the attitude is important in itself, but the reverence that the attitude arouses is of the highest importance. Wait till all heads are bowed before you begin the prayer or permit another to begin it. The half-minute of quiet or semi-quiet needed to gain this end is not ill-bestowed. Moreover, I should strongly advise you to go one step farther, and once in a while have the entire school go down on their knees. This, the normal attitude of prayer, the children should be taught to assume in public, at least so often that it will not seem to them forced or unnatural.

Have you tried silent prayer? A blessed exercise it is, and one the children will love. Ask them to bend their heads or kneel, and then in perfect silence to pray for their teachers, or their pastor, or their dear ones at home, or some sick scholar. After a minute the superintendent will tenderly add a few closing sentences of vocal prayer.

And have you tried a chain prayer,—a prayer started by a leader, who will also close it, to which ten or twenty of the scholars contribute sentences of praise or petition? You will be astonished to see how many of the scholars will join in these prayers,—you will be astonished, that is, unless you are familiar with the training along this line so nobly accomplished in our modern young people's religious societies.

Still another way to obtain the scholars' careful heed to the prayer is to establish a form with which the superintendent will always begin his prayer, and which the entire school will repeat with him. The opening sentences of the Lord's Prayer may be used for such a purpose. Then, at the close of the prayer, after "for Jesus' sake," let all the scholars say "Amen."

An occasional Sunday-school prayer-meeting, held for ten minutes at the close of the lesson hour, will do much to inspire in the school a deeper spirit of worship; that is, if the scholars themselves take part, and not the teachers only. And these Sunday-school prayer-meetings are magnificent opportunities for drawing the net. Hold them in a small room, that nearness may warm the coals of devotion to a glow. Do not hold them too frequently to be burdensome. Keep them brief and earnest. Let the teachers work for them in their classes, and use them as tests for their teaching. Above all, expect conversions in them, and, if you are faithful and faith-filled, you will get them.

This use of the scholar in the devotions of the school should be extended to his home. The superintendent may ask the scholars to pray every day during the coming week for the school, or for their teacher, or for their next lesson, that it may bring some one nearer Christ. For several weeks there may stand in bold letters on the blackboard a list of things that should be prayed for at home. The teacher, of course, must enforce these recommendations. If he will courageously hold once in a while a little prayer-meeting with his scholars, in the class-room, about the class-table, or, best of all, at his own home or at one of theirs, he will thereby teach them as much Christianity as otherwise he might in a year.

Indeed, the teacher has much to do in making yours a praying Sunday-school. To say nothing about the teacher's prayers for his scholars, which will be like steam to his pedagogic engine, and to say nothing about the united prayers of the teachers in the teachers' meetings, the teacher's conduct during the prayer in the school is in itself half the scholars' attention, the knowledge on the part of the scholars that their teacher is praying for them will spur their home devotions, and the teacher's simple, ready participation in the school prayers will prompt their own. An excellent occasional method of opening the school is by a succession of very brief—almost sentence—prayers from six or eight of the teachers. A frequent topic for discussion in the teachers' meeting should be how best to inculcate in the school the spirit of devotion, since this great result is to be won only by the co-operation of all the working forces of the school.

Much is gained in this matter if you gain variety. Sometimes ask the older scholars themselves, several of them in succession, to offer brief prayers at the opening of the school. Sometimes let the superintendent's opening prayer attract attention by its exceeding brevity,—only three or four sentences, embodying a single petition. Do not place the prayer always at the same place in the programme; now let it come before the singing, now after; now lay emphasis on the prayer introductory to the lesson hour, now on the prayer that closes the hour and seeks to drive home its lessons. Be dead in earnest,—no, be alive in earnest. Be thoughtful and versatile. Be bright and cheery and simple-hearted and sympathetic. In these prayers, that should furnish the life-blood to the school, be all things to all—children, if by all means you may win one of them.

Chapter XXXIX
S. S. and C. E

A word must be said about the co-operation of the Sunday-school and that other great modern agency for work with the youth, the young people's religious society. Whatever is said will be as true of the Epworth Leagues, Baptist Unions, and other denominational organizations as of the Christian Endeavor societies; but since the latter, like the Sunday-schools, are found in all denominations, and since my own especial work lies among them, it will be quite appropriate in this connection, as well as less confusing, to use only the one name, Christian Endeavor.

Though of ages so unequal, "S. S." and "C. E." are sisters. Both are international and interdenominational. Both apply the principle of age classification to religious work. Both are strongly evangelical, and earnest seekers of souls. Both are held in strictest subordination to the church. And both are Bible lovers; for the Christian Endeavor pledge requires daily reading of the Bible, and the weekly prayer-meeting topic calls out no slight amount of Bible study. Moreover, this topic is usually in line with the week's Sunday-school lesson,—not the same as the latter, but suggested by it. The two agencies are at work in different fields. The one puts in, the other draws out. The one studies, the other practices. The Christian Endeavor society affords an excellent test for the Sunday-school, and is its complement. Whatever helps the one aids the other, and the two should labor hand in hand.

There are even some things that the Sunday-school might learn from its little sister. The principle of the pledge has proved attractive and powerful in the Christian Endeavor society. Why not adopt it in the Sunday-school, asking the scholars for voluntary vows that they will attend regularly and will spend fifteen minutes a day in studying their lessons? The monthly consecration meeting maintains wonderfully the spirituality, zeal, and discipline of the Christian Endeavor society. Why not a monthly consecration and experience meeting of Sunday-school teachers? Three or four Christian Endeavor societies cannot exist in the same town without forming a local union for mutual encouragement and consultation. Sunday-schools have their county conventions, but why not also this beautiful interdenominational fellowship among the Sunday-schools of every community? A large part of the remarkable success of Christian Endeavor is due to its being a work of the young people for themselves. There is close pastoral and church supervision, and it is welcomed; but the Endeavorers feel that it is their society, for whose honor they are responsible, and whose victories depend upon themselves. As far as possible, this spirit should be incorporated in the Sunday-school, so that the Bible study may not seem a work impressed on the scholars, but elected by them,—their work, and not their teachers'.

How can the Christian Endeavor society help the Sunday-school? Greatly in its prayer-meetings, by remembering the allied Sunday-school topic of the morning. Here is a chance for the teacher to enlarge upon some theme treated too hurriedly in the lesson hour, and for scholars to show their appreciation of their teacher by repeating some thought he brought out in the morning. If rightly managed, the Christian Endeavor meeting furnishes an admirable opportunity for advertising the Sunday-school, and practically applying the truths there taught.

But the help given may be far more direct. Every well-organized Christian Endeavor society has a Sunday-school committee, whose members put themselves under the direction of the superintendent, and make it the one object of their term's work to push in all possible ways the interests of the Sunday-school.

The members of this committee are usually chosen with an eye to their fitness for acting as substitute teachers. Sometimes the committee constitutes itself a normal class and studies the lessons a week in advance, considering especially the way to teach effectively. On the next Sunday, therefore, the superintendent will find any of these Endeavorers well prepared to fill a vacancy.

Everywhere, too, these Sunday-school committees help the busy teacher to look after the absent scholars and to care for the sick. It is far easier for these young people than for the teacher to learn the real causes of absence and to urge better attendance. In some schools the teachers fill out blank cards every Sabbath, giving the names of absentees or of the sick on whom they would like to have the Sunday-school committee call. These cards are collected, the calls made, and then the Endeavorers report to the teacher.

A kindred ministration is the gathering of new scholars. In many cities the Sunday-school committee has conducted a fruitful house-to-house canvass for new scholars, sometimes canvassing at the same time for new members of their society. Other committees distribute printed cards of invitation. Others organize "recruiting squads" among the scholars, and give little rewards to those that do the best work. Others make it their business to hunt out all the young strangers in the morning congregation and give them a personal invitation to the school. Still others distribute among the scholars "suggestion blanks," on which each scholar writes the names and addresses of young folks that might be won for the school. These Endeavorers call at the strangers' homes and go with them to the school, while others stand ready to welcome all strangers at the door and show them to appropriate classes. Thus they follow them up, that it may not be a case of "light come, light go."

The Endeavorers, under the direction of their Sunday-school committee, may be very helpful in the music. A choir or an orchestra may be organized from their numbers. An occasional song appropriate to the lesson may be rendered as a solo or quartette. When Sunday-school concerts are to be given, the Endeavorers will afford trained assistance. But especially the committee should become thoroughly familiar with the Sunday-school song-book, so that its members, scattered over the room, may carry with vigor any unfamiliar hymn, and give force and sprightliness to all the singing.

The Sunday-school librarian will find among the Endeavorers some efficient aids. The Sunday-school committee may advertise the new books in the Christian Endeavor meetings, and get the society to add to the library certain books of especial interest and helpfulness to Endeavorers. Sunday-school library socials have been held by some societies, the evening's exercises being so planned as to call attention to the best books in the library. The Endeavorers will help in covering books, in hunting up those that are lost, in reading new books and giving an opinion regarding them. Where subscriptions are taken for special papers or magazines, the Sunday-school committee will be glad to undertake this work. After these periodicals have been read, they will gather up the old copies to send to the hospitals.

The decorating for Christmas and Easter exercises or for Children's Day may be assigned to the Christian Endeavor society. The Endeavorers may be set to gathering in the scholars for Rally Day. They should be called upon for help on all such special occasions.

Some societies give parties now and then to the classes that have the best record, or divide the school into sections according to age, and entertain each section in turn at a Christian Endeavor social, closing the series with a pleasant evening spent with the teachers and officers alone.

It would weary you if I should rehearse all the ways in which Christian Endeavor societies have proved helpful to the Sunday-school. Many a primary department has gained much from close association with the work of the superintendent of the Junior Christian Endeavor society. I have heard of a large number of places where the Endeavorers organized and maintained mission Sunday-schools—schools that in many instances have grown to churches. Often the Endeavorers take charge of the ushering of the school, furnish flowers for every session, offer rewards to the scholars for excellence in various directions, help with swift feet in the messenger service of the home department, turn their trained forces into an occasional Sunday-school prayer-meeting,—indeed, they are as ingenious in discovering ways of helping this elder sister of the Christian Endeavor society as they are zealous and persistent in these labors after they are inaugurated.

If in some churches this help is not given, it is probably because it is not invited, or very likely through lack of organization. If the Christian Endeavor society has no Sunday-school committee, let the Sunday-school superintendent, who is a member of the society ex officio, interest himself in obtaining one. And then through this committee he can draft into the service all the other usual committees of the society—the lookout committee, to get new scholars; the prayer-meeting committee, to aid in the school's devotional exercises; the temperance and missionary committees, to give assistance in the special lessons on those themes; the music committee, to aid in the singing, and the flower committee, to help in the decorations; the social committee, to seek the absent and the sick; the good-literature committee, to help the librarian.

And if the Endeavorers do this, or a part of this, for the Sunday-school, why should not the Sunday-school do a little for the Christian Endeavor society? The superintendent may help it by calling upon it for assistance and by recognizing on fit occasions its officers and committees. He may even give it an occasional advertisement from the desk; and he, with his officers and teachers, may do much to put himself in touch with the young people by attending the Christian Endeavor meetings now and then. The teachers may help by introducing into their talks before the classes an occasional hint on the Christian Endeavor pledge or committee work, or by remembering the prayer-meeting topic and suggesting a thought or two that may be developed in the meeting, or by urging membership in the society upon those that do not already belong to it.

Thus it is seen how intimately these two organizations are related, and how much each may do to help the other. Do not allow them to labor apart. Parallel threads are weak; cables are made by twisting them together.

Chapter XL
Teachers in 8vo

What the Sunday-school library should be depends on what the community is. These libraries, therefore, should not pattern after one another like peas in a pod, as is too often the case, but each should have an individuality of its own. The Sunday-school in a city, with an overflowing public library and an excellent public-school library at hand, has no excuse for distributing secular books; while such books may form a useful addition to the library of a country school.

Of course there is danger in admitting secular books to the Sunday-school library under any circumstances, and I would not for the world add one more to the many subtle inroads upon the Lord's day. If you place in your library any books that are not suitable Sunday reading, cover them with paper of a distinctive color, mark them "For week-day reading only," and watch them carefully, that you may withdraw them from circulation if you find them trenching on the sacred hours. With proper restrictions, however, the church may find here a blessed ministry to many book-hungry communities. Biographies like Irving's "Washington" or Holland's "Lincoln"; histories like Motley's "Rise of the Dutch Republic"; poems like "Snowbound," "The Idyls of the King," "Evangeline"; essays like Smiles' "Self Help" or Mathews' "Getting on in the World"; books of science like Winchell's "Sparks from a Geologist's Hammer" or Proctor's "Other Worlds than Ours,"—if you can get your scholars to read on week-days such books as these, you will deepen, broaden, and enrich the soil in which you do your Sunday sowing.

But the more the community needs books, the harder it is to raise money for them. This, however, is merely a difficulty of the start. A few books, shrewdly chosen, will create a hunger for more, and that hunger will open the pocketbooks.

Hold a book social, admission to which shall be a copy, old or new, of some good book. The entertainment at this social should be appropriate. Let each person that comes carry about him a token of some book, such as a card about his neck reading, "Who teaches you?" ("Hoosier School Master"!). Illustrate a poem with shadow pictures. Place about the room numbered portraits of authors for the company to name. Add readings and essays on literary themes.

A course of lectures and concerts is possible, nowadays, for almost any enterprising community, and the proceeds will give the library a start.

For a time you may charge two cents for the reading of each book, thus forcing the library itself to earn its double in the course of a year.

At the beginning,—or, for that matter, all the time,—the generous among the church-members may be urged to lend books to the library for a year at a time. Such books should be covered with different paper from the others, and plainly marked with the name of the lender and an injunction to especial carefulness in handling them.

The library will be generously supported, if its books are sensibly selected; but this is not an easy task. Do not leave it to any single man, but appoint the wisest men and women of the church a committee on selection, and require them all to read every book that is chosen. Obviously, the value of such a committee will increase with the growing years, and it should be a permanent body.

Many booksellers will send books on approval. The review columns in the religious papers should be regularly watched. The committee should be placed on the mailing-lists of all the best publishers, to receive their regular announcements of books. They should get into correspondence with the librarians of other schools, learning from them what books are popular and helpful. And, above everything else, they should get in contact with the scholars of their own school, to watch the practical effect of the books they select.

Regarding the selection of books, first, some "dont's."

Don't choose any volume, no matter how famous, without reading every word of it. One of the grandest of biographies, for instance, is Franklin's autobiography; but you will not wish to put before young readers his chapter on his religion—or lack of it. Wonderfully inspiring essays are Emerson's; but here and there a sentence speaks of Christ as a mere man. A very stimulating booklet is "Blessed be Drudgery"; but one sentence spoils it for our use, since it places Jesus at the end of a list of philosophers at whose head stands Herbert Spencer.

Don't buy "fads." Wait and see whether the book now so much lauded is heard of next year.

Don't buy the books that have fittingly been called "a-little-child-shall-lead-them" stories. Bill Nye described them as tales relating how a dear little boy, though but five and a half and crippled, took in back stairs to scrub, and supported his widowed mother, and sent his sister to college.

Don't buy "libraries." As sensibly let a man that has never seen you order for you a suit of clothes.

Don't buy "sets" and "series" and "sequels." Judge every book on its merits.

Don't buy the books of one publishing-house alone, however excellent, any more than you would fill your home with the works of only one painter.

Don't confine your choice merely to the "Sunday-school writers." Books that are not virile enough to attract and help folks outside the Sunday-school are not likely to prove very useful inside.

Don't buy by authors. "Aunt Mary's Candlestick," by Jemima Jones, may have been the greatest success of the year in your school; but that is no reason why you should load up with "Aunt Mary's Dust-brush" and "Aunt Mary's Needlecase" and "Aunt Mary's Dish-mop," by the same industrious author.

In fine, don't buy any book, no matter who is its publisher or author, or what its reputation, unless that particular book meets some particular need of your particular school.

And now, what shall we buy? Stories, of course, in delightful measure. The Sunday-school library has the highest authority for teaching in parables. And for these stories there are three requirements.

First, they must be attractive. What is the use of a book if it will not be read?

Second, they must be natural. He who is the Truth will never bless a story of lifeless, jerking, galvanized puppets, gibbering forced aphorisms and preposterous piety, and acting in a red fire of sensational incidents. Real boys and girls, real men and women, real life, and therefore life intensely interesting,—these must dwell in our Sunday-school stories.

And finally, the stories must be helpful. Each must have a point, a purpose. They must be outright for Christ, if they are to make outright Christians.

Don't neglect the old-fashioned stories, such as the Rollo books. They are full of meat. Especially helpful are such stories of Bible times as "Ben Hur." Provided their imaginings do not outrun the Bible facts, we can scarcely have too many of them. Do not forget, either, the books that tell the Bible stories themselves, in simple language, for the little ones. Above all stories, do not omit the "Pilgrim's Progress," but buy a volume in large type and beautifully illustrated.

Next to stories, what? Emphatically, lives of the great Christians; above all, missionaries. There are brief, bright, well-illustrated lives of Mackay, the marvelous mechanic, Carey, the consecrated cobbler, Paton, the hero of the New Hebrides, Livingstone the daring, Martyn the saintly, Judson the sagacious, Patteson, the white knight of Melanesia, and a host of other grand men. What inspiration to a splendid life is to be gained from the story of Madagascar's dusky martyrs, or the account of Allen Gardiner's magnificent death in Patagonia! What a spur to active service is the tale of the winning of Hawaii, the opening up of Japan, the self-sacrificing missions of the Moravians, the daring ride of Whitman across the continent for the salvation of Oregon!

Then, there are the lives of great reformers like Luther, John Howard, Wilberforce, John B. Gough, and of such superb Christians as Gladstone, Wesley, Washington, William of Orange. There is no need of a long list. The trouble is not to find the books, but to awaken among your scholars a hunger for the real heroism of real men as opposed to the imaginary heroism of fiction.

Another section of your library should contain books that bear directly on the work of the school. There must be the best works on teaching, such as Trumbull's "Teachers and Teaching," Schauffler's "Ways of Working," Boynton's "The Model Sunday-school," and Du Bois' "The Point of Contact." There must be some account of the Bible, like Rice's "Our Sixty-six Sacred Books"; some brief and attractive manual of Christian evidences, like Fisher's or Robinson's; some life of Christ, like Geikie's or Farrar's; some account of the history, polity, and teachings of your denomination. Thompson's "The Land and the Book," Smith's "Historical Geography of the Holy Land," Geikie's "Hours with the Bible," Taylor's "Moses, the Lawgiver," Deems' "The Gospel of Common Sense," Pierce's "Pictured Truth," Butterworth's "The Story of the Hymns,"—each of these is a type of a class of books helpful to teachers,—and to scholars also, if they can be brought to read them. Add, for the temperance lessons, such books as Banks' "The Saloon-keeper's Ledger," Gustafson's "The Fountain of Death," and Strong's "Our Country" and "The New Era."

I wonder that so few Sunday-school libraries contain the great Christian poems, such as "Paradise Lost," Browning's "Saul," Lowell's "Vision of Sir Launfal," Arnold's "The Light of the World," and many more that would illuminate the lessons.

Many fascinating books of science for young folks have been written expressly from the Christian stand-point. Why not add to the library such books as Kingsley's "Glaucus," Burr's "Ecce Cœlum," Agnes Gibberne's "Sun, Moon, and Stars," Keyser's "In Bird-land"?

I may seem to be suggesting books for the older scholars mainly. Let me here urge that equal care and thought be spent on the volumes for the little tots and the "intermediates." Their books are not so interesting to the mature-minded committee, and so they are more likely to be chosen at haphazard.

This is especially true of the books for the primary department. Two or three pounds of their diminutive volumes are shoveled up in a mass, read by title, and tucked in at the end of the list. This carelessness is especially injurious, because it is at their age that the reading habit is formed, and it is of the utmost importance that the tiniest books in the library shall be bright, helpful, and of real literary value. To discover these will prove one of the most difficult tasks of the conscientious committee.

Do not give up the old favorites. When Susan Coolidge's "Katy Did" series wears out, give the old books away to some poorer school and get a fresh set of the same. Remember that new scholars are all the time entering, and that there is no recommendation for a book so effective as the young people's own testimony, "I have read it, and I know you will like it."

Have an eye to the paper and type and binding. Many books intended for Sunday-school libraries are printed on stiff, pulpy paper, that refuses to remain open at any place without cracking the back, and use a cramped and formal typography more suitable to a funeral sermon than to a book intended to attract young folks.