Sunday school

“ Sunday-schools are the nurseries of the Church; they compose the youth who are to live when we go down to the dust. When the teachers are aged, or dead, their children will rise up to fill the ranks of Immanuel. Where are the additions to our church to come from, but from Sunday-schools? Do not most of those who join the Church in the prime of their days, and present whole sacrifices to God, come from our Sabbath-schools? ”

“ If we aim at having first-class Sunday-schools, which will not only teach the children their catechism, and encourage them in the practice of virtue, but also elevate and refine their manners, and educate them in that, for which, after all, Catholic children are remarkable, namely, Christian politeness, we must secure teachers who, like the teacher of the little child mentioned above, are so good, know so much, and are such gentlemen! We have every confidence that the Sunday-School Union, by its "social" character, will bring this about. ”

“ But by slow degrees the Bible came more prominently to the front, until now the Sunday school is everywhere the school with one text-book. He who surveys the Sunday school through the inner eye beholds it on one day in each week covering the continent with its millions of students, all face to face with some portion of the great text-book of religion. The thoughtful observer will reflect that a people whose children and youth come into weekly contact with the living word will not wander far from the path of righteousness. ”

“ The time when it is feasible to assemble children together for religious instruction is on Sunday. Hence the Sunday-school and its corps of lay teachers; both of necessity, as experience has shown, for every parish, if the people are to have, as they ought to have, a befitting knowledge of their religion—if they are to be indoctrinated with its spirit, and receive its ministrations by a devout, conscientious attendance upon its worship, and a due appreciation of, and worthy preparation for, the holy sacraments. ”

“ Sunday School work, too, is rapidly increasing, with good success. I am seldom absent from it, not teaching, but generally supervising the work, always taking myself the Morning School, as one large class. It certainly means work on a Sunday that one would gladly be free from, but I regard it as of all importance, especially as we can have no Church day schools; it brings one into personal contact with one's children, and with the teachers, to our great mutual advantage. ”

“ If I get out something as good as a Sunday-school it will be pretty good. Why do men, when they want to characterize something as particularly feeble, always use a Sunday-school as a comparison, when they ought to know that the Sunday-school is one of the strongest, most powerful influences in our civilization in this country today? But the paper will not necessarily be weak because it is good. Good things are more powerful than bad. The question with me is largely one of support from the Christian people of Raymond. There are over twenty thousand church members here in this city. ”

“ The day-school brings about sympathy of the day scholars with the church and Sunday-school work. The religious exercises of the schools cause the impression that there is a soul as well as a brain to be trained. The knowledge that the teachers are universally engaged in Sunday-school work, by the very law of cause and effect, calls attention to that work also. The sympathy that always exists between the preacher and teachers, and the hearty interest in the children that is shown by the ministers, cause both parents and children to think that the work is all one, as it really is. ”

“ In view of all these considerations, it is not surprising that at the opening of the twentieth century the demand of the Sunday schools everywhere is for better teaching, and for teachers who have themselves been taught and are able to teach others. ”

“ The Sunday-school, for the individual, for the family, for the Church, for the nation, and for the world, is one of the principal mottoes to be inscribed on the banners of the faithful; and many well-meant but feeble agencies on which much religious activity is now frittered away, will, we believe, at length be merged in this grand institution. ”

“ There are on the American continent not less than a million and a half Sunday-school teachers, who give to the gospel their free-will offering of time, and toil, and thought. They are not like civil engineers or the majority of public-school teachers, graduates of schools that have given them training for a special vocation. In every respect they are laymen, engaged for six days in secular work, and on one day finding an avocation in the Sunday school. ”

“ The Sunday School is undoubtedly a good place for a boy, but as a corrective measure it cannot be compared to an apple tree limb and a handy wood-shed.
The folks who sit on the back-steps and worry about the future never catch any smiles from the present as she passes the front gate. ”

“ We think the Sunday-school belongs especially to us, as we are allowed to say more there than we are in church, so we would like you to come into the Sunday-school and work with us there, and we will gladly pay you with our love and sunny smiles. ”

“ Sunday school is to study the different charitable objects that present themselves to the school, decide upon their merits, and then present them understandingly to the members of the school, with a view to eliciting their interest and training them in the spirit and habit of intelligent giving. ”

“ For lack of a more definite term we call the next characteristic of a good Sunday school its spirit. In any successful school one feels rather than finds a peculiar and individual atmosphere. Every member, from the superintendent to [132] the Primary scholar, manifests an interest in the institution; an interest of blended love, loyalty, enjoyment in it and enthusiasm for it. There is a social spirit in each class and in the school as a whole. ”

“ In the afternoon, all meet for Sunday-school, which is superintended by the President, who is also a graduate of Yale. As his rich tones come to us in the hymns and Bible readings, both in Sunday-school and at morning devotions through the week, we are thankful for the rare gift—a good reader. In a large school-building, of course each class can have a separate room, and so secure a delightful hour of quiet, uninterrupted Sunday-school work.
In the evening, all assemble in a general prayer-meeting. ”

“ Sunday School work during Adolescence and maturity lays less emphasis upon methods and equipment than in the earlier periods, and more emphasis on the personal relation between teacher and pupil. For this reason the preceding study, in so far as it interprets the lives of the boys and girls, applies directly to Sunday School work, for a sympathetic understanding is the key to the relationship. ”

“ A strict observance of the Sabbath was the custom of the time, and the day was devoted until late in the afternoon to Scripture reading and Sunday-school lessons in the morning, and attendance twice at church, with Sunday-school at noon. Parents in those days did not permit their children to loiter at home and on the street until the morning service was finished, and then send them to Sunday-school, for they believed that the religious and moral instruction received from the pulpit was as important as that received through catechisms from teachers in the pew. ”

“ The Sunday-schools are prospering in this place. I proposed the new method of increasing the Sunday-schools, by giving a reward ticket to every scholar who would procure another that had not attended any other school. ”

“ It is not remarkable that Sunday-school teacher-training should be delayed so long after the organization of the first Sunday school, when it is remembered that in America the first Normal School for secular teachers was not founded until 1839. ”

“ It is impossible for a Sunday-school teacher to magnify his office. He needs a spiritual telescope, rather, to see above it and below it and on all sides of it. We Sunday-school teachers constitute an unordained ministry, whose functions are as sacred as those of the pulpit, though less inclusive. If we are faithful, conversions will be as frequent results of our lesson questions as of the pastor's sermons. ”

“ If it justifies its appearance among the admirable treatises already published for Sunday-school workers, it will be because it presents with frankness the methods found helpful by an average teacher, who never had charge of a large school or a large class, but in district school, small college, and small Sunday-school has struggled with the practical problems of a teacher, and in some of them at least, like Sentimental Tommy, has "found a way." ”

“ All who know anything of Sunday-school work are perfectly aware that much depends upon the interest that one is enabled to keep up among the children and adults by such means; it is so with you in civilized countries, much more so in a heathen country, where one is required to teach them everything. Now I am sure that some Sunday-school or some lover of the Christian cause will respond to this, my most humble appeal in the name of Christ, and send such books, papers, etc., to Avery Station as he can afford. ”

“ It is the teacher's chance. He will never draw close to his scholars if not now; never see their nobility or their faults if not through the troubled lens of a rainy day.
It is the opportunity of the general school. Prayer-meeting workers often observe that the meetings held on stormy evenings are always the best, because every attendant feels it his duty to take active part. For the same reason a rainy day brings out the mettle of a Sunday-school. The bashful are impelled to greater boldness, the careless to stricter attention. Responsibilities are thrown upon unwonted shoulders. ”

“ Divided Interests.—Many times the pupil comes reluctantly to the Sunday-school because his interests lie for that hour elsewhere. If the parents go on a pleasure trip, it is unfair to compel the child to forfeit the same opportunity. Wise parents will show the more excellent way by themselves accompanying their children to the Sunday-school. My own father never led his boys to the silent recesses of the mountain brooks to see God's wonder world until after we had returned from the Sunday-school. ”

“ True; but every earnest pastor who has any positive creed or doctrine to teach his children will tell you that one or two brief meetings on Sunday are not enough for this purpose. We ourselves are forced to the painful conclusion that the Sunday-school system does not give sufficient control over the children to form in them any earnest Christian character. ”