Modern methods in Sunday-school work; the new evangelism

Front matter

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Chapter I

THE NEW EVANGELISM, AND THE REVIVAL OF THE TEACH- ING FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH

"Go teach. " We are conscious of changed conditions in every department of thinking. So vast have been these changes that it is almost impossible to comprehend the Zeitgeist and new order of society. But the progress is upward. All moves as to

"One far-off, divine event."

The Church also has gone forward. A new life throbs at its centre. We are in the open of a new era, with its refreshing draught full upon us ; and we are in the midst of one of the mightiest religious revivals that has ever grasped the world! True, the eyes of some are holden, like the disciples on the Emmaus way, and they are yet praying and hoping for a revival, unmindful that there has been given better than they asked; not the kind for which they prayed, but a larger, more potent. Is this declaration counter to the general impression? I know there are apostles of despair who see not one ray of hope on the dark horizon of disbelief; amid all our vaunted progress, they see gathering storms and coming desolations; they mourn that the religious revival has lost its power, that there are now no "great revivals," that few evangelistic crusades are found in the religious life of the present time, and declare that the Church has fallen on evil days. Others strenuously deny that certain phases of religious activity have passed away, or try to explain the cessation of their use as sort of a parenthesis in church life, — but with feeling concern are asking, "What of the future?" I am cognizant also of the fact that those particular religious revivals which were such a factor in the religious life of a part of the nineteenth century are not such a factor now. Our religious journals have vigorously discussed the situation ; some have tried to explain the failure of evangelistic effort in recent years as due to "gross caricatures practised by peripatetic emotionalists ;" * others are of the opinion that "the revival may continue to be made a potent factor in the quickening of religious life." 2 Both the explanation of the failure, and the argument that the revival may be made a potent factor, are recognition that it is not such a factor now. Indeed, Mr. Dwight L. Moody, several years before he died, acknowledged that the unchurched masses no longer came to his meetings as in the former days of his great revivals; that his mission in the latter years of his life appeared to be, in the providence of God, with Christian people. Has a greater than Mr. Moody appeared to take his place? When I say that I have been a friend of "revivals" these many years, and have co-operated in many evangelistic crusades, I can hardly be charged with prejudice when I further say, that through experience, and after careful and extended study of evangelistic crusades in later years, it is my profound conviction that the religious revivals of the nineteenth century sort have lost their power, and are a hindrance rather than a help to

1 The Advance (Chicago, Cong.), The Presbyterian (Philadelphia), The Watchman (Boston, Bapt), The Christian Register (Boston, Unit.), quoted in the Literary Digest, February 15, 1902, p. 223. 2 Ibid.

churches in the great work of the Kingdom. They are not suited to this age ; they do not reach the unchurched ; they do not appeal to the earnest, spiritual, and reliable workers of our churches, but to the sentimentalists and capricious, who are ready for any new thing rather than the sacrifice of perseverance and hard plodding required for the true work of the true church. In saying this we are not condemning revivals. We use the words "revivals of the nineteenth century sort" advisedly. For now there is a revival of a different sort. Exactly what is this new revival ? We say "new" only because its truth once suffered eclipse. It is as old as our most holy religion, and stands on the teachings of the prophets and apostles, and on the authority of the Strong Son of God. This revival is twofold, being (i) a revival of personal work, and (2) a revival of the teaching function of the Church. As such this revival is differentiated from the revivals under Whitefield, Finney, Mills, and Moody, whose work was through great union meetings, for which the largest halls were scarcely adequate, and with meetings marked by great emotions, moving communities to their depths, — this revival of present time is differentiated from all this in that it is a movement within the local congregations. 1 Individual churches, while not asking for the professional evangelist, do welcome for a service or two the man who can give them larger visions of God and of duty, and stir the people to co-operate with pastor. This, doubtless, was Mr. Moody's thought in saying that his later work appeared to be with Christian people. In other words, Mr. Moody was used of God to stir people to personal work, to bring the Gospel to the unsaved, and the unsaved to the Saviour. I believe that Mr. Moody saw advance

1 The New Evangelism, by Tennis S. Hamlin, D.D., The Christian Work and Evangelist, p. 19, January 3, 1903.

and gain in setting the Church to work, instead of doing the work for them. Indeed, he said : "It is better to set ten men to work than to do the work of ten men." In earlier years Mr. Moody "worked outside of the churches, though never lacking full sympathy with them. Still, it was difficult to gather into the organized life of the churches the converts of his great meetings, and many scattered. The average evangelist finds it difficult to work in due subordination to pastors and their plans; his labors, even when apparently fruitful, are too often unsettling, and in the end almost disastrous." 1

But the present movement of personal work is free from such perils; the Church is magnified, and its people are being charged with, and stirred by, their responsibility to do the work of evangelists, and to so lift up Christ by word and life that He will be commended to the acceptance of associates and individuals as their Lord and personal Saviour! This, therefore, a revival of personal work, is one part of the New Evangelism.

The efficacy of this first part, however, rests upon the second part, namely, the revival of the teaching function of the Church. The efficacy of the former rests upon the latter, because personal workers must be able to meet the needs of men out of the Scriptures, as Philip met the needs of the Ethiopian. Training and equipment are essential for personal work ! That a great revival of Bible study throughout the Christian world is coincident with the revival of personal work markedly shows the hand of God. That which assures us in the present movement is that it is "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone." 2 The Holy Scriptures were never so widely, thor-

1 The Nezv Evangelism, by Tennis S. Hamlin, D.D., The Christian Work and Evangelist, p. 19, January 3, 1903. 2 Eph. 2:20.

oughly, intelligently, helpfully and inspiringly studied and taught as to-day. What is the evidences of this — evidence that there is a revival of the teaching function of the Church ? We have time only to suggest the proof of this assuring fact. First we mention the supreme world interest in the recent Denver convention of the International Sunday-school Association. No work of this association had ever been followed with such wide, close and profound interest as its work at the Denver convention. A few months later, in February, 1903, the religious world was stirred by the Chicago Convention for Religious Education, when recognized leaders of the world's best thought, presidents of universities and colleges, and eminent divines, organized for the purpose of promoting "religious and moral education," pre-eminent consideration being given to the advancement of the work of Sunday-schools through the improved methods. Another evidence of the revival of the teaching function of the Church is the larger provision and plans of the Sunday-school Boards of the several Protestant denominations. The action, too, of the Presbyterian General Assembly at Los Angeles, Cal., in its last annual meeting, in appointing a committee to consider the subject of method and means looking to a forward movement in Christian education in the home, the Sunday-school, etc., is also indicative of the thought of to-day.

In advance of this, notable lecture courses have recently been given under the auspices of the Sunday-school Commissions of Dioceses of the Protestant Episcopal Church for the discussion of the principles of religious education, looking to the improvement of the Sunday-schools. I refer to such lectures as were delivered under the auspices of the Sunday-school Commission of the Diocese of New York in St. Bartholomew's Church in the autumn of 1899. Similar, if less pretentious, lecture courses have been given under various auspices of other denominations of the great Protestant body. The nature of all these lectures has forcibly shown that there is a new conception of the basic principles underlying Sunday-school work, and proportionate conception of the larger and grander opportunities of that work.

Again, the conference of Sunday-school workers at Winona Lake in August, 1903, under the executive committee of the International Sunday-school Association, was one of unusual scope and significance, including the members of the Lesson Committee, the Lesson Editors and Writers, the Denominational and Independent Lesson Publishers, the Vice-Presidents and all the officers of the International Convention, the officers of the State, Provincial and Territorial Organizations, Field Workers, and many other friends of organized Sunday-school work.

The increasing enrolment of students in the American Institute of Sacred Literature is also suggestive of the spread of Bible study. This work was started so recently as 1893, with an enrolment of 1,500 students, but the present enrolment is over 10,000. The most of these men and women, doubtless, are preparing themselves to teach.

Along with these organized efforts for the promotion of Bible study, there has been parallel work in the subject of Child Study. It is especially this that has given rise to the new education. For twenty-five years this work has been growing in prominence, increasingly contributing valuable and sometimes startling results, which are "forcing a restatement of several pedagogical principles and a general readjustment of school work and methods." * Already the secular schools have yielded to the

1 The Study of the Child, Explanatory, p. xvi., by President A. R. Taylor, Ph.D.

new requirements; and now our Sunday-schools are adopting improved methods by reason of the same underlying principles. This, too, shows the revival of the teaching function of the Church.

But more significant than all this is the increasing work that is being accomplished in Sunday-schools that are using the improved methods. Indeed, the surprising results in such schools are arousing the thought of the Church to the value and opportunity of more thorough, sane and scientific ways of conducting Bible-schools and Bible study. By way of suggestion of the value of new methods, I here tabulate the results in certain schools. Calvary Baptist Sunday-school, Washington, D. C, on November I, 1882, had a total membership of 630; on November 1, 1888, it had a membership of 658, representing a net gain of 28 in six years, or an average of 42-3 per year for the period immediately preceding the departmental organization. On November 1, 1889, nine months after the reorganization with graded lessons, etc., the school had increased to 850, and on November 1, 1890, to 1,061, showing a gain of 403 in twenty-one months. This school has retained the gain, and gone forward with yearly increase, notwithstanding the changes of population incident to the Capital City, the present enrolment being 2,077.

The First Presbyterian Sunday-school of Newport, R. I., organized as a graded school with attendant improved methods in January of last year, and in that one year increased in membership 142-7% and increased in average attendance 34%.

The increase of Christ Congregational Sunday-school, Mount Hope, New York City, where the church year runs from June 14 to June 13, inclusive, is shown by the general statistics of the school on the following page. Total enrolment on June 13, 1898, 136.

Total Sunday

Average Sunday collection 2.98 3.73 4.83 4.83 4.90

Six years ago the First Baptist Sunday-school, Asheville, N. C, had a membership of 185, with an average attendance of 140 or 150, with a debt of $100 on the school, and with no progress, the school being kept together by a few faithful ones as a matter of duty. Now this school numbers nearly 600, is active, energetic, progressive, and with corresponding spiritual blessings.

Other references to further splendid results of similar schools are made on various pages of this volume. That this work is spiritual is evinced by the thousands of young people that have come into the membership of churches through it. All that has been said of the schools just mentioned, by way of concrete illustration, can be said of hundreds of other schools. In extended study of this work, I know not of one school that has failed of large gains, both numerically and spiritually, through the improved methods.

Yet with all that one can say, or prophet can picture, who can grasp the sweep and the promise of the revival of Bible teaching? It means coming generations of "Bible Christians." It means coming church people with a "strong backbone of conscious fidelity to truth and submission to law." We are all agreed with the Rev. Charles Hodge, D.D., who said : "It is one of the clearest principles of divine revelation that holiness is the fruit of truth; and it is one of the plainest inferences from that principle that the exhibition of the truth is the best means of promoting holiness." * Are we not also agreed with Chrysostom ? who said : "Here is the cause of all our evils, our not knowing the Scriptures."

This, then, comprises the new evangelism of to-day (at least, on its practical side) : the revival of personal work; and the revival of the teaching function of the Church, placing larger emphasis on, and enlisting larger numbers in, the studied Word. How vast and incalculable the gain of the Church ! The gain of the Pentecostal idea — when all the Lord's people were prophets, when all were filled with the Holy Spirit, all were personal workers, all prayed, all taught, all told of salvation through Jesus Christ; with the result that thousands were "pricked in their hearts," and confessed Christ as Lord. Our further gain through the revival of personal work and the revival of the teaching function of the Church is the gain of Bible study and of Bible Christians : the gain of a continuous revival instead of a spasmodic; the gain of church people doing essential spiritual work in place of waiting for some one to do it for them; the gain of the widening and deepening of the spirit of missions; and the gain of the Christian's individual recognition that he is called of God for service, appointed and ordained as a missioner and evangel of Jesus Christ. With all this gain we yet say : "Not as though I had already attained ;" but with this great revival here, and God-given, we are in the way of possessing the full blessing. Will we rise to our opportunity? In the light of what already is being done, we have most reasonable belief that the Church will triumphantly advance, maintain a vital, strenuous spiritual life, and Christianize the secularizing spirit of the

x The Way of Life, p. 3.

age. This the Church is doing! And this the Church will do!

Now a question : Why should we speak of the revival of the teaching function of the Church? Because the part and prominence of teaching, as set forth in the Scriptures, has been lost sight of these many years. Preaching has been so magnified as to belittle teaching. But teaching comes before us with no less a claim than preaching. The latter does not have precedence over the former; nor does the former over the latter. Thomas Fuller, in 1661, said of the "Faithful Minister" : "He doth not clash God's ordinances together about precedence — not making odious comparisons betwixt prayer and preaching, preaching and catechising, public prayer and private, premeditate and extempore." What, then, is the history of the teaching function of the Church? What place has teaching in the Holy Scriptures and in the history of the Church ?

1. The prominence of teaching, or of the Sabbath-school, in early Jewish tradition. There are many traditions of Jewish schools for religious instruction that carry us back into antiquity, past trustworthy history. But these traditions, like those of the synagogues, speak for the power and influence of these institutions. The rabbis say that Methuseleh was a teacher before the flood, and that Shem and Eber had a "house of instruction" after it ; that Abraham was a pupil of Melchizedek ; and, similarly, traditions are given of Jacob in his work at the Bible-school; also of Moses, who was said to have been at the head of a large school, and of Joshua, Deborah and Barak, Samuel, Elisha, and of others on down through the subsequent centuries.

2. The prominence of the Sabbath-school in the Old Testament. Here we read explicitly of a system of schools for religious instruction. Three hundred of Abraham's family had been ' 'instructed" in them (Gen. 14: 14) ; the children of Hezekiah attended them (2 Chron. 28:24; 29 : 3 ) ; the reform under Jehoshaphat was through the teaching of "the book of the law" (2 Chron. 17 : 7-9) ; and with Nehemiah, after the captivity, we have description of the complete Bible-school, fully organized and officered (Neh. 8: 1-8).

3. The prominence of the Sabbath-school according to contemporaneous history. Josephus declares that from the days of Moses the Jews assembled every Sabbath to hear the law, and "to learn it accurately;" and that so thorough was the instruction of the young in the law that one "would more easily repeat all than his own name." Jewish schools for Bible study were eventually established throughout Palestine. And so basal and far-reaching was this work upon the nation that it gave rise to a maxim, "If you would destroy the Jews, you must destroy the schools." These schools, too, were graded, with suited courses of study for each grade ; the primary grade learning passages of Scripture, the older grades studying the Jewish commentaries. Likewise the chief purposes of the synagogues were for the study and teaching of the law. Schurer says: "The main object of these Sabbathday assemblages in the synagogue was not public worship in its strictest sense; that is, not devotion, but religious instruction, and this for an Israelite was, above all, instruction in the law." 1 Such Bible-schools were for more advanced work, and were in addition to the elementary Bible-schools.

4. The prominence of the Sunday-school in the teaching of the New Testament. Trumbell declares that synagogues, with their accompanying Bible-schools, were found in all the towns and villages of Palestine, and in many Gentile cities beyond, where any considerable num-

x Hitt. Div. II., Vol. II., p. 54- II ber of Jews had their temporary home (Acts 9:2, 20; 13^5, 14, 15, 43; 14:1; 15:21; 17:1, 17; 18:4, 7> 8, 17, 26; 22:19; 24:12; 26: 11. 1 ) It is believed that Jesus attended one of these schools in Nazareth. We certainly have explicit account of His sitting in the midst of the doctors, or teachers, asking and answering questions. Furthermore, is it not said of Jesus that He was "a Teacher come from God"? And what is the "great commission" of Jesus but this : "Go teach," "go, make disciples or learners." The interlocutory method of teaching in the Jewish schools was the method largely used by Jesus, and the method subsequently followed by the apostles.

5. The prominence of the Sunday-school in the centuries of the Christian era. The Jewish system of schools for religious instruction was followed by the early Church, and the rapid spread of Christianity over the civilized world in less than three hundred years from the death of St. John is attributed to this system of teaching. So powerful and influential were these schools that Julian the Apostate issued an edict in the fourth century Anno Domini, suppressing Christian teachers from these schools, which he desired to control. Yet these schools abounded. But in the growing centuries, as the Church grew worldly and formal, it grew proportionately less spiritual, "making," says Proudfit, "more of a splendid ritual than of a pure faith, and magnifying church orthodoxy above vital piety; . . . and catechetical instruction, of course, declined." 2 It is significant, impelling solicitous reflection, that more than one historian attributes the decline of the spiritual life of the Church in the Middle Ages "to the neglect, by the Church,

x Yale Lectures on the Sunday-school, p. 17. 2 "Catechetical Instruction before the Reformation," in Van Rensselaer's Home, the School, and the Churchy Vol. IV., p. 48.

of its educational function." Historians have also pointed out that better and purer life has come as the Bible has been more faithfully taught and studied. Luther placed the Bible in the hands of the people, and a great religious awakening followed. So in subsequent periods. Lord Mahon says that the Sunday-school organized by Robert Raikes was the beginning of a new era in the national life of England. 1 Green, the English historian, speaking of the effect of Raikes' work on England's dark and troubled days following the American Revolution, says : "It was then that the moral, the philanthropic, the religious ideas which have moulded English society into its present shape first broke the spiritual torpor of the eighteenth century." 2 Trumbull says that "America has been practically saved to Christianity and the religion of the Bible by the Sunday-school." 3 Yet how far we are from the Bible idea and ideal! Who would say of England or of the United States, "If you would destroy the nation, you must destroy the religious schools"? Thirteen millions of children and youth in our country never cross the threshold of a Bible-school, either Protestant or Roman Catholic. The prevailing neglect of public worship is appalling ! Again, Israel has gone after Baal. Strange that we do not remember the divine judgment upon Judah, "This house shall become a desolation." 4 What is our hope? Our hope is in return to God, and to His ways of working. We are here to work as well as to worship. We are here to teach as well as to preach. It is clear presumption to neglect children, and then expect miracles for their reclamation when grown. Formation of character is greater than reformation of character, because the

^■Hist. of England, Vol. VII., pp. 493-4.

2 Hist. of the English People, Vol. IV., p. 292; see also, ibid., IV., pp. 273-4. z Yale Lectures on the Sunday-school, p. 122. *Jer. 22 : 5.

former spares us the awful necessity of the latter. God has directed that we shall "Go teach," and the magnificent work that is being accomplished to-day through return to Bible ways of working, the success of Bible-schools in reaching, drawing, holding and persuading thousands of our youth, is evidence of how God has empowered His Word, and has ordained that teaching as well as preaching shall have part in the progress of His Kingdom, and that He has not failed His people in His promise, "Go teach, and I will be with you in power."

Chapter II

"With all her follies and crimson stains, Rome goes on her conquering way because she knows the value of a child." — Charles E. Jefferson, D.D.

"He who builds the Church of Christ must save the children. If we save the children, we save the world." — Constans L. Goodell, D.D.

I. With all the magnificent work that the Church has accomplished, the difficulties that have confronted it, the enemies that have beset it, the thousand kindly ministries that engage it, the sublime purpose to preach the Gospel through all the world that animates it, — with all this upon the mind and heart of the Church it would be strange, indeed, if it had not left some things undone, and stranger still if it had always done in the best way the things that it has done. As one who loves the Church, believes in it, and in its ultimate triumph, and as one who appreciates the magnitude of its work and the difficulties in the way of doing it, I yet am impelled to say that our Protestant churches have been, and to a large extent are, criminally negligent of adequate Christian training of their children. Such Christian nurture is a small part of the teaching function of the true Church, and yet during all these years when the Church's duty of teaching has been mistakenly limited to children, even then our churches have been criminally negligent !

It has been carefully estimated that less than 30% of our population are regular attendants upon Church services of worship; that perhaps 20% are irregular attendants, while fully one-half of the people of the United States never attend any service, Protestant or

Roman Catholic ! * Who are these non-church-goers j> They are, for the most part, of Protestant birth and affiliations. Roman Catholics, whatever else they may do or may not do, are faithful church attendants. Whatever may be said of the doctrines and methods of the Roman Catholic Church, it yet remains true that their people are obedient to her requirements. The Roman Catholic churches are filled on the Sabbath ; it is a mortal sin to absent one's self from public worship, and during certain seasons of the year their churches are filled for services of worship at the early hour of five o'clock in the morning, and filled through voluntary attendance. Can the wildest imagination picture Protestants crowding churches at the hour of five o'clock mornings? Now, call the fidelity of the Roman Catholics superstition; call their religion superficial ; say that their people are not the better for their belief (which would be a hard saying) ; say all that it is possible for imagination to say, the fact remains that the Roman Catholic Church receives from her people the exact things that she asks from them : observance of all church requirements and appointments. How can we explain this ? There is only one possible explanation, and that is the early continuous, studious and thorough training of the child! If children can be so trained in strange religious and superstitious rites as to be controlled by such beliefs through all the later years of life, what might not be accomplished by devoted training of our Protestant children in the truth!

Did not St. Francis Xavier say, "Give me the children until they are seven years old, and any one may take them afterwards"? Did not Xavier go through the streets of Goa ringing a bell, entreating parents and householders to send their children and slaves to be instructed ? And be it said, St. Francis Xavier left the impress of his teach- 1 Dr. Josiah Strong, The New Era, p. 203. 16 ing on India. And how did Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, with Lainez, Aquaviva, Xavier and others, despairing of turning back the tide of battle against Rome and her institutions, plan to save their Church ? "They conceived the plan of reaching out after the children of the combatants, and of rearing up in them a new generation of lovers and defenders of Rome." * So, too, the first work of the Jesuits was for the young; and history records that by training of youth in schools they "arrested the Reformation in its onward and apparently triumphant advances." The principle that the young are the hope of the Church has never been forgotten by Jesuits and Catholics. It is for us now to recognize that it is possible to train children so that when grown they will remain faithful to Christ and His Church. Yet how vast the number of young people that fall away from Bible-schools and become a part of that great army of the "unchurched masses."

The Church's neglect of youth is seen in two ways, (i) Because it is possible for the Church to reach and retain our youth. Nine-tenths of those who come into the membership of the Protestant churches in our country do so before they are twenty years of age, and 83% of our communicant membership comes from the Sunday-schools. (2) The Church's neglect is further seen in that it has permitted multitudes of youth to drift from its doors forever into the world. Through a comparison of the number of children in attendance upon Sunday-schools with the number of children within the scholastic age of five and eighteen years as reported periodically through our national census, we may say, as a conservative estimate, that over 40% of the Protestant unchurched masses were once within the pale of the Church. It is not speaking too strongly, therefore, to say that the Protestant Church has 1 Porter's Educational Systems, p. 4. 17 either been strangely ignorant of its duty or criminally negligent of what clearly was its duty ! If not, then why is it that the "masses" once within the Church were not held? We do not ignore the forces of evil and the secular spirit of the age. Recognizing all, our question is yet pertinent.