The church school and the Sunday-school normal guide

Preface

In this volume I preserve some of my earlier Sunday-school work, published in various forms and at different times, beginning with 1855. In 1872 and in 1880 two volumes, entitled respectively The Church School a7id its Officers and TJie Sunday-School Normal Guide, were issued. These contain much that was then comparatively new in the theory and management of the Sunday-school, and I deem it proper to put it into this permanent and final form. Some revised schemes for normal and biblical work are added in the pages devoted to " The Palestine Class."

There may be a few Sunday-school workers, old and

new, who will find benefit and pleasure in looking over

these discussions of an educational movement as old as

the Church itself, and sure in some form or other to last

while the Church lasts.

John H. Vincent.

Buffalo, N. Y., June i, 1889.

TO THE MEMORY

FATHER AND MOTHER

THIS I.ITTLE VOLUME

IS DEDICAXED.

PREFACE

1. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the Sunday-scliool teacher's call. He comes before his pupil in the parent's place, with the preacher's theme — to do a parent's and a pastor's work.

2. First of all, the Sunday-school teacher needs personal piety. No one can teach the Gospel of the Son of God without some experience of his grace. Can the blind teach painting ? Can the deaf teach music ? We remember who asked the question, and to whom: "Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things .>"

3. But with grace the teacher needs knowledge. His success depends largely upon his personal relations with Jesus. But much also depends upon his fondness for, and familiarity with, the word of God, and the eagerness and aptness with which he comes to teach it. The divine grace reaches the heart through the divine truth. Man is "born again," and "sanctified," by the word of God. The teacher must himself have the knowledge of the truth to be taught.

6 Preface.

4. He should understand the principles involved in the work of teaching. God's grace operating upon character through truth communicated to the intellect does not ignore the laws of intellectual action. When God called his ministers he prepared them hy fire — a symbol of force. The fire of Pentecost was a tongue of fire — a symbol of speech. It rested upon the heads of the apostles, thus by a flaming sign indicating the true power of the gospel ministry — man's intellect, enlightened and vivified by the divine wisdom and love.

Plain men, indeed, were the fishermen of Galilee who first taught the Gospel, but they were not uneducated men. They may not have been familiar with the subtleties of Greek philosophy, nor were they ranked as scholars in the then approved Jewish schools. But they were men of native strength, taught in the Hebrew Scriptures. They enjoyed intimate fellowship with the wisest of teachers for three years. They were earnest men ; and then, there came upon them a supernatural baptism. This gave them power over the dogmatists of Judea, the false philosophers of Greece, and the masses of the people, both Jews and Greeks.

5, The standard of secular education in this country is so high, and the appliances employed so perfect, that the Sabbath- school must elevate its standard if it would

Preface. 7

maintain its power. Children measure tlieir teachers in these clays. Many of them are able to do it. No sincerity of character or earnestness of effort can compensate for a poorly prepared lesson, or for habitual incompetency on the part of a Sunday-school teacher. It is a lamentable hinderance to one's success in this field to have his scholars contrasting his matter and style of teaching with those of ordinary teachers in the public schools, or detecting the sophisms or superficial evasions of his explanations. It is not only that the teacher suffers in the estimation of his scholars, but the system of truth he represents also suffers loss.

6. All truth is divine. We may regard the teachers of natural science and mathematics in our public schools and academies as so many embassadors of God to the soul of the child. In the Sunday-school we have charge of another department of divine teaching. Ours is the ethical and spiritual, and we deal with intellect. We seek to exalt and sanctify it — to connect it with a " pure conscience" and a redeemed heart, that it may become the throne of a " faith unfeigned." The secular teachers tell the little ones of God in nature ; we, of God in grace. They conduct them through the outer courts of the cosmos ; we lead them beyond the vail, into the innermost sanctuary, where God's voice is heard, and where man

8 Preface.

may commune face to face with him. We must, therefore, be "apt to teach." We are to show ourselves "approved " — "workmen that need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." Wisely did the apostle suggest to Timothy, " Give attendance to reading ... to doctrine."

All these considerations impel us to offer our plea in behalf of a more thorough preparation on the part of Sunday-school teachers for their work. And to this end has the Chautauqua Assembly Union been established,

John H. Vincent.

Contents

OHAPTRR PAOC

I. Christ and the Word ii

II. The Divine Methods 23

Chapter I. Christ And The Word

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. — Col. iii, i6.

'T^HE Bible is the word of Christ. He is its central and all-absorbing theme. To him all the history and poetry and prophecy of the Old Testament point. The Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles are as full of his person and work as the Evangelists themselves.

The Bible contains the mind — the thought and love — that is in Jesus. Every fundamental principle of morals and religion which may legitimately be drawn from any portion of the

Bible as its manifestly intended interpretation, finds its center in Christ. There is no contradiction between his character as portrayed by the Evangelists and the fairly deducted doctrines drawn from any part of the sacred volume. This is a great thing to say about the Book. It is an argument qf weight in its favor. Think of it ! Sixty-six volumes, written by at least forty different persons ; at different periods of time — the extremes measuring over two thousand years ; written in different parts of the world ; under different forms of civilization ; under different governments ; in different languages. Yet from these diverse sources come sectilia of a beautiful mosaic, which, when combined, form a unity the most perfect ; a doctrinal scheme the most profound and philosophical ; a picture glowing with poetic beauty, at the same time startling and enchanting the soul by prophetic visions ; while in all and through all there shines forth the image of One who is above his fellows, glorious with divinity and peerless as the ideal of a redeemed humanity.

That Book must be divine.

It is the word of Christ moreover in this sense, that it is the medium of his present power. Of every author it may be said, " He, being dead, yet speaketh." So the blind Homer gives light and inspiration to-day. But Jesus more, and in a deeper sense than Homer. The Iliad and the Bible are alike and unlike. The thought of their respective authors is embalmed in both. But in the one we have a tomb, full of commemorative pictures, the fragrance of the funereal incense still lingering on the air, a place of beauty and inspiration and sacred memory ; but, after all, in the central sarcophagus the author lies — dead. But the Bible is no tomb. Its author is not dead. Its delights are not those of memory and imagination, for the living Christ is in his word. Mystically, invisibly, but really, is he present there. The Book is his divine body.

We need not ascend into heaven to bring Christ down from above. We need not descend into the deep to bring up Christ again from the dead. Do we seek him ? Would we see Jesus ?

Here is the Gospel reply to our search, " The word is nigh thee." Rom. x, 8. Lo ! here in the Scriptures is this same Jesus whom shepherds and wise men worshiped, whom the multitudes thronged in the days of his flesh, whom soldiers crucified, and Joseph buried, and the eternal God raised up from the dead. He is here in his own word, a living presence, ready to give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, healing to the leprous, deliverance to the demoniac, life to the dead, and pardon to the guilty — the erring Magdalenes, the troubled Marthas, the unstable but repentant Peters. Seek ye the Lord Christ } Find him in his word.

The whole gracious work of redemption is wrought through the mediumship of this word.

Life is a probation and a pupilage, in which man must be born again and then trained for eternity. From the moment of his regeneration the processes of spiritual culture should go on.

This twofold work of quickening and culture is effected by the Holy Ghost. But the Holy Ghost operates through the truth as revealed in the Holy Scriptures. This is the sharp blade that penetrates the inmost things of the soul, and lays open to self-consciousness the fearful condition which requires a gracious interposition. " For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Do we seek converting influence } Look not to the '* glory of God " in the heavens, nor his "handiwork" in the firmament. Seek it not of the sun, though "his going forth is from the end of heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it : and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof," but turn to the word of God in revelation and learn that " the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." Do you seek spiritual enlightenment } " The entrance of thy words giveth light." Do you seek regenerating power ? " Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth." Man is " born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever."

What blessings in the whole range of spiritual life and experience do you seek ? Preservation from sin ? " Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee." Stability ? " The law of his God is in his heart ; none of his steps shall slide." Success in prayer } ** If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." Strength of character and victory over the enemy of souls } "I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and . the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one." Spiritual freedom.^ " If ye continue in my word then are ye my disciples indeed ; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make vou free." Sanctification ?

•* Sanctify them through thy truth : thy word is truth." Do you aspire to the attainment of that holy character in which you shall be " partakers of the divine nature ? " Then go to the Gospel of Christ, in which " are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises ; that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." Go through the Book, from the bold words of the first verse, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," to the blessed benediction of the last verse, " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all," and learn by a precious experience that " All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness : that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."

Seeing that the word is so important an element m the work of grace, I do not wonder at

the song of David concerning the man hos*i

" delight is in the law of the Lord," and who in this law doth " meditate day and night." Verily he " shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season ; his leaf also shall not wither ; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." I now understand why he sang : " O how I love thy law ! it is my meditation all the day. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers : for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts. . . . The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver. . . . How sweet are thy words unto my taste ! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth. . . . My soul hath kept thy testimonies ; and I love them exceedingly."

The tradition concerning Jonathan Ben-Uzziel, one of the pupils of Hillel, is in a spiritual sense fulfilled in the devout student of the word.

It is recorded of him that " when he studied the law every bird that flew over his head was burned up." So glorious and vivid and intense is the light that falls from heaven upon every sincere disciple of Jesus who sits before the open Book to learn of his Master. So also the ancient maxim of the Jew is realized in the better dispensation of the Gospel : " In whatsoever place the law is, there the Shekineh is present with it."

This is the mystery of the Book ; a sealed Book to the multitude ; a literary marvel indeed, a reliable history, a volume of poetry and ethics and sublime speculations to the candid, thoughtful, unilluminated student — but to him whose secret heart the Lord hath opened — lo ! in the word is the Lord himself!

If this be the relation of Christ to I: is word there is need that the modern Church of Christ in its quest of the Master be told where he is to be found. O that some apostle would cry aloud unto the Churches of the age, as Paul to the elders of the Ephesian Church when he met them at Miletus : " And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified."

And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart : and thou shal^ teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord : for this is right. Honor thy father and mother, (which is the first commandment with promise,) that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath : but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

And he said unto them. Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

Then they that gladly received his word were baptized : and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. • And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.

These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue : vihom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.

CHAPTER 11.

THE DIVINE METHODS.

•'In all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another."— Col. iii, i6.

^ I ^HERE is a true method observed by the God of all grace in his gracious work among men. He saves, but not arbitrarily, nor in violation of established intellectual and moral laws. The truth is the medium of the Holy Spirit. Without the accompanying energy of the Spirit, the truth itself would be impotent. Let us never forget this. Jesus was nothing but a man, a Jew, a Nazarene, to multitudes in his day. " There went virtue out of him " to those who sought him in the right spirit. So must we seek not the word alone, but Christ in the word.

When, however, the saving truth is sought and applied, no violence is done to either man's freedom or the laws of his mental action. Light, whether from the sun or the planets, is conveyed to the eye through the same medium, and under the operation of the same laws. The constitution of the soul is not changed by the supernatural interventions of redemption. After the visitation of grace the eye sees, the ear hears, memory goes backward, hope goes forward, and all the intellectual powers act just as before.

The Divine Deliverer and Educator of the race has respected man's constitution in determining the methods of his redemption. Were a street- waif to be taken from the Five Points in our city, and taught under the most competent instructors of the age, we affirm that not a just principle would be recognized, nor a correct method adopted in his training, not already anticipated and applied in the management of the waif Israel taken from the land of Goshen, and instructed in the school of God at Mount Sinai. The same principles appear again, in a higher form, in the methods of the Great Teacher. They are also present in his Church whenever she is under his direction, for they inhere in the very constitution of the human mind and of the Christian society.

In the instruction of a human soul there are three important steps to be taken : i, Truth must be apprehended by the intellect ; 2, Accepted by the affections ; 3, Appropriated — incorporated in the character. This threefold work is indispensable. One wanting, the culture is incomplete. In the Divine scheme all are recognized, and for each an appropriate form of Church instrumentalities is arranged.

We have referred to Israel in Egypt and the Wilderness. Let us trace the divine processes in the education of this people to illustrate the position assumed. Israel was, first of all, removed from the physical, intellectual, and moral bondage of Egypt, just as the child of the Five Points would be separated, for his reform and education, from his former associations. Israel did not go into Canaan by the way of el-Arish and Philistia, but by the more circuitous route of the Sea, Sinai, and the Jordan. The bondmen of Egypt were not at once prepared for the Babe of Bethlehem. They dwelt in the sphere of the material, and were ignorant of spiritual truth. The manifestation of physical force was requisite in order to the recognition of their Deliverer. God must needs appear as a Power, breaking into fragments and trampling under foot their old opinions and dominions.

The new wonder-worker must distance, with unmistakable miracle, all competition from the old magician. For the cup of blood in the sorcerer's hand a river of blood must roll to the sea. The new staff-serpent must swallow the conjurers' rods, and become a wand in the Prophet's grasp again. As the rap of the teacher's hand on the school desk reminds the pupil of a present authority, so " the thunderings and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking," caused the people tremblingly to await, and then revere, the revelation. The fixed attention was rewarded.

Truth was given. It came in every legal and ceremonial enactment, in every miraculous interposition, in every address of God's Prophet. In the communication of this new truth to Israel, how beautifully we find illustrated the now popular method of '' object teaching.'' Spiritual truth entered the Hebrew soul through the gateways of the senses. The theology of the New Testament was embodied in the arrangements and ceremonies of the Tabernacle.

The Jewish dispensation was a " school-master" to bring the Hebrew race and then humanity to Christ. They stretched out over the world the forms of their theological thought — cables laid through every sea, and in thread-like extensions reaching every land. When Christ came and the Spirit was poured out, these forms became suddenly instinct with evangelical life.

Thus we find that for the communication of truth to a race, the all-wise God prescribed the very methods which wise teachers now employ in developing the intellect of a child.

Jesus did likewise. He laid hold of the visible, using similes, parables, and objects, as when he placed a child before the disciples to teach them humility, or called for a penny and made its superscription his text. In the department of religious truth the same method is still employed. What is the Christian family but the object-school of theological truth, in which the authority, attributes, and laws of God are illustrated, and the child taught, through the visible relations and real experiences of daily life, the invisible and eternal verities of the kingdom of God } The Christian family is the tabernacle for the communication of religious ideas to its children, sejiarated as they there are from the demoralizing tendencies of worldly society, and under the influences of parental love and authority. Thus God provides for the first essential thing in the application to man of his grace in redemption — the apprehension of truth by the intellect.

The truth grasped by the intellect must next be accepted by the will and affections, for truth is never a force in life until the heart is moved and molded by it. The pupil in the secular school must be excited, by personal interest in his work, to self-activity. Israel in the wilderness learned the same lesson. With every revelation of truth God made new requisitions upon their love and obedience. By the strongest mandates of authority, by the most terrible sanctions of penalty, by the fairest attractions of promise, God commended the new truth to the heart as well as to the eye and intellect of his people.

As contributing to this result, the people were assembled in great multitudes, from time to time, to hear the law of God and the appeals of his servants. The Scriptures, which the services of the tabernacle and the providential interpositions of God had made clear to their understanding, were publicly read. On every such occasion the heart of the people was stirred. The blessings and the cursings rang out in the valley of Shechem, and the elders, officers, and judges, "the women and the little ones, and the strangers that were conversant among them," listened attentively. The outspoken response of " all the people " elicited at that time was a virtual consecration of themselves to God.

When Joshua addressed all the tribes before his death, after his fervent appeal to them to " fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in truth," he bids them make their choice between the God of Israel and the gods of the Chaldeans and the Amorites. Under the pressure of this public review of God's dealings with them, and this impassioned appeal of the venerable leader, the people cry out, " God forbid that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods ! "

How was the heart of the people moved by the public services performed in Jerusalem, when the corner-stone of the new temple was laid in the time of Ezra. And when the people gathered themselves together as one man to hear Ezra read from the book of the law of Moses, it is recorded that " all the people wept when they heard the words of the law."

There was a profound reason in the command to " gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God ; and observe to do all the words of this law."

Deut. xxxi, 12. The public assembly is favorable to the development of strong emotion. The truth, which may be more distinctly outlined to the thought in private, may be more easily impressed upon the heart in public. To the tabernacle system for the conveyance of the religious idea, God added the public assembly for the awakening of the sensibilities, and the persuasion of the people to accept and obey the truth. So to-day we have the family tabernacle, and then the pulpit. The first and distinctive work of the pulpit is to convict the conscience and convert the soul. " We persuade men," said Paul. " We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God."

Addressing those whose conscious needs respond to its announcements, the pulpit does not so much depend upon processes of argumentation. It brings available remedies for actual distresses, a message of reprieve to the condemned, vision to blindness, purity to sin. It informs the intellect, quickens the conscience, warms the emotions, and impels to decision ; not so much starting the intellectual forces into activity, as bringing the will up to the well-established affirmations of the judgment.

The pulpit disseminates the truth rapidly.

One utterance may reach ten thousand souls at the same moment. The invisible bond of sympathy that unites an audience, renders each hearer more accessible and susceptible to the truth. The universal silence, the fixed attention, the tacit assent of all to the truth declared, tend to inspire the speaker. The whole argument is in his own hands. No voice can enter its protest. Then the dramatic elements of countenance, gesture, and intonation, increase the effect of every sentence. These are some of the natural advantages possessed by the pulpit. And when we recall the Divine promise to accompany the truth by the energy of his Spirit, we do not wonder at the power of this instrumentality.

To the Jew, lost in the mummeries of a dead ritualism — to the Greek, deluded by the charms of a merely speculative philosophy — we are not surprised that the public proclamation of salvation through a crucified yew should be " foolishness ; " but seeing now the beanngs of the truth preached, and the effectiveness of the method, and having enjoyed the fulfillment of

the promise, " Lo, I am with you," we acknowl- 3 edge the preaching of the Gospel to be " the power of God."

After the truth has found a place in the understanding through the early teachings and clear illustrations of the Family, and in the affections through the appeals and persuasions of the Pulpit, the convert enters the inner courts of the Church as a disciple. He has now commenced a life of study, struggle, and service. He is a sort of soldier-student. It is his duty to build up the temple of God within him. And he must build as they did in Nehemiah's day, when "every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand held a weapon." Here begins the School of Christ.

Having made "disciples," the Church must instruct them. An eminent commentator, in his notes upon Acts xiv, 22, says : "The word disciple signifies literally a scholar. The Church of Christ was a school, in which Christ himself was chief master, and his Apostles subordinate teachers. All the converts were disciples or scholars who came to this school to be in* structed in the knowledge of themselves and of their God ; of their duty to him, to the Church, to society, and to themselves. After having been initiated in the principles of the heavenly doctrine, they needed line upon line, and precept upon precept, in order that they might be confirmed and established in the truth." *

* The wording of the Master's commission (Matthew xxviii, 19, 20) deserves our consideration : *' Go ye therefore and teach {[j.ai&j]TEvaa7e, that is, disciple, or make disciples of) all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching {(hddaKovTec, that is, instructing) them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." ** This teaching is nothing less than the building up of the whole man in the obedience of Christ. In these words, inasmuch as the then living disciples could not teach all nations, does the Lord found the office of preachers in his Church — with all that belongs to it — the duties of the minister, the school-teacher, the Scripture-reader. This 'teaching' is not merely the Krjpvyiia of the Gospel, not mere proclamation of the good news, but the whole catechetical office of the Church upon and in the baptized." — Alford.