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" That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth ; that our daughters may be as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace."— Ps. cxliv. 12. ^®\_ (?X, sv- TORONTO: JOHN YOUNG, 102 YONGE STREET; S. R. BRIGGS, CORNER YONGE AND TEMPERANCE STREETS. " We for our children seek Thy heart, For them the Father's eyes ; Lord, when their hopes in us depart, Let hopes in Thee arise. When childhood's visions them forsake, To women grown and men, Thou to Thy heart their hearts will take. And bid them dream again." George Macdonald, LL.D. PKUJTBD BY C. BLACKETT ROBINSON, TORONTO. fjevat PREFACE. s The children of to-day are the men and women of to-morrow. Everything therefore that affects them for good affects bene- ficially all future generations. To-daymore attention is devoted to the children than ever . j^efore, and properly so ; the right appreciation of their position in relation to the coming time, and also of the possibilities that are latent in them, and the need for the instilment of right principles to form the anchor of their life, demand, and at the same time justify, this. The following papers are a contribution toward the right training and Christian culture of the children. They have appeared as articles in The Sunday School Times, The Sunday School World, The Illustrated Church and , Home, and have been largely quoted and reprinted in the leading religious organs of the various denominations, whch is an expression, not misleading, that there is teaching in them that is needed and appreciated. This is our justification for collecting them and offering them to the pubhc in book- form. Commending them to the blessing of Hun, without whom nothing prospers, we send them forth. Galt, Ont., January ^ist, 1885. CONTENTS. CHAP. I. The Conversion of Children . - - - II. The Consecration of the Teacher - • - III. The Teacher and his Class - - - . - IV. Powerful Teaching . - . - - V. Individual Dealing . . - - - VI. The Upbuilding of the Spiritual Life VII. The Word of God and Prayer as related to the Upbuild of the Spiritual Life - - - - - VIII. How to Meet Discouragements IX. The Encouragements of Sunday -^school Teachers X. A Right Regard for the Little Ones - XI. The Mother and the Sunday School XII. The Culture of the Child's Thought XIII. The Method of the Culture of the Child's Thought - XIV. The Father and the Children XV. What Books shall the Children Read - XVI. Some Mistakes in Training Children XVII. Other Mistakes in Training Children XVIII. Sabbath in the Home . . . - XIX. The Play of the Children , . . . XX. The Mother's Knee - - - - - XXI. The Mother's Kiss - XXII. The Illustration of the Lesson XXIII. How to Read to Children - - - - XXIV. Spiritual Growth as a Source of Teaching Power - PAGE. 5 13 18 23 27 30 mg 35 41 44 48 53 61 64 68 74 79 85 91 97 I02 106 IXO 116 120 WORKING FOR THE CHILDREN IN THE HOME AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. Chapter I. — The Conversion of Children. In working for the spiritual good of the children the first thing that is necessary is this, a deep conviction of, and a firm faith in, the possibility of their conversion. This, we must have to inspire the heart, and arouse the energies, and lead to the use of means calculated to secure this end. According to our faith is our labour, that, in all true Christian service, determines the character of our efforts* and of our prayers, and '^f our perseverance. If our faith is full of assurance, these shall be carried on with the whole strength of our souls ; but if our faith is half-hearted and weakened by doubts these shall be feeble and intermittent. We should therefore seek to have a strong faith. How ? By gathering together all that will minister to it, all that it can feed upon. Faith is always grounded upon testimony or facts. And these are Doth available on this subject. We have testimony in this Scripture that children are embraced in the covenant of God's grace, and that pro- vision is made for the renewal of the child-narure as well as the man-nature — " The promise is iinto yoii and to your children.'' What promise ? The promise of the Holy Ghost. For what end is he promised ? To lead to repent- ance and to call to God. This is written as with a sunbeam in these verses : *' Peter said unto them. Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even to as many as the Lord our God shall call." (Acts ii. 38, 39.) We have testimony given us in another way, in our Lord taking up little children, and putting his hands upon them and blessing them. And mark, his blessing was not in word merely, but in deed ; not in seeming but in reality. This act was symbolical of the bestowment of spiritual and regenerating grace. Children have an evil nature as well as grown men, and they need regenerating grace as well as men guilty of the greatest sins ; and this act testifies not only to their need, but also to the bestowment of this grace upon them. John Calvin, speaking on this act says, that we have here, " the reception, the embrace, the imposi- tion of hands, and prayers by which Jesus Christ himself acknowledged them as his, and declared them to be sancti- fied by him." We have testimony given us in another incident in the life of our Lord. After His triumphant entry into Jeru- salem, ** when the chief priests and Scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and children crying in the Temple, and saying, Hosanna to the son of David ! they were sore displeased. And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say ? And Jesus said unto them. Yea ; have ye never read. Out of the mouth of babes and- sucklings thou hast perfected praise." Our Lord's ex- planation of the children's act is noteworthy. They were believing children, children taught by the Spirit, children rejoicing in Christ as the salvation of God. Matthew Henry observes on these words : " Sometimes the grace of God appears wonderfully in young children, and he teaches them knowledge, and makes them to understand doctrine, them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts," Isaiah xxviii. 9. Spurgeon in his '* Treasury of David " is led under the guidance of this Scripture quoted by our Lord to present these illustra- tive cases introduced thus : " Early church history records many amazing instances of the testimony of children for the truth of God, but perhaps modern instances will be most interesting. Fox tells us, in his ' Book of Martyrs,' that when Mr. Lawrence was burned in Colchester, he was carried to the fire in a chair, because through the cruelty of the Papists he could not stand upright, several young children came about the fire, and cried as well as they could speak : ' Lord strengthen Thy servant, and keep Thy promise.' God answered their prayer, for Mr. Lawrence died as firmly and calmly as any one could wish to breathe his last. When one of the Papist chaplains told Mr. Wishart, the great Scotch martyr, that he had a devil in him, a child that stood by cried out, ' A devil cannot speak such words as yonder man speaketh.' One more instance is still nearer to our time. In a postcript to one of his letters, in which he details his persecution when first preaching at Moorfields, Whitfield says, * I cannot help adding that several little boys and girls, who were fond of sitting round me on the pulpit while I preached, and handed me people's notes, though they were often pelted with eggs, dirt, etc., thrown at me, never once gave way ; but, on the contrary, every time I was struck, turned up their little weeping eyes, and seemed to wish they could receive the blows for me. God make them in their growing years great and living martyrs for him who, out of the mouth of babes and sucklings perfects praise.' He who delights in the songs of the angels is pleased to honour himself in the eyes of his enemies by the praises of little children." Perhaps this question rises in the mind : How early may we look for and expect the conversion of children ? We answer, without hesitation, very early. This is clearly 8 set forth in Christ's symbolic act of blessing the infants. John Calvin, meeting the objection that these children must have grown to such an age and stature as to be capable of walking, says : " But they are called by the evangelists Bp€r) and TraiSta (Br^phe and Paidia) two words used by the Greeks to signify little infnnts hanging on the breast. . , . nothing can be plainer than that he intended those who are in a state of infancy." And to prevent this being thought unreasonable he adds ' Of such is the kingdom of heaven.' Here then is encouragement to look for the con- version of children at the earliest period of life. Let us not by unbelieving thought and mere human reasonings limit the Holy One of Israel ! He is sovereign in the be- stowment of his grace. And he can give it when he wills, to the infant of days as well as to the child of years. Our duty is to present our children to him, and expect and pray for regenerating grace. How unjust shall we be, if we drive away from Christ those whom he invites to him, if we deprive them of the gifts with which he adorns them, if we exclude those whom he freely admits." Rowland Hill, in a sermon preached in Surrey Chapel, April 2, 1833, says : " I say you cannot tell how soon God begins with the human mind. / did think till I considered it more deeply, that we were carying things a little to the extreme by the education of children in infant schools. / think now quite otherwise ; I am very well convinced we cannot begin with them too early ; the earlier they are brought under the regulations of a religious education the better : aye, better, indeed, for us who are living in the present generation, and infinitely better for the children themselves, who are to form the next generation, when that divine knowledge, through the blessing of God on your instruction has been so communicated to the mind that that fine glorious passage is accomplished in their hearts, when they are made in their early days to " abhor that which is evil and cleave to that which is good." We come now to the facts which minister a strong faith in the conversion of children. These are so numerous that we are obliged to make a selection. Samuel is a beautiful instance of the early knowledge of God in Old Testament times. He was taken up to the House of the Lord at Shiloh when he was weaned, that is, when he was three years of age, and presented to the Lord. And his life is one of the most devoted and consecrated that ever was lived here on the earth by a mere man. Edward Payson, the faithful pastor of Portland, was converted m his child- hood. Both of his parents sought earnestly to teach him the fear of the Lord. And that, his biographer tells, was not in vain : " From the first development of his moral powers, his mind was more or less affected by his condition and prospects as a sinner. It is among the accredited traditions of his family, that he was known often to weep under the preaching of the Gospel when only three years old. About this period, too, he would frequently call his mother to his bedside to converse on religion, and to answer numerous questions respecting his relations to God, and the future world." Dr. Thomas Scott, the commentator, bears witness to the conversion of his eldest daughter at the age of three years and a-half. She had been carefully instructed in reference to her own evil nature and God's grace ; Dr. Scott says of this, ^^ my heart was much engaged ''--the grand secretin dealing with souls — and, " I have good ground to believe, that from that time to her death, no day passed in which she did not, alone, more than once, and with apparent earnestness, pray to Jesus Christ to this effect ; adding petitions for her father, mother, brothers, and for her nurse — to whom she was much attached. At times we overheard rrrT lO her, in a little room to which she used to retire ; and on some occasions, her prayers were accompanied with sobs and tears. . . . . In short there was everything in miniature, which I ever witnessed or read of in an adult penitent ; and certainly there were fruits meet for repentence^ for nothing reprehensible afterwards occurred in her conduct." Dr. Martin Luther, the Reformer, believed firmly in the life of God in the hearts of little children. When it was told him that his little daughter of four years old often spoke with joyful confidence of Christ, of the dear angels, and of eternal joy in heaven, he once said to her, "Ah dear child, if we could only firmly believe it ! " Thereupon the little one with earnest looks, asked her father if he did not believe it. And Dr. Martin observed : ** The dear children live in innocence, know not of sin, live without anger, avarice, and unbelief; and are therefore joyful, and have a good conscience, fear no danger, be it war, pestil- ence or death, take an apple for a groschen. And what they hear of Christ and of the future life, they believe simply, without any doubt, and speak joyfully about it. Therefore Christ earnestly appealed to us to follow their example. For children believe really ; and therefore Christ holds little children and childlike ways dear." On another occasion Luther expressed his faith on the point in hand in these words : " My little Magdalene and Hans pray effectually even for me and for many Christians." Dr. Jonathan Edwards in his " Narrative of Surprising Conversions," gives a detailed account of the conversion of a little girl, four years of age, named Phebe Bartlet, who was greatly affected by her brother speaking to her about her soul, who himself had been hopefully converted a little before, at about eleven years of age. He shows in his narrative her consciousness of sin, and of her need of sal- II vation ; and tells how she in childlike simplicity prayed for salvation ; " Pray bessed Lord give me salvation ! I pray, beg, pardon all my sins." And also the grand result and its consequences. She told her mother as she came out of her closet, *' I can find God no'v " And when asked by a neighbour how she felt herself ? She answered, ** I feel better than I did." On being asked what made her feel better, she answered, '*God makes me." Thinking on God made her weep; she strictly observed the Sabbath ; she loved Go'd's house of prayer. She had much of the fear of God before her eyes, and an extraordinary dread of sin, and a great concern for the good of other souls, affec- tionately counselling other children. She had an uncommon degree of charity, and great love to her minister. And to these evidences so carefully noted by President Edwards, it must be added that Phebe Bartlet lived for nearly sixty years after, a consistent Christian. Mr. D. L. Moody says: '* I was urging the early conversion of children at a meet- ing, and an old man got up at the close and said, ' I want to endorse every word. Sixteen years ago I was in a heathen country, a missionary, and my wife died and left three children. On the Sabbath after her death my eldest girl came to me and said, " Papa, shall I take the children into the bedroom and pray with them as mother used to ? '" The mother was dead, and little Nellie, ten years old wanted to follow in her footsteps. The father said, yes, and she led them off to the chamber to pray. When they came out he noticed that they had been weeping and asked what about. ' Well father,' said the little girl, ' I prayed just as mother taught me, and then ' — naming her little brother — * he prayed the prayer that mother taught him ; but little Susie was too young, mother had not taught her a prayer, so she made a prayer of her own and I could not help but weep to hear her pray.' * Why,' said the father, I 12 ♦ what did she say ? * ' Why she put up her httle hands, and closed her eyes, and said, * O God, 5'^ou have come and taken away my dear mamma, and I have no mamma to pray forme now — won't you please make me good just as my dear mamma was, for Jesus' sake, amen ; ' and God heard that prayer. That little child before she was four years old gave evidence of being a child of God, and for sixteen years she was in a heathen country leading little children to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." These instances are full of encouragement to a faith that looks for the early conversion of the children. No one would question the intelligence and sound theological judg- ment of Dr. Scott, Martin Luther or Jonathan Edwards; and if in such cases, why not in thousands more ? Children may know the Lord early. He can reveal him- self to the child effectually, so that it shall never know anything but the love of God as the ruling power of its soul. However, let this be noted, that in seeking the con- version of the children they must be taught concerning their own evil nature, Christ's love and grace, and God's demands on their life, and all this in language suited to their capacity. The truth must reach them, and rouse them, and renew them, when they can understand ; and they understand far earlier in life than we believe. We may take our Lord's words as bearing upon this, as upon all the great things of his kingdom : " Only believe." __1. 13 Chapter II. — The Consecration of the Teacher. The spirit in which anything is done determines very largely the character of that work. It matters not in what realm the work may lie, whether in the physical or spiritual realm, the nature of the spirit's energy that has produced it will be clearly traceable in it. The best work is always that which is done in the noblest spirit — a spirit of love and self-forgetfulness, and self-sacrifice and consecration. What the teacher needs in his service, just as every other Christian in any department of duty to which he may be called, is the noblest spirit — a spirit of entire consecration to the Lord. There can be no doubt that much Christian work is done in a very low, unworthy, imperfect state of heart, without any delight in it, without any interest in it, without any sympathy with it ; done merely that it may be done, not for any good end, but simply to quiet an uneasy con- science. It need not be said that from such sowing a poor harvest must be reaped. The instruments used of God for the good of others are generally those who are in full sympathy with himself. Men and women who have con- secrated themselves to the Lord, who have purged them- selves and made themselves " vessels unto honour, sanctified and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work." (Exod. xxxii. ; 2 Tim. ii. 21.) A glance at the workers of the past puts this beyond all question. Paul's life-purpose is uttered in these words : ** I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." John Calvin's acceptance of Christ, followed by conscious reconciliation with God, led to immediate consecration, which was expressed in his having a seal engraved, with a hand holding out a burning heart, sur- H fit- rounded by the words, " I offer my heart as a sacrifice unto the Lord." The spirit of entire consecration exhaled from all the life of Robert Murray McCheyne as aroma from an opening rose. Richard Baxter, famous not only for the noble books he wrote, but also for the work he did in Kidderminster, has enshrined his earnest and devoted spirit in these two lines : " I preached as never sure to preach again And as a dying man to dyirig men." Samuel Rutherford, whose life was one singularly devoted to God, addressed his ministerial brethren around his deathbed in these words, which are a clear call to consecra- tion : " Dear brethren, do all for him ; pray for Christ, preach for Christ, feed the flock committed to your charge for Christ ; do all for Christ. Beware of men pleasing, there is too much of it among us." John Albert Bengel, Prelate in Wurtemburg, author of many works of great excellence, particularly his " Gnomon of the New Testament," was a man of saintly character and life. Addressing the students at Tubingen, in 1784, he said : " The main concern is to be continually in an appropriate frame of mind before God. As for any good we have done, this is safely deposited among his treasures ; while the ill we have done may all be repaired by one drop of the precious blood of Christ. Therefore, the less I feed upon what I have done the better ; for it only hinders me from reaching on unto the things which are before. We live every day upon God's fatherly good- ness and mercy. This is my answer to those who complain that they enjoy only now and then a glimpse of divine grace." The spirit of consecration is that that ensures success. It is the presentation of the heart to God. Harriet Mar- tineau, in her brief biographical sketch of Lord Macaulay, says: *' Thomas Macaulay wanted heart: this was the one 15 deficiency which lowered the value of all his other gifts ;" and it is this same lack in certain Christian workers that vitiates all they do, making it unacceptable to God and unprofitable to men. The heart must be offered in sacri- fice to the Lord. If we seek for the living roots whence this act is to spring we shall find them in a strong love, and an unfaltering faith in a personal and present Saviour y who says to the soul : " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world," This is always its source. It has no other that is vital. And when it exists, it breathes through all that is done. It gives freshness, flavour, point and power to all that is said. It invests it with unction. It awakens the soul to unwonted activity. It does not induce indolence ; it rather inspires the whole being with desire to accomplish great things for Christ. It regards all parts of his service as equally noble and worthy of the highest powers. Dr. Newton, the prince of preachers to children, on one occasion told the now glorified Alfred Cookman that he devoted as much time and labour to his '* Children's Sermons" as to those which he prepared for the great congregation. And as Alfred Cookman himself observes: " The reason why it has come to be a received truth that so few are adapted to talk to children, is because so few take the time and thought necessary to prepare themselves for the work. Then, after thorough preparation, they must put themselves in sympathy with their youthful hearers* and should aim rather to talk to them than address them.' The consecrated teacher feels this deeply, realizes it in a very vivid way, and he is careful of his own spirit, and of his mental condition, and of his fitness every way for work- I St. He looks well to the state of his heart. He keeps it with all diligence, knowing that out of it are the issues of life. He labours to have it constantly under the sanctify- ing influence of the Cross. He is like one of the Old Scots' i6 : t i Worthies in this — Robert Bruce. •' One time," says Mr. Livingstone, " I went to see Robert Bruce in the company of the tutor of Bonnington. When we called on him at eight o clock in the morning, he told he was not for any company ; and when we urged him to tell us the cause, he answered that when he went to .')ed he had a good measure of the Lord's presence, and that he had wrestled with him about an hour or two before we came in and had not yet got access ; and so we left him." How careful of their spiritual condition were these old worthies ! This reminds us of Hugh Binning, another of that honourable band, who when called upon on a sudden to preach, stepped aside a little to premeditate and implore his Master's presence and assistance ; for, says John Howie, " he was ever afraid to he alone in his work.'' 2nd. He labours to have himself thoroughly equipped for his work. He lays everything under tribute to supply him materials for it. As the polyp takes out of the sea the matter needed to build up the reef, and as the bee extracts the sweets from the flowers Uiat are necessary for the production of honey, so the consecrated teacher seeks in all the circumstances and advantages of his life for that which will fit him for service. And it is surprising how everything is transmuted into serviceable ware. He is like William Carey in this. When Andrew Fuller visited Scotland, in 1813, he called on Dr. Chalmers at Kilmany. A few weeks after Fuller's return to Kettering he wrote to Chalmers thus : •' I never think of my visit to you but with pleasure. After parting with you I was struck with the importance that may attach to a single mind receiving one evangelical impression. I knew Carey when he made shoes for the maintenance of his family; yet even then his mind had received an evangelical stamp, and his heart burned incessantly with desire for the salvation of the 17 heathen ; even then he had acquired a considerable acquaint- ance with Hebrew, Greek, Latin and French ; and why ? because his mind was filled with the idea of being some day a translator of the Word of God into the languages of those who sit in darkness ; even then he had drawn out a map of the world, with sheets of paper pasted together, besmeared with shoemaker's wax, and the moral state of every nation depicted with his pen ; even then he was constantly talking with his brethren on the practicability of introducing the Gospel to all nations." 3rd. He teaches the truth as one who feels its power, as one who has had personal experience of it himself. He longs to make it known. He cannot but speak the things he has seen and heard. He utters his thoughts out of a burn- ing heart. It is with him no ordinary, everyday duty. It is a time of overwhelming moment, and a theme of trans- cendant importance. He is speaking for eternity. He has a deep sense of the beautiful and striking message Dr. Payson sent to the students of the Theological Seminary, when the secretary of the American Education Society asked him for a message to them. *' What if God should place in your hand a diamond," said Dr. Payson, " and tell you to inscribe on it a sentence which should be read at the last day, and shown there as an index of your own thoughts and feelings ? What care, what caution would you exercise in the selection ! Now, this is what God has done. He has placed before you immortal minds, more imperishable than the diamond on which you are about to inscribe, every day and every hour, by your instructions, by your spirit, or by your example, something which will remain, and be exhibited for or against you at the judg- ment day." 4th. He follows his teaching by watching and prayer. Watching over those who have received his instructions for 1 m- • i8 any indications of good impressions, or repentance unto life, or growth into the image and Hkeness of Christ. Praying that the good seed may not he unquickened, and unhelpful to the souls to whom it has been spoken. He, like the husbandman, looks for a harvest, for God's word is, " My word . . that goeth out of my mouth, it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." The consecrated teacher must see fruit. He expects some unquestionable result from his labours. He watches for souls. He is unsatisfied unless he see the harvest as it may be seen here. lili i Chapter HI. — The Teacher and his Class. The teacher sitting down before his class may be likened to a musician sitting down before an instrument. It may be a new instrument, untried and unproven, with great power hidden away under its bank of keys ; or it may be an old instrument, with much depth and sweetness and real grandeur of tone yet undeveloped in it by the magic touch of a master-hand. low much depends upon the skill and feeling and taste of the musician ? How much ? The instrument being good, we would say almost every- thing. He will make the witching music either the touch- ing thrill of a sweet song, the tender pathos of an old psalm, the pulsing iihrob of a grand march, wild and piercing like the *' Marseilles," or plaintive and mournful like " the Dead March in Saul," or the storm and thunder of the chorus of an oratorio. He will make it responsive to his heart. His desire will fulfil itself. He is master, and commands with fi 19 kingly authority, and whatsoever he commands is done ; entirely obedient to its utmost is the instrument. But we must not carry the similitude too far. Figures though good for helping out an idea, must not be unduly pressed. The class is like the instrument in this, that it may be acted upon to the production of certain beautiful and blessed results, according in their fulness and satisfactory character, very largely with the wisdom, love and skill of the teacher. The class is unlike the instrument in this that it is not entirely passive in the hands of the teacher; nor may the whole sweep of its faculty be within its reach. There may be in their hearts, ocean depths undiscovered ; in their imaginations, alpine heights undescried ; in their souls, controlling passions, purposes and powers undis- cerned. And to make the very most of his class he must be able in some degree to touch all these, and work through all these. No light task this ; no trifling service to fulfil, but one of the weightiest and most momentous any man can undertake. But the teacher, though without any special training in mental science, in the simple and honest exercise of common sense and ordinary observation, will soon distinguish the diverse characters of his class, as he deals with them he will note how one chord is made to vibrate, and how another ; he will mark how one is respon- sive to one treatment, and another to another. He will soon learn how to handle them. After all, as the soldier learns to fight only on the battle-field, as the swimmer learns to cleave the water only in the sea, so the teacher learns most eflectually how to deal with human minds and hearts and imaginations and souls, only in the actual work of the class. There, around him, he has a microcosm — a little world — and his class of ten or twelve boys or girls types the whole world of humanity. He has beforehim FT ■ i I I « 20 how many temperaments ! There may be the poetic, the logical, the metaphysical, the imaginative, the doubting, the phlegmatic, the sanguine, the sympathetic, the moral, and many ochers represented. If he is able to recognize them he will not work in the dark ; but if he does not, his work is, in a great measure, chance work. He shoots at a venture. Let him try to distinguish, and then he can deal with a deliberate calmness and felt power, giving to each a portion in due season. For the poetic temperament, he will have sweet smelling flowers, beautiful pictures. George Herbert speaks of this character in this way : " A verse may find him who a sermon flies, And turn delight into a sacrifice." For the logical he will have a syllogism, he will show the relation of cause and effect, he will give a reason. He has a young Cato to deal with. Plutarch tells us that *' Cato when he was a boy, though he was won't to be observant of all his master's commands, yet withal, he used to ask him what was the cause or reasons of his commands." For the metaphysical, he will have some pure thought, clear, crystal- line, clean-cut, shining in its own light. For the imagina- tive, he will have a story or illustration of something done, wrought out, through all difficulties and weedy entangle- ments to a successful issue. For the doubting, whose mind is in suspense, in hungry mood, full of questioning fervour, he will have evidence, answers, healthy food. This tem- perament is not to be rudely thrust aside, it comes of growth generally. The soul is taking wing and going out beyond the little circle of its nest. As Christ met the doubts of Thomas, so should the teacher endeavour to meet the mental condition of the scholars in the same generous and condescending love. We believe, in the words of Robert Browning, that 21 " When the fight beetins within himself, A man's worth something. God stoops o'er his head, Satan looks up between his feet — both tug — He's left, himselt, in the middle : the soul wakes And grows Prolong that battle through his life ! Never leave growing till the life to come 1" For the phlegmatic, whose dull, slow, lumbering movement is exceedingly heavy, he will have a brisk, lively incitation to awaken and arouse and impel. Sometimes this will be like the unmasking of a battery, and taking him by sur- prise ; sometimes it will be like the cold shock of the sea to the warm bather ; but that matters not so long as the attention and mind is gained ; as long as the death-like stupor is driven away. For the sanguine, he will bring truths whose glory irradiates the unending future. For the loving, he will have a large and unceasing ministry, because they stand squarely on the broad lines of gospel truth. God is love, his relation is love, his gift is a gift of love, his work is a work of love, his patience is a patience of love ; all is love. For the moral, he will bring abundant supplies. This temperament is a high and noble one. It is said of Cato, the younger, that ** He was carried to every virtue, with an impulse like inspiration ; but his greatest attach- ment was to justice, and justice of that severe and inflexible kind which is not to be wrought upon by favour or com- passion." For all others he will have provision as he discovers them. But even this suggests a large and liberal preparation for teaching. It is as Goethe has sung in his Prelude to his " Faust " : " The mass can only by the mass be stirred. Each will choose forth that by himself preferr'd ; He who brings much something to all imparts, And each contented from the house departs.' And how much may the teacher gather if he only will ; 1' I III II I t : t I i ft 22 there are the stones of the field, the flowers on the lea, the birds of the air, the stars and constellations of the sky, the rivers and streams, and mountains and plains, and that multiform life in the busy haunts of men, all saying to him choose us ! use us ! We are here for that very purpose. God is speaking his wisdom, his love, his goodness through us. And how much there is in the Bible to meet the diverse tendencies and temperaments of men ! It is written so that all will find something that is specially grateful to them. There are picture parables, sententious proverbs melodious psalms, truthful biographies, free-flowing narra- tives, far-seeing prophecies, grand maxims, complete his- tories, and glowing discourses poured forth, like artesian wells, warm from the heart of the speaker. Truth 'has assumed all guises that she may find a welcome and a resting place in every heart through the door of God-given affinity or temperament. She goes all round the palace of man's nature, and knocks for admittance ; seeking if that by any means she may impart light and grace and salva- tion. Gathering up from every quarter stores for use, the teacher will be equipped for the best work in his class. But another word is yet needed to clear up the whole matter, and that is this : He will work for the attainment of a definite purpose. He does not teach for the pure sake of teaching, but to attain some end. Is that clearly defined in his own thought, and deeply impressed upon his heart ? Is that end his ruling passion ? If it is it will exert a con- trolling influence on the word spoken, the way in which it is presented, and on the very accent of his utterance. What is the end the teacher seeks to attain ? What is the object he would gain ? Let that be determined once for all. Is it merely to teach the truth of the Word, without any object beyond that ? Most certainly not. The Word 23 of God is given with a definite purpose, and if he is in sym- pathy with the Word, that purpose shall be the teacher's also. The Word of God is given to make men wise unto salvation, and to build them up in all the graces of the spirit and the righteousness of the kingdom. And that is the very object of Sunday-school work. Dr. J. H. Vincent states the point in this way : ** Is not salvation the great end to be sought ? Certainly ; but salvatiop comprises more than conversion. It supposes the edification of the children in Christ. The teacher trains the child all the way up through youth to manhood in Christ. He terraces up character from the solid rock of principle, and then plants these terraces with flowers of holiness." That being the grand object, the teacher ought to see to it that he does not allow the truth to possess the gates of the ears only, but that he urge it home upon the conscience. Dr. W. P. McKay, in his own strong and striking way, says : ** A sinner cannot be brought before his God except individually as a sinner and through his conscience ; nothing of the man is -reached until his conscience is reached.''' This being remembered, will save from much loss of energy and much misdirection of effort, and greatly help towards a successful issue, to the joy of teacher and scholar alike. 3i Chapter IV. — Powerful Teaching. That there is such a thing as powerful teaching in the class, as well as powerful preaching in the pulpit, no one will dispute. Teaching that enlightens the mind, that quickens the soul, that reneweth the life — in one word, teaching instinct with divine energy. Now, what is the grand element in such teaching ? We answer, prayer. 24 I * Such teaching is steeped in prayer ; begun, carried on and followed with prayer. The lesson is studied in the spirit and in the power of prayer, even though that extend through the whole week, as it ought to do. The teaching of the lesson is done with uplifted heart to him who alone can make the Word effectual unto salvation. And after it has been taught, it is followed by prayer, that it may pros- per m the thing whereunto God has sent it. Such teaching is always powerful teaching, because through prayer it rests entirely upon the gracious power of God ; and since God is faithful and cannot deny himself, it is therefore armed with power. Very probably much careful attention is given to the preparation of the lesson, and to its right impartation to the scholars ; what is wanted in addition to this — urgently wanted — is that it all be invested with, and penetrated by, prayer ; that clothes it with power. A pra} erless ministry of the Word is always a powerless ministry. The Christian in the ordinary business of life is to be instant in prayer : to pray without ceasing ; but how should this spirit con- centrate and deepen when he comes to the performance of this high duty that touches the salvation of the soul ? Our Lord, who is our great example in all Christian service, began and followed all his work with prayer. The apostles gave themselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the Word. Observe the place prayer held in their work ; it was principal ! A very notable fact, that ; a fact, too, which gives us the key to their marvellous successes. They knew that God gave the increase. They knew that it was not merely by intellectual might, nor by illustrative and expository power that good results followed their teaching and preaching, but by the work of God's spirit upon the heart, opening the heart and applying the truth ; therefore they gave themselves continually to prayer. 25 Payson gives us his experience in the words : " Since I began to beg God's blessing on my studies, I have done more in one week than in the whole year before. Surely it is good to draw near to God at all. times." " Was quite dull and lifeless in prayer, and in consequence had no success in study." He had three rules for the regulation of his life ; one of them was this, " To consider everything unlawful which indisposes me for prayer, and interrupts communion with God." Payson was thus careful of his devotional spirit, because he knew how everything depend- ed upon it. Writing to a brother minister, he says : " If we would do much for God, we must ask much of God ; we must be men of prayer ; we must, almost literally, pray without ceasing. You have, doubtless, met with Luther's remark, ' Three things make a divine — prayer, meditation and temptation.' My dear brother, I cannot insist on this too much. Prayer is the first thing, the second thing and the third thing necessary for a minister, especially in seasons of revival. The longer you live in the ministry the more deeply I am persuaded you will be convinced of this. Pray, then, my dear brother ; pray, pray, pray." Dr. Andrew Bonar tells us that Mr. Cheyne had con- stantly on his lips that mighty, arrowy prayer of Rowland Hill, *' Master, help ! Master, help !" This was the secret of his power — a power that is felt far and wide to this day, and will be to the end, for a prayerful and consecrated spirit is imperishable. George Whitfield, who had, as the fruit of a faithful ministry, " a constant levee of wounded souls," tells us that he read the Holy Scriptures upon his knees, laying aside all other books, and praying over, if possible, every line and word. " This proved," he says, " meat and drink indeed to my soul. I daily received fresh help, life and power from above. I got more true knowledge from reading the 4 m 26 Book of God in one month than I could ever have acquired from all the writings of men." Robert Traill, one of the Old Scots' Worthies, in a sermon on the question, " By what means may ministers best win souls ?" says: " Minis- ters must pray much if they would be successful A minister should pray for a blessing on the Word ; and he should be much in seeking God, particularly for the people. It may be, this may be the reason why some min- isters of meaner gifts and parts are more successful than some that are far above them in abilities ; not because they preach better, so much as because they pray more. Many good sermons are lost for lack of much prayer in study." As another illustration of this important truth we may add this story which is told of Wilberforce. He was in- troduced by his uncle, when only twelve years old, to the good John Newton. Fifteen years after, when his life had been dedicated to the master, he sought again the society of the excellent minister. What was his surprise to learn that from that early introduction Mr. Newton had never ceased to pray for him in private ! And how was the good man's heart gladdened to see this blessed answer to his prayer of fifteen years ! Oh, it is prayer that engages God on the side of the teacher, and clothes his Word with enlightening, regener- ating, saving power. Let us never forget that. It secures those conditions that are favourable to success ; it opens the eyes of the understanding to perceive and handle the truth aright ; it fills the heart with love ; it tunes the tongue with tenderness ; it inspires the word spoken with wisdom ; and it prepares the heart of the hearer to receive it gladly. We ma}' set this down as an unquestionable fact, and as a grand maxim of all Christian ministry, that a prayerful teacher is always a powerful teacher. 27 Chapter V. — Individual Dealing. Every thoughtful and * conscientious teacher comes sooner or later to the conclusion that, however faithfully he may deal with his scholars in the class, more than that is required to fill up the measure of his dut}/^ towards them. He feels, according to the earnestness of his soul, more or less deeply, that he must get closer to them, that he must come into direct contact — personal contact — with them : in one word, that he must know them individually, and deal with them individually . He realizes that without this he will fail of much that he wishes to attain. He watches for souls as one who must give account ; and he earnestly desires to gain every scholar. We remember a lady teacher — one of many like-minded — who would not rest satisfied with her work till it fruited in the hopeful conversion of all her scholars. She spoke personally to them while they were with her and within her reach ; she wrote lovingly to them when they went abroad ; she lived for their salvation. She died young, yet before she died she had the joy of learning that the last unsaved one had come to Jesus. Her whole heart was set on the accomplishment, under God, of this, and her faith was fully honoured. And is not that the key to the great conquest ? Quintillian tells us that the heart makes the orator ; Luther that the heart makes the theologian ; and we may say that the loving and believ- ing heart makes the successful teacher. Entering into this relation, he takes the position of greatest power over the heart ; his relation is personal and his work is definite, and this is the beginning of real work for the scholar, work which shall be rich in results of the very best kind. Speak- ing to the class in general is like a distant and random volley of musketry. Speaking to individuals is like the sharpshooter's certain work that takes off one man after '*4' I ? "" i I 28 hll f! f ' :'t: I Uil •1„ another from the ranks of the enemy. To do this requires a thorough sympathy with Christ in saving souls, a large endowment of his spirit, a heart* full of love and tenderness, a desire which overmasters all other desires, and that will not only seize an opportunity for speaking of Jesus and his atonement for sin, but will ?nake them. Robert Murray McCheyne, who was so devoted to the salvation of men, says on this point, in a letter to a friend : '* Speak for eter- nity. Above all, cultivate your own spirit. A word spoken by you when your conscience is clear and your heart full of God's spirit, is worth ten thousand words spoken in unbelief and sin It is not much speaking, but much faith, that is needed." Edward Payson's experience was in accord with this teaching, and is, therefore, an illustration of its truthfulness. He says, " I never was fit to speak to a sinner except I had a broken heart myself, when I was subdued into penitence, and felt as though I had just received pardon to my own soul, and while my heart was full of tenderness and pity." Having this condition of heart, there will spring out of it two principal energies ; yea, activities, namely, first, a love for the scholar ; second, a living for him. A love for the scholar is the first thing. This is the way to win his affection, for till that be done, little good will be conveyed to him or received by him. And too much never can be done to gain this. Too great a sacri- fice cannot be made to secure this. Our Lord is our teacher in the school of self-sacrificing love for the benefit of others. He humbled Himself. He made Himself of no reputation, not only in the general habit of His life, but also in many particular instances for the good of individuals. He sought the love, that He might impart the life of God to the lowest and the least. He did as George Herbert so wisely sings : — m 29 " Scorn no man's love, though of a mean degree, Love is a present for a mighty King." One of the most touching things in '* Augustine's Con- fessions " is the manner in which he speaks of the reception he had at the hands of St. Ambrose of Milan, when he went thither as teacher of Rhetoric from Rome ; notwith- standing the fact that he was at that time an unbeHever, and full of the vices of the Manicheans. The incident is a faint shadow of the father welcoming the returning prodigal. He says: "That man of God received me a a father, and showed me an episcopal kindness on my coming. Thenceforth I began to love him, at first, not indeed as a teacher of the truth, but as a a person kind to myself.'' Winning the love to impart the life is the first thing in successful individual dealing. The next thing is to live for the scholar. It requires the devotion of the life as is pourtrayed so vividly in the life of Harlan Page. An instance full of interest and incitement to the Sunday-school teacher is given by Mr. D. L. Moody in one of his London discourses. Mr. Edward Kimball vho is now preaching on the Pacific coast was his teacher. He says : " When I was about seventeen years old I went to the City of Boston, and I attended Sunday school there. I had only been there a few Sundays when the teacher came to the shop where I was at work, and coming behind the counter put his hand upon my shoulder, and as he talked to me about my soul's salvation, tears just trickled along down his cheeks. I cannot remember what he said, but I can remember those tears : I can feel the pressure of that man's hand upon my shoulder to-night ; it will follow me down to the grave. After he went I began to reason in this way : ' This is a strange thing : here is a man I never met until within the last few weeks, and he is here weeping about my soul — I !i; 30 never wept ; here he is burdened for my salvation — I was never burdened.' This was the turning-point of my life, and that kind-hearted man was used by God in leading me to Christ." This incident speaks volumes of deepest instruction. Edward Kimball lived for his class. It filled his heart week-days as well as Sundays. It called forth and concen- trated his energies. And how has his faithfulness been rewarded with a joy that is unfailing ! Oh, that the host of Sunday-school teachers were like-minded ! Thus con- sciously with the blood of consecration upon them, what joyful tidings might we hear from all quarters, of thousands saved in the Sunday schools of our land ! Richard Baxter's remark on Joseph Alldine's working in this line of things may fitly close this chapter ; it is specially encouraging to all who seek the salvation of souls, old or young : ** His great diligence from house to house in private was a promoter of his successes. I never knew a minister who prudently and diligently took that course unprosperous in his work, but by them that have wisely and faithfully used it, I have known that done that before seemed impossible." M,! Chapter VI. — The Upbuilding of the Spiritual Life. i Mii !I!H! The scholar having been brought to Christ, and led to trust in him alone for salvation, and yield himself up to him as his Lord — the Lord of his will and his way — a very important question arises as to how he should be treated by his teacher. He, having been used of God in his conversion, will have an interest in him such as none 31 other can feel. He is by this brought into the closest possible spiritual relations with him. The scholar has become, to use Paul's phrase, his " Son in the faith." And this suggests the duties that now devolve upon him — duties in advance of any yet performed by him. He was a sinner before, he is a saint now. He was outside the kingdom before, he is inside now, and under obligations to live a life becoming the Gospel of Christ. His acceptance of Christ as the Saviour from sin is but the beginning of the Christian life, the entrance upon it, the first step of it, not the end of it as many seem to think. The life received is instrumentally to be built up, to be nourished, and its power developed, and the teacher is to gird himself to this duty. He may be assisted in it by parent or pastor, but only assisted, for he cannot without the rudest violence retire from his spiritual relations, or break away from the position of power in which God has placed him. He must hold the first place in the scholar's regard, and he must use it for the upbuilding of his spiritual life. But how shall he do this ? We answer, first of all, by fellowship. The teacher is to take the scholar to his heart, and enfold him in the mantle of his sympathy, and give him to feel that one, at least, cares for him, and has a deep interest in his welfare. He is to surround him, as much as it is in his power, with a warm atmosphere — an atmosphere of love ; he is to impart to him the realization that he is not alone, but that he belongs to a family — the household of faith. And this is not a matter of small importance ; it is rather one of the greatest importance, one of mighty and far-reaching influence. How many bright and hopeful Sunday-school scholars have been chilled to death without this, and have at length dropped off from the class and the Church and every good association ! How many ! These first days f'l i: r: I' l\ itr, )■ iiif II I II 32 and weeks and months of Christian life, when the battle with sin is a new and unaccustomed fight are to be cheered and strengthened and upheld by a living, loving fellowship. This is one of the first conditions of the spiritual life. For as the early morning hours of the Christian determine the character of the day, so these early days of Christian experience determine the character of the young convert's life. They stamp it with the impressions it will always afterwards bear. The second thing required in the teacher, is a watchful oversight. He must shepherd his sheep. He, of course, knows something of his temperament, and of his circum- stances and of his temptations. In his previous life and character he has the key to unlock the great possibilities of his future, both bright and dark. And he is full of anxiety to guard him against the devices of the devil on the one hand, and to lead him into the green pastures of holiness and happiness on the other. His relation to him necessitates this. See how the horticulturist deals with his plants ! He prepares a proper soil, he provides an atmosphere of a certain temperature, he plucks out the weeds and destroys the insects that are wont to infest them, that they may grow luxuriantly and bloom abun- dantly and beautify the garden or the home. And such attention do the souls of young believers require. Surely we would not allow plants to be better cultured than immortal souls ! And yet, alas ! they often are. The weeds of sin are permitted sometimes to entangle them and choke them, the insects of doubt are allowed to prey upon the life, or a chilly atmosphere is suffered to de- press the spirit and damp its joyous and bounding en- thusiasm. How many things arise to interfere with the free action of God's spirit in the soul ! Now, the teacher, like a faithful friend, will keep watch against these as he 33 is able, and stir up the scholar to intelligent and wise action. Young believers are fiercely tempted, and what is more, frequently tempted — their temptations abound. Let this fact be fully recognized. How shall the teacher come at his peculiar temptations ? No better plan can be adopted than that employed by Martin Luther in his visitation of the sick ; he was accustomed to ask, *' Have you any temptations ?'' and finding them out, apply suitable words of promise to the soul. How shall the teacher deal with his doubts ? Thomas Carlyle suggests a valuable consid- eration. He says : " No error is fully confuted till we have seen not only that it is an error, but how it became one." Every Christian knows how doubts arise, how they grow to strength, and also how they are -exorcised by the magic touch of the Word of God. How shall the teacher increase the love of his heart when it has grown cold ? By presenting Christ in all his attractive sweetness and grace. The more clearly Christ is seen and apprehended by the soul, the warmer the heart grows, and then love flows out to all around. This care and culture, reaching out to, and compassing all the difficulties and discourage- ments of the new life, is a service urgently called for, and always blest to the soul. The third thing required in the teacher is to give an introduction to work for Christ. The sooner this is done the better. Yet there is to be a fitness for the work he is asked to undertake. It must be such as he is able for and can do. Let the " first works " be the easiest, as for instance, the distribution of tracts, asking others to religious meetings, etc. Quiet work will exercise all his graces of prayer, faith, love, courage, patience, etc., without exposing him to the danger that comes of ostentatious service. There must be some kind of work engaged in to keep the m I 'II U.t! 1 i " 34 soul i 1 a healthy and vigorous condition, else it will soon be cumbered and oppressed with disease. But let him be sure strongly to dissuade the young disciple from speaking of what he does, to impress on him constantly that word of a certain heathen : *' Talk not of a good life, but let thy life speak." This will conserve his energy, and cause it to eventuate more richly in action. Many get into the habit of talking of work, and soon imagine, because they have talked of it, that it is done. This caution is given by Dr. John Owen in reference to talk, and is of wide appli- cation. He says : *' Have a care that your head in notion and your tongue in talk do not soon empty your heart of truth. We are apt to lay up in our heads notions and bring it forth in talk, and not let it be in our life, and this weakens spiritual life greatly." Every observer of men has noticed this again and again. As fitting him for work, he will be encouraged to be instant in prayer, and as a " new born babe to desire the sincere milk of the Word that he may grow thereby." The relation of this to the upbuilding of the spiritual life is of vast importance, and cannot be dismissed with a word, it demands a larger consideration. Work for Christ calls for the Word of Christ. And as that grand old Puritan, Thomas Brooks, has it : " Soul opportunities are worth more than a thou- sand worlds ; mercy is in them, grace and glory are in them, heaven and eternity are in them." ! 'I iiii> 35 ■ ; i lotion art of IS and id this )f men f work, d as a Word to the e, and larger /ord of Brooks, a thou- Chapter VII. — The Word of God and Prayer as Related to the Upbuilding of the Spiritual Life. Samuel Taylor Coleridge says : " It must be seraphs, and not the hearts of imperfect mortals, that can burn unfuelled and self-fed." However this may be as touching " seraphs," as touching " imperfect mortals " it is truth forever and ever. Our hearts cannot burn unfuelled and self-fed. God might have sustained the spiritual life of the believer independent of outward means, by the inward ministry of his spirit alone ; but he has otherwise ordained, and that ordination must be the law of our lives, since it is only in agreement with it that we can spiritually profit and prosper. As the husbandman can succeed in his work only by observing the over-ruling physical law, so can the Christian build up his moral and spiritual character only by a loving obedience to the over-ruling spiritual law* And what is that ? Let the answer be given clearly and fully and repeatedly to all young Christians — young in years as well as in grace — for there can only be days and months and years of dark deep trouble by overlooking it. "^5 new horn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Wordy that ye may grow thereby, if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious." (i Peter ii. 2, 3.) The Word of God is the food of the soul. The Word, through its divine revelation, opens the heart to all the fulness of God, and by its divine inspiration moves the heart to all holy activi- ties. That is, the Word of God is instriimentally that through which God moulds us to His will, and works in us His; service, and makes us fit for glory. Hence, apart froih the Word of God there is, and can be, no real Chris- tian life. Paul writes to his *' dearly beloved son," Timothy^ ^.! !)■■ 36 on this matter thus : " 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." Dr. Duncan, late Professor of Hebrew in New College, Edinburgh, was wont to say, as if in confirmation of Paul's statement : " The Bible is the best school-book, not only for teaching things belonging to the inner and /uture, but also to the outer and present life. There is no school-book in the world containing so many roots of things in so short compass. Add to your faith universal know- ledge." Remembering then, this relation of the Word of God to our spiritual life, a very important question arises as to how we are to use it. Shall we only take portions of it, that is, certain books, or particular portions of books ? or shall we take it as a whole, and study it all ? During the Civil War in England, there was printed a collection of Scripture texts, setting forth the characteristics of the Christian soldier, and entitled " The Soldier's Bible," which was also reprinted in America during the Civil War ■of 1861-65, and no doubt it did good service at both times. The argument for its use was its lightness in the knapsack, which in war times is certainly an allowable argument. But in times of peace and quiet home life, to make our Citizens' Bible into a Soldier's Bible, by only taking cer- tain portions of it, is far from allowable. It is unbecoming our reverence of God. We ought most certainly to take the whole book, and study the whole book. Begin at the beginning and go straight on, and through to the end. One hundred and seventy years ago, John Locke, in an introductory essay to his " notes " on Paul's Epistles, gave excellent advice as to reading individual books' at one sitting, and doing this repeatedly till the books were 1 it 37 thoroughly mastered. Mr. Moody, in his sermon on ♦♦ How to Study the Bible," has given many timely hints as to* how to study the Bible topically and by books, but he has not sufficiently enforced the study of the Bible as a whole. Indeed, the Bible can be understood thoroughly only by consecutive reading. Each succeeding book presupposes the preceding. The Pentateuch is the corner-stone of the whole structure, on which it springs up in its magnificence into the glories of heaven. Omit that, and how much will be dark, and in a great measure unintelligible. But begin and read on to the end, and it unfolds grandly as a rich landscape from a high mountain side. Every book has in itself a peculiar teaching, and it is through these individual features of the books, collectively considered, that we have the glorious revelation of the whole. , There is a progress of revelation, and at the same time a progress of doctrine in the Word which can only be seen and appreciated by a consecutive reading. Therefore, we would say, let the young Christian put himself under the influence and teaching of '* all scripture " — the whole Book of God. We would urge this strongly. We want Bible Christians to-day. Men whose thoughts, purposes and judgments are formed by the Word of God. Strong men. Mr. Macadam, a Highland Scotch preacher, once asked this question : ** Why are there so many bankrupt profes- sors of religion in our day?" and answered it in these memorable words, words often quoted by Dr. Macdonald, of Ferintosh, " It is because they start without a capital." The best capital for the Christian is an extensive and accurate knowledge of God's Word. That pours its power into all the graces and keeps them vigorous and strong and effective. Joseph Cook, the other day in Boston,, uttered these memorable words : ** You ought to mark a Bible every five years so thoroughly that you cannot use it f» t': i: r III 38 any more. May I whisper that I have a Bible, marked when I was about fourteen or seventeen years of age, and had but just united with the Church ; and that to-day is the most unspeakable record on which I can put my hand in my little past. If, every five years, you can mark a Bible thoroughly, and memorize what is marked, it will be your best diary." Who can tell how much this reading has to do with the mighty moral power Joseph Cook is to-daj in America and throughout the world ? There shines a guiding light in these lines of Mrs. Barret Browning, even in this connection : — " We get nc good By being ungenerous even to a book, And calculating profits. . . So much help By so much reading. It is rather when We gloriously fo-^et ourselves, and plunge Soul-forward, he long, into a book's profound, Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth — 'Tis then we get the right good from a book." So study the Word with an impassioned love to learn all it teaches, and new glories will shine forth evermore — glories that will be reflected in your own face, as Moses' face shone with the glory he had seen in the holy mount. As to the relation of prayer to the upholding of the spiritual life, we may observe, first, that this is necessary for the understanding of the Scriptures. They are a sealed book until we enjoy the aid of the Spirit of God, who is given to us " that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God." It is he who breaks the seal and interprets the meaning to the mind, and translates it to the heart, and makes it a living power in the life. He trans- mutes it from word into deed. Without his gracious energy it is inefficient ; but acccvtipanied by his might it is an irresistibly omnipotent word. It is the Spirit that quick- 39 eneth. He guides the soul into all truth ; gives it to apprehend it in its right relations and proportions. He glorifies Christ, reveals him to the heart as Emmanuel, God wUh us, and discovers his perfect adaptations to our wants as sinners lost and as sinners saved. He is the Comforter, who is with us, and in us, to minister to us love, sympathy, grace and all that is found in a personal presence. And all this is accomplished through the Word. What need then is there to cry, as the Psalmist does, " Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law." Goethe's dying exclamation may be used with a grander meaning than he attached to it, " More light ! more light ! more light ! " And light will come fuller and fuller, till the day shines at noon and the shadows are for ever passed away. Secondly, Prayer is necessary for power in living to Christ. When Paul puts the Christian in the panoply of God (Eph. vi.) prayer is not mentioned as any part of that armour. It is in addition to the armour. It is a grace that is the strength of all the rest ; therefore, having spoken of all the parts of the panoply necessary for defence and offence, he adds, '* Praying with all prayer and sup- plication in the spirit." Cowper gives in one stanza a good exposition of this Scripture in its peculiar position : " Restraining prayer, we cease to fight ; Prayer makes the Christian's armour bright ; And Satan trembles when he sees The weakest saint upon his knees." Prayer makes the armour avail for us, when otherwise it would only be a cumbrance. And standing in this relation it affects all the Christian's life and action ; as for instance, true prayer ensures peace ; *• Be careful for nothing ; but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the i |i III Mmam 40- peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.'' True prayer ensures the enjoyment of all good things. " If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him." In Luke's Gospel the "good things" of Matthew's Gospel are changed into " the Holy Spirit," and in that there is no contradiction, for the Holy Spirit is the source of all good things for the Christian. And mark, He is given in answer to prayer. The Christian's life springs like a fountain out of the heart of prayer, and is sustained by prayer, and enshrined in prayer. While this is so, there is a very distressing and disheart- ening experience that falls to the lot of young Christians, as well as to old Christians, and that is the encroachment of a prayerless spirit. The heart is chilled by contact with the world and godless companions, and the " old man," **the flesh," asserts its presence and prayer is restrained before God. What is to be done in these circumstances ? Mourn, and remain prayerless ? No ; arise and call on God! The very prayerlessness of the heart is an argument for more prayer. As Brownlow North observes : " Don't shorten your prayers when you feel cold. Tell Jesus of it and ask his Spirit." There is no real sterling. Christian life without prayer. Luther says: "As a shoemaker makes shoes, and a tailor coats, so should a Christian pray. Prayer is the Christian's business." Another word of the great and good Reformer may fitly close this chapter : •' Prayer is an Almighty Em- press. In human things we order all things through prayer ; rule all that is well-ruled ; alter and rectify what has gone wrong ; endure what cannot be altered or recti- fied ; overcome all evil and preserve all good." 41 •mgm^ Chapter VIII. — How to Meet Discouragements. Discouragements abound in every good work, simply because every good work contends with evil and seeks to overthrow it. And work for the children takes evil at its first forthputting, its first manifestation, and does its best to destroy it. Hence, in this sphere many discourage- ments may be looked for. There is first that very common one — The restlessness and inattention of the scholars. Where they are restless and inattentive it arises either from lack of interest in the lesson, or want of confidence in the teacher ; sometimes from one cause, sometimes from both. How shall these be met ? ist. Know your scholars. Find out all you can about their parents, their circumstances, their habits and modes of life, and enter into sympathy with them. Make a point of contact with them somewhere. Find for your- self a common ground with them, and you will be much more* likely to succeed in dealing with them. The Rev.. John McPherson, in his life of Duncan Matheson, the Scotch evangelist, tells this story of Mr. George Cowie, Mr. Matheson's grand-uncle : " One of his attached hearers was the wife of a wealthy farmer, who, after weeping and praying in vain for her ungodly husband, brought her grief before her pastor, whose preaching she could by na persuasion bring him to hear. After listening to the case, which seemed quite inaccessible, he enquired : ' Is there anything your good man has a liking to ? ' * He heeds for naething in this world,' was the reply, ' forbye his beasts and his siller, an it be na his fiddle.' The hint was enough. The minister soon found his way to the farm- house, where, after a dry reception, and kindly enquiries about cattle and corn, he awoke the farmer's feelings on •P !iii! . 42 the subject of his favourite pastime. The fiddle was pro- duced, the man of earth was astonished and charmed with the sweet music it gave forth in the hands of the feared and hated man of God. The minister next induced him to promise to return his call by the offer of a treat of a finer instrument in his own house, where he was delighted with the swelling tones of a large violin, and needed then but slight persuasion from his wife to accompany her and hear his friend preach. The Word took effect in convic- tion and salvation, and the grovelling earth-worm was transformed into a free-hearted son of God, full of the lively hope of the great inheritance above." The story Mrs. Oliphant tells of Edward Irving and the Glasgow shoemaker illustrates the same point : '* He was a thorough- going infidel, and could not be induced to speak on reli- gious things. All who sought to engage him were met by a cold shoulder and a ^ Humph!' Irving, in the course of his parochial visitation, called on him, and knowing his man, took up a piece of patent leather and expatiated on it. This he could do admirably, as his father was a tanner, and he knew the process well. The shoemaker did not look up, but said, roughly, ' What de ye ken about leather ? ' Irving, unabashed, went on and described how shoes were being made by machinery; then the shoemaker slackened up his work, and looked up, and said, ' Od, you're a decent kind o' a fellow ; do you preach ? ' Irving did not pursue his advantage too hotly. Next Sabbath the shoemaker was at church. On the Monday Irving met him in the Gallowgate, and walked arm in arm with him along the street. He was overcome and became a friend instead of a foe to Christianity ; and ever after, when taunted with his change, justified himself by saying : * He's a sensible man yon ; he kens about leather.' " This is the first thing to do ; to interest the scholars. 43 stand on some common ground of interest with them, be one with them somewhere. 2nd. Prepare fully for them, by previous study, prolonged study, and as far as possible, perfect study of the lesson of each successive Sabbath. Take it into the light of God's presence, that you may see clearly what it teaches ; where the chords of love lie in it, by which you can draw the children to Christ ; or where the bells of mercy hang, that you may ring them, to warn of danger and of death ; or where the clear light breaks forth, that you my lead them into that, for in God's light alone they shall see light. As some horticulturists steep their seed before sowing it, to help it to germinate quicker in the soil, so the true earnest Sunday-school teacher steeps his seed in prayer — agonizing, weeping prayer — that it may the more quickly grow in the heart and fruit in the life of his class. He will seek for apt illustration also to lighten up the lesson. The second discouragement is Irregular attendance. What we have just written as meeting the first will do much to meet this discouragement also. However, in addition, visit the absentees at once, find out how they are circumstanced ; what companions they have ; and show them great kindness of heart. Do all you can to break up their evil and injurious connections and to form good ones for them. Let them feel at home in school. Show them that they have a firm friend in their teacher. The third discouragement is Lack of moral earnestness in the scholars. They do not enter into the spirit of the trutli. They do not take a living interest in it. They do not grasp it and hold it as a rope cast out to those in danger of sinking in the deep waters. In one word, they do not apply it to themselves. What is to be done ? Let the teacher be in earnest, intensely in earnest. The teacher himself is always more than his talk, and his loving influ- IHH a -'■■ 44 ence more than his intellectual conceptions ; or, if you will, our life investing our teaching tells mightily. The fourth discouragement, and the last I shall mention, is this : Indecision for Christ. This presses heavily on many patient, prayerful, conscientious teachers. They seek this above everything. As John Knox cried, " Lord, give, me Scotland, or I die!" they cry, ** Lord, give me souls, or I die ! " This is the first grand point to be reached, and it cannot be reached so successfully in any other way as in Kimball's way with Moody : going to the scholar and speaking to him personally, pointedly, patheti- cally, with yearning soul and streaming eyes, and loving arms cast about him, embracing him. When the heart is so drawn out to the scholar as to be able to do that for him, the time of decision for Christ is not far pff. Chapter IX.- -The Encouragements of Sunday School Teachers. While there are many discouragements to prove the faith and the patience and prayerfulness of the teacher, there are also many encouragements to cheer him in his work, and to open for him fountains of never-failing inspiration. Among these, the first is : He deals with the young; those who are impressible, those who are susceptible of being educated for God. Dr. James W. Alexander, in his book, *' The American Sunday School and its Adjuncts," says, " He who has become a man is already educated for good or for evil." What an encouragement it is to Sunday- school teachers that they are in a position to forestall evil with good, to preoccupy the mind with truth, to prepossess • 45 it with divine and virtuous thoughts ! " Satan," says the Rev. John Newton, ** proposes to fill a bushel with tares. Now I thwart him if I previously fill it with wheat." What a mighty power the Sunday-school teacher has, in that he has to do with the plastic period of life when the character can be formed into almost any image ; and that too, be it remembered, without contention with any deep- rooted prejudice, or the overthrow of any firmly fixed and settled love, or the displacement of any dominant imagina- tion, or the wrestling with any imperious lust. Everything is in his favour. The scholar respects him, loves him, confides in him, says virtually : " Write upon my mind enduring characters, breath into my heart ever-living thoughts, spread out to my imagination fancies and pictures that will accompany me forever, enfold me in a life ! I am at your will, open to your spiritual power ; you may,charm me out of evil loves and relations ; you may, by God's grace, change me into a new creature ; you may charge me with holy, spiritual energies for all time to come." What power lies here ! and what an encouragement ! Ah, and what a responsibility too ! Awful, terrible to think lightly of, or neglect, far less despise. Another encouragement is this : the teacher does his work with the truth, the Word of God. This is the seed he sows. And it is the sowing of this seed that is the glory of all Sunday-school work — that in which lies alike the reason of it, the justifiableness of it, the strength of it, the grandeur of it, in one word, the perennial sublimity of it. Indeed, the high and influential and far-reaching power of the Sunday school lies in this very fact, that God's word in all its native beauty and divine purity is taught to the young without any doubt as to its inspiration and consequent authority^ or its correctness and consequent credibility. The Sunday- school teachers of the world are as yet free from any of the n^ ') 46 loosening and undoing influences of modern rationalism and infidelity. If any are touched with the spiritual blight of these they must soon cease to be Sunday-school teachers, for the Sunday school is nothing if not a school of biblical instruction and Bible learning. The teacher does his work with God's Word, which is a living word, an incorruptible or indestructible Word, a holy Word ; a word that saves and sanctifies and feeds the soul. Let the Word of God be sown thickly in the heart in youth, and afterwards it will gird the nature to an heroic endurance of all the assaults of evil. This has been seen in innumer- able, unquestionable instances, preeminent among which are, Joseph in Egypt, Daniel and the Hebrew children in Babylon, and Moses in the royal house of Pharaoh. Take this one from early church history. Chrysostom, who lived in the fourth century, and was Partriarch of Constan- tinople, was faithfully educated as a child at home by his Christian mother in the religion of Jesus, and in answer to her prayers felt the power of it early in his heart. His mother was anxious that he should enjoy the best possible advantages of learning, but these were only to be had at the school of Libanius, a pagan, and a foe to Christianity — a man who at that time strove beyond all others to uphold Paganism and to destroy Christianity. He was a learned, shrewd, eloquent man, who could boast of scholars in Asia, Europe, and Africa — and to place Chrysostom under him was to expose him to awful danger. But his mother had full faith in the truth, and in the God of the Bible, and she was willing to trust him in trial even with an experienced enemy. Nor was her trust in vain, he came out of the school of Libanius untouched and unharmed. And often afterwards he thanked her for her thoughtful affection and courageous love, and noble faith in God, which enabled him to enjoy and be profited by these scholastic advantages. 47 Another encouragement is, God is working with the teacher, so that none of his words shall fall to the ground. There is no worker in the wide universe that is working in the line of God's law, in entire harmony with it, but that God aids, prospers and works with. He is ever on the side of truth, holiness, righteousness. He is necessarily so, because by nature so. And the Sunday-school teacher, as he seeks the furtherance of all these, has God on his side. God has an interest in his work, his glory is con- cerned in it. He does not stand by as an idle spectator ; he is active, working through the truth. And it is because of this that we have such a scripture as this : **They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.'' God blesses the sower and the seed. That is seen in the sheaves. Sheaves! Think! Not single heads of wheat merely, precious as they may be, but bundles of them. Sheaves! The handfuls cast into the furrows have filled many a sickle and made up many a sheaf. The one saved at first, and all saved afterwards through him, and those brought to Christ through them through generations. How many ! Oh, what crown of rejoicing in the day of the Lord will that company be to a true faithful Sunday-school teacher ! Your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Sunday- school teachers, think of this. Let it overarch your soul like a firmament, and let it rouse you ever to thoughtful, prayerful, high endeavour to save those committed to your care, and when they are saved to build them up in the knowledge of the Lord. Another encouragement is the henefits accruing to the teacher. The enlargement of the circle of his knowledge ; the sharpening of his intellect ; the strengthening of his judgment ; the quickening of his imagination ; the percep- mmm 48 tion of the relations of different truths ; the moral culture of heart and conscience and the opening up of channels, new channels of communication with God, through which God reveals himself in power and glory, are some of the benefits accruing to the teacher. And havmg these, if there were no other gain, what unspeakable gam is here. And what an encouragement ! One of the greatest. Chapter X. — A Right Regard for the Little Ones. How many answers have been given to the question : What is a child ? And all of them only partial solutions of the child-nature — none of them perfect solutions. In this, as in much else, we touch only the outer circles. Only One can penetrate to the centre and unveil the mystery. He became a child in his humiliation, and passed through the experience of childhood, as Irenaeus judiciously observes, that he might sanctify childhood, and as Luke informs us, '* grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom ; and the grace of God was upon him." When he spoke of children, it was in a way that no other one had ever attempted ; he spoke as one who knew whereof he affirmed ; he spoke calmly, confidently, profoundly, as with perfect knowledge. He said of little children, " Of such is the kingdom of heaven." And to his disciples, who were disputing as to '* Who should be the greatest in the king- dom of heaven ? he said, having set a child in the midst : ** Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso receiveth one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which , f i \^ 3n : ons In )nly ery. ugh usly like ith n he had f he with ch is ere ing- idst : ome ven. hild, And iveth hich 49 believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea." " Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." Whoever spoke of children in this way ? Who- ever saw the grandeur and glory of their natures as he did ? Whoever intimated before that they were so dear to God's heart that angels watched over them, and that offence to them was punished with severity ? Whoever made a child a standard of moral excellence till he did ? Ever since he uttered these words children have been seen in a new light, and regarded with greater reverence. He has revolutionized human thought, and feeling, and care for them. He introduced a new era. And surely it is not too much to say, that the deepest thought brought to bear on his *' simple, yet unfathomable sayings," as William E. Gladstone calls them, has not reached their heart nor resolved their mystery. Depths lie in them yet unsunned. However, it is exceedingly cheering to mark a clear and definite recognition of their line of thought and teaching m many quarters. Perhaps, the arraying of some of these in order may suggest still deeper thoughts and help toward a keener insight into the depths of Christ's " unfathomable sayings." John Locke drank into the spirit of our Lord's teaching when he wrote this maxim : " Maxima debetur pueris reverentia.'" At Eisenach, a famous master, John Trebonius, vfas rector of the convent of the Barefooted Carmelites, and when he taught his class of boys there, he always did so with his head uncovered, to honour, as he said, the consuls, chancellors, doctors and masters who- would one day proceed from his school. There was rever- ence to the youth ! And not in vain was it shown, for among his scholars was that highly honoured servant of Hi } Ml 50 God, Martin Luther, who was greater than all the consuls, chancellors and doctors of his time. He was the Reformer of Religion, not only for Germany but for Christendom. He translated the Bible into German and laid solid founda- tions for a German literature. He gave the people the Bible in their own tongue, and expounded large portions of it with fulnp'5'5. and fervour, and force, and faithfulness, so that even tc /, about three centuries and a-half after his decease, *' He being dead, yet speaketh." When Edward Irving was in the height of his power as an orator in London, some ladies who had established an infant school in the district of Billingsgate, and were unsuc- cessful in persuading the people to send their children to it, applied to him to help them. He immediately con- sented and went with them through the district. In the first house he allowed the ladies to explain their errand, and they did it very offensively to the poor, so full of condescensior and patronage was their manner. In the second hou5 ving took the place of spokesman upon himself. *' Wnen the door was opened, he spoke in the kindest tone to the woman who opened it, and asked per- mission to go in. He then explained the intentions of the ladies, asked how many children she had and whether she would send them. A ready consent was the result ; and the mother's heart was completely won when the visitor took one of her little ones on his knee and blessed her." The ladies who were engaged in this work were horrified. '* Why, Mr. Irving," exclaimed one of the ladies when they got to the street, •' you spoke to that woman as if she were doing you a favour, and not you conferring one on her ! How could you speak so ? and how could you take up that child on your knee?" " The woman," he replied, ** does not as yet know the advantages which her children will derive from your school ; and in so speaking and bless- -liin .11(1!! I ,!| 51 jls, ner om. ida- the ions less, after er as id an nsuc- ildren / con- :n the rrand, full of n the upon in the d per- of the her she land the ir took The irrified. |s when .s if she one on ou take replied, [children id bless- ing her child I did but follow the example of our Lord, who blessed the little ones, the lambs of his flock." Edward Irving's conception of a child is given in these words, " a glorious bud of being." He had a high appreci- ation of a child. He saw grand possibilities hidden away in its undeveloped capacities. He saw the promise of a new world in its being devoted to God and blessed by Christ. But we must not forget this, Irvmg, like Trebon- ius, was a seer. And might not all be seers, if they would only do as he did and accept Christ's estimate of children ? There must be something like an adequate conception of the value of the child to awaken in us the sense of import- ance there is in every act done for it. Every act of respect shewn to it is a seed sown to grow through time and eternity. We are told that when Rowland Hill was pre- vented from reading by attacks of .inflammation in his eyes, to which he was subject, he found a source of amuse- ment in making little boxes, covered with coloured paper, containing in partitions the letters of the alphabet, as presents for the children of his friends. In each box there were printed directions showing how sentences and texts of Scripture might be found, with a couplet in rhyme on every letter. Mr. Hill might often be seen hard at work cutting out letters, which he had had printed on pastboard for that purpose, with the greatest apparent earnestness. While at Bristol, in 1824, he sent a specimen of his inven- tion to Mrs. Hannah More, and in the letter which accom- panied it he ^humourously imitated the style of Sternhold and Hopkins : *' With this my love doth come to you ; My love it is both sure and true And eke the same, likewise also Unto your household it doth go." Dr. Duff", the consecrated missionary to India, began his work there on a principle altogether new in missionary ^' 52 enterprise. He began with the children. With the eye and heart of a philosopher, as he was — a Christian philos- pher — he saw that, if he could gain the children, that the coming generations would be gained. In the words of Sir Charles Trevelyan : " Up to that time preaching had been considered the orthodox regular mode of missionary action ; but Dr. DufF held that the receptive plastic minds of children might be moulded from the first according to the Christian system, to the exclusion of all heathen teaching, and that the best preaching to ihe rising generation, which soon becomes the entire people, is the * line upon line, precept upon precept ' of the school-room." This action of Dr. Duff's recalls the action of the Spartans, who, when Antipater demanded fifty children as hostages, offered him in their stead one hundred men of distinction. One would have thought that by far the noblest offer ; but there was a far-seeing wisdom in it. In the children there was hope of retrieving their loss and wiping out their dishonour. Their fathers had lost the day, the children might regain it. In them Sparta would flourish anew. J. C. Hotten, in his preface to the sketch of Thomas Carlyle's life, in his " On the Choice of Books," states this exceedingly interesting fact : " Though it is rare indeed that he is ever seen to stop and speak to a grown person — probably because he knows but one or two personally in his own neighbourhood — he is always ready to recognize little children. The keeper of a small confectioner's shop near the river-side tells with delight how he would call upon her for extravagant quantities of ch^ap sweetmeats, with which he will sometimes stop and load the lap of a group of poor children in some of the purlious of Lawrence Street." This is*beautiful. And, in the light of the " Rem- iniscences " just published, revealing a life passed in the miseries and horrors of dyspepsia, it shines more beautiful 53 mas this eed rson y in nize shop call eats» of a ence Rem- n the utiful still. And it shows his desire to make, as far as he could, their ** environment'' happier, at least. Wisdom teaches us to care diligently, with all affection, reverence and intel- ligence, for the children while they are impressible and plastic ; and to remember that the most painstaking labour bestowed upon them is always richly rewarded. The results of our influence, our words, our example, our work are everlasting, for they are immortals. What is written on them will endure, and shine forth in bright lines or dark characters for ever and ever. No grander monument can we raise to our memories than children educated in the fear of God and trained in the ways of the Lord, They are channels of blessing to all who are about them. The good seed of the Word sown in them springs up and fruits, not in one harvest alone, but in repeated and innu- merable harvests all along their life-way, so that they are the sources of incalcuable good. Work for the good of the children is work for the time to come. To mould them to the love of God, and truth, and righteousness, and purity, is to mould the future. In the children, the future is in our hands. It is a true word of Jean Paul Richter. *'In the world of childhood all posterity stands before us." Chapter XI. — The Mother and the Sunday School. Of all the auxiliaries of the Sunday school — and there are many — the mother is the most important and influential there is. And this follows necessarily from what the mother is : she is the heart of the home. Her spirit broods upon it, and is the grand formative force that falls upon every child. The destinies of the children are in her hands. She sows the seeds of future harvests. She implants the 'liliijj ,-mttmmmM 15!. 54 principles of future actions. She gives direction to the currents of hfe. As the potter has power over the clay to form one vessel to honour and another to dishonour, so has the mother power over the hearts of her children to form them to vice or to virtue. Wordsworth sings most truthfully : " Our childhood sits, Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne, That hath more power than all the elements." The mother commands this throne ; she nurses the child and nourishes it with her life. She ministers to it not only food, but feeling, and fancies and faith. She may thought- lessly trifle with the far-reaching power in her hands by treating her children merely as dolls to be dressed and dandled ; or she may with a wise-hearted love seek to form their minds to a deep affection for, and a thoughtful appre- ciation of all that is beautiful and true and good. Being in league with the central power of the child's life she may make it or mar it for time and for eternity. If there is one fact, one grand and prominent fact, that the lives of all men teach us, from the beginning of the world until now, it is this, that the influence of the mother is para- mount, superior to all others ; it is felt forever. It is never lost ; it may be weakened by conflict with other influences, but it is never lost — cannot be lost. This is what is pointed to in these words in 2 Chronicles xxix. i : '* His mother's name was;'' namely, the formative force and abiding influence of the mother upon the child, the youth, the man — ** His mother's name was." Suppose it was Abijah^ as in this scripture — Abijah the good, then Abijah the good makes Hezekiah the good. A good mother makes a good king. Or suppose it was, as in the twentj'^-second chapter of the same book : ** His mother's name was Athalia," •* that wicked woman," as she is called in the WF] 55 seventh verse of the twenty- fourth chapter, then we are prepared to hear what follows, ** he also walked in the way^ of the house of Ahab ; for his mother was his coun- cillor to do wickedly." It is this determining energy of the mother exerted upon the child, and felt through all the after life, that is marked by this frequently recurring phrase in the Books of Kings and Chronicles : '• His mother's name was." The atmosphere and elements of motherhood in which a child is cradled and reared do more for it than all else beside. Let Moses be nursed by his own mother, a believer in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and she will do more for his life in its essential principles of faith in God and love to his people than all the learning of Egypt is able to touch, far less obliterate. Let Joseph be taught by Rachel till he is a lad of fifteen years, and his character is so matured that he can endure the fiercest assaults as seeing him who is invisible. John Newton's mother died when he was seven years old, but he testifies that to her care he owed that bias to religion, which with the cooperating grace of God, reclaimed him and brought him back to the paths of peace. Dr. Samuel Johnson relates that he never could forget the pious injunctions of his mother, given when he was too young to remember anything else. Sir Che les Reed bears witness with special feeling, to the same experience. Robert Haldane, too, gives this testimony : " My mother died when I was very young, I believe under six, yet I am convinced that the early impression made on my mind by her care was never entirely effaced ; and to this, as an eminent means in the hand of God, I impute any serious thought which in the midst of my folly would' sometimes intrude upon my mind, as well as that still small voice of conscience, which afterwards led me to see ii 56 that all was vanity, without an interest in that inheritance which can never fade away." Marcus Aurelius, the phil- osopher, and Emperor of Rome, tells us that he learned from his mother *• piety, and beneficence, and abstinence, not only from evil deeds, but from evil thoughts.'' Jules Michelet in his '* Joan of Arc " says of the maid of Orleans : ** While the other children were taken by their father to work in the fields, or set to watch cattle, the mother kept Joan at home sewing or spinning. She was taught neither reading or writing ; but she learned all her mother knew of sacred things. She imbibed her religion, not as a lesson or a ceremony, but in the popular and simple form of an evening fireside story, as a truth of a mother's telling, * * * * What we imbibe thus with our blood and milk, is a living thing, is life itself." Dr. Charles Hodge, the Princeton Theologian, once wrote thus : " To our mother, my brother and myself, under God, owe absolutely everything. To us she devoted her life ; for us she prayed and laboured and suffered." This is the rule ; no doubt there are exceptions, but they are exceptions, and are we believe very few. The characters written early on the clear tablet of the heart by a mother's love are never erased ; never obliterated ! never ! They are like letters cut in the bark of a young tree, they grow larger, longer and broader every year. They are like impressions made on glowing iron, which when the iron is cooled, are held fast with all its mighty strength. Now, this fact, undisputed and indisputable, touching a mother's influence is suggestive of some important consid- erations. And the first is, that the mother should be careful of her own spiritual life. I say spiritual life, because that is the foundation of all her life. It is on that that the whole outer and upper superstructure is raised. That precept has the profoundest meaning when applied to BR! 57 her : " Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life " — not thine own merely, but thy child's also. Thy heart is where the child is cradled and schooled and c^iltured. The colours and forms and facts that after- wards beautify and embellish, or darken or destroy his life are all determined by yours. Your heart gives the atmosphere and sunshine in which the child grows and develops. Remember that, and it will enforce this consid- eration constantly. I often think that more care is taken of flowers than of children. How they are cared for and cultivated ! They are planted in prepared soil, kept in a suitable atmosphere, preserved against insects, and scorch- ing heat and freezing cold, that they may grow and bloom ; and yet, that is the very kind of nurture the child needs. He is a tender, sensitive plant in the garden of life, and requires to be enfolded in an atmosphere of love, and care- fully preserved from every hurtful influence. Little things affect him mightily : for he is a little thing himself. The least defects in the spiritual life of the home touch him deeply, and tell upon all his future. How much need there is then for a sweet, healthful, pure, warm spiritual energy at the heart of the mother, which may make the surroundings of the child all they ought to be ? A second consideration is this, that the child should be kept constantly under the injluence and authority of the Word of God. We have often read of fathers and mothers taking their children to celebrated men that they might lay their hands upon them and speak to them some word of wisdom that might influence all their after life. Against this I have nothing to say. Only I would urge that the mother should let the child feel the hand of God upon his head, and let him hear the voice of God speaking in his ear, whose hand is more magnetic and whose voice is more wise and tender and loving and inspiring than all others. i 58 All mothers may hear with the greatest advantage and profit what was spoken long ago to Hebrew mothers on this point : *' These words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart ; and thou shalt 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." (Deut. vi. 6-9.) God's law was to be in the heart of the mother, and then, touched with all the love and tenderness and grace of the heart, it was to be the theme of conversation ; the primer, and second and third book for the child. The mind was to be pre-occupied by it ; filled with the light and love of it ; charmed through it into godliness. A story is told by Adolphe Monod, of Paris, of the power of the pure Word of God upon the hearts and minds of children. He became acquainted with a family, the father of which was a pronounced infidel ; yet all the children were walking in the truth. He asked the mother how this could be accounted for ; her answer was : I keep the Bible lying open on the table, and if any question is asked, it answers ; if any difficulty is proposed, it meets it ; if any error is brought forward, it refutes it. The Bible has accomplished all this. The Word may be sown, and not spring up immediately and bear fruit, but we must ever remember that it is incorruptible — " the incorruptible seed of the Word " ; and if that is sown by the hand of motherly affection it shall surely some day bless the heart. A third consideration is this, That unceasing prayer should be made for the child. In other words, he should be committed to God, placed by prayer in his hands. For 59 the Supreme Goodness alone sees all evil and can protect him against it, and knows all the future and can prepare him for it, and understands what is best, and will confer that upon him. Prayer is no mystery to the mother ; she sees deepest of all into its very heart. At night while she sleeps her infant cries, and like a larum bell it wakes her at once. The child-cry is always heard, and the great God with His mother nature hears our every cry, and answers quickly and lovingly. I only mention this, for I believe with Mrs. Barrett Browning that : " In a mother undefiled Prayer goeth on in sleep as true And pauseless as the pulses do." But let me mention one fact that gives a wide and won- derful significance to prayer. It is that fact which is the very central thought of the Book of Job, that which all the book was written to illustrate and set forth, namely, that the current of man's natural life is liable to the interference of spiritual agencies ; that there are creatures above our ken, intelligences of vast power and wisdom who come in as factors in human existence, and of which we have almost no knowledge. How necessary then is it that the child be committed to God who knows all I Under the buckler of his care only is he safe — perfectly safe. Give him as Hannah did Samuel ; plead for him as the mathers of Richard Knill and Samuel Budgett pleaded, whose prayers were influential in their conver- sion. Prayer never fails, never fails. Summing up, every instruction may be put into this short rule, namely : *' Be yourselves what you would have your children be.'' This is the greatest power in training a child. Example ! and as the proverb has it, ^* Example i 60 is stronger than precept,'' that is, precept is only in word, but example is armed with all the energy of the life, and life-power is greater than all others. If you would have your child pious, be pious yourself. If you would have your child prayerful, truthful, gentle, pure in thought and speech, generous in heart, noble in action — then, be all these yourself. Dorothea Trudel, of Mannedorf, known all the world over, as one who wrought wonders by simple prayer, tells us that it was her mother's example that taught her the mystery. She saw what she learned, living before her eyes. She walked in the presence of it, and it fell upon her like the sunlight, and it penetrated and filled her whole nature. Ah, that is the great secret of home culture. We are to seek graces in our children, through the gracious power of our own life ; and we may be assured that there is no grander work here ; none that repays so well ; none that blesses our own hearts so much. Mothers who act in this spirit will labour on, and on, till fruit appears, through childhood, and boyhood and early manhood too. The blessing sought is too precious to be easily abandoned without hope. Dr. Thomas Mc- Crie, the eminent Scotch preacher, and well-known biographer of John Knox, has often told with strong feehng an anecdote of his mother. He was not a Christian when he left home to attend the University of Edinburgh. His mother's heart trembled for him in prospect of the temp- tations of the city and the snares of college life. She walked with him some distance on the road to give him a few parting counsels. Then, climbing over a fence into a field, she led him behind a rock, where, shielded from the view of passers-by, she put her hands on his head and prayed earnestly for God's blessing to keep him from evil and make him a noble and useful Christian man. To 6i that prayer Dr. McCrie always referred as changing his whole life. Of such a mother it is written : " Her children rise up and call her blessed.'' They are a monument to her praise. Children so trained are the greatest aid the Sunday school can have. Hence mothers are either helpers or hinderers of this work. They send either the rock to the plough and the seed, or the prepared soil, that soon is covered with luxuriant fruitage. Mothers be earnest, devoted co-workers with your Sun- day-school band, that you may all rejoice together over the conversion of the children. Chapter XII. — The Culture of the Child's Thought. emp- She him into from head from To It is a question of deepest import, this : Do we pay suffi- cient respect to the thoughts of our children ? Are we careful enough to educate them aright ; to guide them into right channels ; to place due limits to them to keep them from running into extravagance ; to fashion them by the Word of God to truth, to purity, to righteousness, and to expand them in this direction into all possible perfection ? This is a great question which we may not deal lightly with. The proper guidance and development of the child's thoughts is, in the deepest and truest sense, the formation of the child's character. In the child's thoughts lie all the feelings and forces of all the convictions and prin- ciples that shall in due time distinguish the man's activity. No truer word was ever written than that of Words- worth : " The child is father of the man ; " and never has 62 it been more beautifully expanded than in his celebrated ode : " But for those first affections Those shadowy recollections Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Are yet a master-light of all our seeing : Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal silence ; truths to wake, To perish never ; Which neither listlessness nor mad endeavour Nor man nor boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy. Can utterly abolish or destroy." We cannot realize too powerfully that this is the real seed- time of life. The care bestowed upon the child at this period, in the right culture of its thoughts, will be seen ever after in justness of conception, in soundness of judgment, in force of expression and in nobleness of life. The thought-life is the true life of every man : " For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he." And the bringing of the thought into harmony with the mind of God, as revealed in the Scriptures, is the very highest and deepest and broadest and richest culture that the human mind can have, There is no culture to be compared with it. Matthew Arnold, one of the greatest apostles of culture in our day, defines culture in these words : ** Knowing the best that has been thought and known in the world." Accept- ing this definition, we ask, where can this be found so readily and so perfectly as in the Bible ? Other books are like boxes of sand with a chance precious stone hid away among it ; but this is a box of pearls and sapphires and diamonds.' Other books are the records of men's thoughts ; this is the record of God's thoughts — and these so revealed to men in all kinds of mental condition and earthly cir- cumstances, as that there is no mind into which they will 63 not find some door of entrance. This is The Book for Man — to enlighten, to renew, to sanctify, to form him to the image of Christ Jesus. And how much there is in it for the child, to awaken its thought, to nourish its imagi- nation, to create for it a bright, cheery world, with a loving father at the heart of it ; to teach it how to comport itself in the midst of all circumstances, to prepare it for endur- ing hardness ! How much ? Everything that is neces- sary. One of our greatest modern thinkers sa5'^s, " Children think much more, and much more deeply, than we are aware on religious subjects. I remember that I was seriously exercised upon the doctrines of election, free agency, etc., by the time I was eight years old." John Ruskin, in his " Fors Clavigera," gives us an interesting account of the influence the Scriptures had on his mind in a certain direction. He leaves out what would, have been most interesting to us here — their religious effects ; but of that we can have no doubt, his writings are a living witness to their spiritual power. H. ^lys: ** My mother forced me, by steady toil, to lea/n long chapters of the Bible by heart, as well as to read it, every syllable, through aloud, hard names and all, from Genesis to Revelation, about once a year ; and to that discipline — patient, accu- rate and resolute — I owe not only a knowledge of the Book which I find occasionally serviceable, but much of my general power of taking pains, and the best part of my taste for literature Once knowing Deuter- onomy xxxii., Psalm cxix., i Corinthians xv., the sermon on the Mount, the most of the Apocalypse, every syllable by heart, and having always a way of thinking with myself what things meant, it was not possible for me even in the fooHshest times of youth, to write entirely superficial or formal English." In the life of the late Duchess of Gor- don we have an illustration of this influence of the Word 64 of God equally strong with these. When the Duchess visited her infant schools, she singled out a little boy and placed him on her knee, and asked the school this ques- tion : " What does Jesus mean when he says, ' Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven ? ' " All stumbled in the answers. She then turned to the child on her knee and asked the question, and he answered, " A little child kens that it can do nee thing alone.'' What did the Scriptures do for Timothy, who knew them from a child? (2 Tim. iii. 15.) The Word of God is the grand instrument of culture for the child, and should be used constantly and faithfully and the highest desires will assuredly be realized. It is the best of all treasures wherewith to enrich the child for the life that now is and that which is to come. i* I Chapter XIII. — The Method of the Culture of the Child's Thought. All educationists now recognize the fact that there is a regular and successive development of the mental faculties, and that teaching to be successful in the highest degree must have regard to this development, must be in accord with it. Otherwise there will be continual difficulties and discouragements both to teacher and child alike. To go on with ease and sure progress there must be conformity to nature. As Hugh Binning said concerning the Gospel : " The order of the Gospel is a great part of the Gospel.!' So may we say of culture, the order of culture is a great part of culture. Each step prepares for the next, and makes the next easy, and hence there is a solid and satis- factory upbuilding and growth that endures ; there being TrJ it wit be M I [tee :ord and go |mity ppel : )el.:' rreat and ;atis- )eing 65 no need for tearing down in order to rebuild on a more correct principle. The true order of mental development being found, we may go on cheerily in our work, assured that it shall stand. Now, in the child that faculty that is earliest active is the memory. It is like the child itself in its early growth, ever crying for more to feed upon. It has in its heart a great hunger, a hunger that can hardly be appeased. Eye and ear and hand are ministering to it, and it grows by what it feeds upon. What provision shall be made for supplying the memory with treasure for time's duty and eternity's enjoyment ? What shall be done to enrich it ? Give it suitable por- tions of the Word of God. The Lord's prayer, the twenty-third Psalm, the first Psalm, the Sermon on the Mount, the fifty-first and fifty-third chapters of Isaiah,, the Gospel of John, the Book of Proverbs. A whole por- tion, complete in itself. An illustrative story will help the memorizing of the passage ; or a dramatic reading of it. The old Scotch plan, even in secular education, was a good one. Dr. David Brown in his memoir of Dr. Duncan says : '* The alphabet and other elementary helps to begin- ners printed on the fly-leaf of * The Mother's Catechism ' and ' The Shorter Catechism,' gave the scholars their first lessons. Then came the ' Proverbs of Solomon,' printed as a schoolbook ; and when the simpler portions of this were got over, the children were ' put ' into • The New Testament,' and then into * The Bible ' — which completed their reading education." What fine, strong, invigorating food for the memory was there. Truth ! Truth ! That is the best provision that can be made for it. Stock the memory with God's Word. Preoccupy it with truth. It matters not much as to the form. It may be metrical, or pictorial, or proverbial, or plain prose. I f; 66 r I "■ •nil Dr. Philip Doddridge was instructed by his mother, before he could read, in the history of the Old and New Testament by means of some pictorial Dutch tiles in the corner of the room they occupied ; and he informs us that her wise and pious reflections on the Scripture stories were the means of making on his mind impressions which in after life were never effaced. Isaac Walton in his life of Dr. Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, speaking of the influence of his father upon him, says : *' By frequent conversing with him, and scattering short apothegms and little pleasant stories, and making useful applications of them, his son was in his infancy taught to abhor vanity and vice as monsters, and to dis- cern the loveliness of wisdom and virtue ; and by these means, and God's concurring grace, his knowledge was so augmented, and his native goodness so confirmed, that all became so habitual, as it was not easy to determine whether nature or education were his teachers." The next faculty developed in the child is imagination ; the imperial faculty of the soul. Its office is one of the noblest, as Mrs. Browning has so sweetly sung ; " Imagination, given to us to bring down The choirs of singing angels overshone By God 's clear glory . ' How shall this faculty be nourished and fed ? No book can compare with the Bible for meeting the wants of this faculty. " Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales," '* Robinson Crusoe," and scores of others are everyway a thousand leagues behind the Bible in supplying the imagination with grand, lofty, overawing conceptions. Take for instance the following pictures, all photographs of realities ; mark that, for why should the imagination be nurtured by lies ? — the crossing of the Red Sea, Exodus xiv. ; Jacob's vision at Bethel, Genesis xxviii. ; the increase of the widow's oil, of chj m^ mm 67 rand, that, I?— the jion at V s ■2 Kings iv. ; the destruction of Sennacherib's host, 2 Kings xix. ; the vision of the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire to Elisha's servant in Dothan, 2 Kings vi. ; the deliverance of Peter from prison. Acts xii. ; Christ's ascen- sion into heaven, Acts i. ; the Passover, Exodus xii. ; and these are only a few of the grand and impressive pictures of which the Bible is full. Let the imagination be filled with these. They are expanding, elevating, strengthening, gladdening to the soul. I heard a minister tell at a late Sunday-school Convention, how, having heard the story of the Passover read, it so filled his imagination that he could not sleep ; and at the dead of night he arose from his bed and went to the bed-room door where his parents slept and rapped them up to ask if that was all really true. Ah, that is the glory of these stories that they are true. And the child's imagination is feeding on wheat, not on chaff. Think of the power for good lying in all these stories properly explained to the child ! The next faculty that comes powerfully into play is the judgment. In this sketch we are not taking up all the faculties, but only those whose office it is to rule, and in so ruling at successive stages form the epochs of mental development. As the child's life wears on he puts on more of the man, and it is when judgment is exercised that character is becoming permanent. The clay under the hand of the potter has grown into a definite form, and now it is being hardened, fixed. What provision shall we make for the culture of the judgment. Much is already treasured up in the storehouse of the memory, and much lives in the richly furnished ^* chambers of imagery.'' Is more needed yet ? Then there are the doctrines of the Word on all questions that may come up. Sound judgment can only be formed by these, for these are God's " judgments." And in what attractive forms . -f' ncmamaaa !! 68 have we the teachings of God, in histories, in biographies, in letters, in poems, in experiences ; all winsome. •' The Bible," says Dr. Philip Schaff, " is not to be regarded as a book so much as a. force.'' It is the principal educational force for the mind of man ; because, while it is full of great thoughts, they are true thoughts, that build up the mind while they enlarge it ; and while it is full of distinctions, they are everlasting distinctions that lie in the very nature of things, that strengthen the judgment while they sharpen it ; and while it is full of gorgeous pictures, they are the report of facts, facts that are to bear upon the lives and destinies of men. This then is the highest text-book, and the best mode of culture: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." Chapter XIV. — The Father and the Children. More and more in our times the education of the children IS falling into the hands of the mother, and is being left to her loving and thoughtful care. The father, who may be a man of business, has so many calls upon him, and his time is so occupied from early to late that he cannot spare any hours for looking after the highest interests of his little ones ; or he may be a workingman, and his life is so full of toil and weariness that he has little inclination to under- take new tasks after the heavy work of the day is over. He craves rest and must have it. The mother by her position in the family, and her having, necessari/y, more to do with the children than the father, 'and the nature of her duties being such as they are, she is led to attend very much their Christian culture. The mother-heart in her would soon break if she could not. The love of her chil- Hii 69 ildren eft to ay be ad his spare little o full nder- over. y her ore to of her |d very in her r chil- dren is her life. She must labour for them, and according to the light that is in her she does labour for them ; and that with a patience, and a perseverence, and a self- sacrifice that is beautiful. But does this release the father from the sacred and solemn obligations that rest upon him ? Does this exempt him from his duty ? Surely not. The work of no other one, however faithfully performed, can do that. He is the head of the family, and in the eye of the law of the land, and in the eye of the law of God, he is responsible for the character of his household. It is he alone who is addressed (no doubt, the individuality of the mother being, in the eye of the law, merged in him): ** And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath : but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." (Ephes. vi. 4.) The father is not at liberty to leave all to the mother ; he is bound to be the leader in every good thing in his own house, and in t\e midst of his children. The influence of both parents is to be felt upon the children ; and that because there are elements and characteristics that are peculiar to each. The father-nature is different from the mother-nature. They together meet different sides and susceptibilities of the child-nature. The father is the fountain of authority from whom issues the commanding voice of law ; the mother is the fountain of tenderness from whom flows the winning sweetness of love. The father represents the awe- inspiring elements ; the mother, the attractive and alluring elements of character ; and these are to be blended and interwoven in the conduct of religious home culture. It is a great gain to a child to have a distinct feeling of fatherly thought, and affection and instruction enfolding it. It is a treasure. John Flavel, the* faithful Puritan preacher, says in one of his sermons, as he speaks of having a stock of prayers laid up, ** For my own part, I must profess before [ ir- rfiMl i\i 1 • i ii '^> I ii 70 the world that I have a high value for this mercy, and do from the bottom of my heart bless the Lord who gave me a religious and tender father, who often poured out his soul to God for me ; le was one that was inwardly acquainted with God ; and, being full of love to his children, often carried them before the Lord, prayed, pleaded with God for them, wept and made supplication for them. This stock of prayers and blessings left by him before the Lord I esteem above the fairest inheritance on earth. Oh, it is no small mercy to have thousands of fervent prayers lying before the Lord filed up, as it were, in heaven for us.'' Going beyond this feeling, it is better still for the child to have a memory of acts done for its spiritual welfare. Acts are monumental. They stand forth in the mind, boldly, through all the after life ; and whenever conversion takes place, what depth and pathos enter into the words, *' My father's God," (Exod. xv. 2.) Sir Matthew Hale, the righteous judge, not only spoke to his children at home, but when away from home " on circuit " he wrote them letters *♦ On Religion," " On Speech," " On the Lord's Day," *' On Sickness," introducing them in these notable words, *' Dear children, I intended to have been at Aderley this Whitsun- tide, desirous to renew f/wse cou7tsels and advices which I have often given to you^ in order to your greatest concernment* namely, the everlasting good and welfare of your souls hereafter, and the due ordering of your lives and conver- :>ation here." This shows a genuine fatherly affection toward the children. One whose grace and loveliness are imperishable. In Lord Brodie, the ancestor of Elizabeth Brodie, Duchess f Gordon, we have a fine example of the old Scottish patriarch, who not only, as Burns has sung, observed family worship, reading out of the ** big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride," but also addressing them on iiiiiiii 71 Jrodie, le old sung, Bible, m on engaging to be the Lord's. This is an extract from his diary: "I spoke a word this night to the children, and enquired of them if they desired to serve a good Master, and were willing to give up themselves soul and body to God, to take him to be their Father, their Master, their God, and to engage themselves to be his children, to do his will, that he may serve himself of them whilst they lived in this world. They professed that they desired it and were willing. . . . This night I did before the Lord admonish, examine, reprove and exhort my daughter ; and that it may the more deeply sink into her heart I caused her to write down her confession, and purpose, and promise with her own hands : ' This day I desired to give up myself to God ; it is my heart that I desire to give him» and not my tongue only. I desire not only that the Lord would be witness, but that he would- be cautioner and surety in this covenant, that by grace I may overcome- This Lord's day I have taken new resolutions upon me to be the Lord's wholly, and not to live any more to sin. And in sign and token of my unfeigned desire and purpose* I have in the sight of God subscribed this confession and covenant with my heart and hand. — Grissel Brodie.' " This he did with the other children also. And this covenant- ing^ sealing impressions and awakening larger desires after good, could only be productive of hopeful influences to the soul. It was at least an anchor cast out to grapple the Rock and a bulwark raised against swelling tides. And it was a great means of blessing to many. It is matter of regret that there is so little fatherly anxiety for the salva- tion of the children now calHng forth this patriarchal action. Dr. Lyman Beecher was wont to take his children apart and pray with them and for them, explaining to them meanwhile the way of salvation ; and after that, he wrot^ ■iM UMiliiiiliii A i; 72 to them earnestly, lovingly, tenderly, yearning over them with unspeakable affection. These cords of love cast about the heart in early days by father and mother are seldom broken ; they make their subjects fast bound to the throne of God. They never utterly fail. The greatest blessing children can have is godly, faithful Christian parents. What loss to the child there is without this ! Who can utter all the loss ? There is, ist, Imperfect teaching and development. The wholesome law of the father is wanting, with its authority, a^'d wisdom, and binding force. His personal influence, upon the soul is not exerted, and is consequently lost. The strong father-affection with its tenderness, and sympathy, and joyfulness is unknown to the heart. How many cords are absent therefore which ought to have bound up and braced the whole nature ? How many ! No marvel, if there be an imperfect development. 2nd. There is no help given to the understanding of the deepest and grandest of Bible truths — the Fatherhood of God. Through the human we reach up and climb to the divine. But here there is no thoughtful, brooding love; no wise, gracious counsel ; no forward-looking care ; no actual provision made against the time to come ; no mighty help tendered ; no overshadowing protection afforded ; the child- nature is without any such consciousness, any such ideas living in the mind through the action of the father. His neglect robs the child of the highest conception, or at least does not assist to reach it ; and this neglect makes father- hood a mere mockery. 3rd. There is, consequently, unless a pious, painstaking mother has worthily filled the gap, a heart untutored, and a mind unprincipled, and a young life ill-prepared for the deceits, temptations, snares and pits of a godless world. Oh, but these mothers do nobly and shame the father ! I! ii ther- 73 What would children do without them ? But the children have a claim on the father's care, and they ought to have their claim honoured. How sad it is to read such words as these from the pen of John Angel James of Birmingham : " My father had very little influence, and took comparatively little pains in the formation of his children's characters." How joyous to listen to these words of Thomas Carlyle and Norman Macleod. Long ago Thomas Carlyle spoke of his father's house as having no corner in it not filled by the glory of God — his father was a godly Presbyterian elder — and now, in his " Reminiscences " just published, he speaks of his father thus : *' Oh, my brave, dear and ever-honoured peasant father, where among the grandees, sages and recognized poets of the world did I listen to such a sterling speech as yours, golden product of a heart and brain all sterling and royal. This is a literal fact, and has often filled me with strange reflections in the whirlpools of this mad world." Saith Norman Macleod : " Were I asked what there was in my father's teaching and training which did us all so much good, I would say, both in regard to him and my beloved mother, that it was love and truth. They were both so real and human." '^ Love and Truth!'' What more is wanted? These are the spirit and substance demanded in all true Christian training of children. They positively embrace everything that is essential. [king and the lorld. ther 1 74 Chapter XV. — What Books Shall the Children Read. This great fact must not be lost sight of, that among the potent educational forces of the home, next to the teaching and life of the parents, is the silent, subtle and all-pervad- ing influence of the books that are read by the children. There is, as Frederick Denison Maurice has finely put it, a friendship of books, and that, too, to none more real and living and enduring than to children. What they read creates for them a spiritual world, which becomes every- way more to them than the actual outward in which they are living. The characters, the actions, the scenes, the sayings, enter as elements into their life ; they imprint themselves on their memory, and dwell in their imagin- ation, and exercise a prevailing power upon their actions. The reason of this has been wisely given by John Milton in these words : " Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are ; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon's teeth — and being sown up and down may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book ; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature — God's image ; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself — kills the image of God as it were in the eye." Illustrations of this indestructible energy of books are not wanting. Samuel Johnson tells us of Cowley, that, " In the window of his mother's apartment lay Spenser's ' Faery Queene,' in which he very early took delight to read, till by feeling the charms of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecover- Ui^fi eling over- 75 ably a poet." Richard Baxter informs us of the value of certain books to him. Being under spiritual concern a poor man in the town lent his father an old torn book, entitled, " Bunny's Resolutions." '* In reading this book," he observes, " it pleased God to awaken my soul, and show me the folly of sinning, and the misery of the wicked, and the inexpressible weight of things eternal, and the necessity of resolving on a holy life, more than I was ever acquainted with before. The same things which I knew before, came now in another manner, with light and sense, and seriousness to my heart.' After this Dr. Sibb's * Bruised Reed ' and Perkins' ' Of Repentence ' and * The Art of Living and Dying Well,' and ' The Govern- ment of the Tongue,' did further inform me and confirm me. And this without any means but books, was God pleased to resolve me for himself." It was the perusal of Cook's Voyages, whilst instructing his pupils in geography, as school-master at Moulton, that led William Carey to contemplate the moral and spiritual degradation of the heathen, and to form the design of communicating the Gospel to them, which was afterwards so heroically Carried out. The reading of Wilberforce's Practical View led the great Dr. Thomas Chalmers out of legal bondage into the liberty of the sons of God, and he was henceforth a new man. This celebrated book did the same for Leigh Richmond, who wrote the " Dairyman's Daughter," which has been a fountain of life to many souls- Illustrations of the life-giving power of books, of how they determine and control the entire course of those who read them, are almost numberless. And their effects upon the minds of children are deeper and more lasting than upon grown men, and that with this peculiarity, they are less pronounced. If a man reads a book that exercises a decisive influence upon him, it forms an epoch in his lite ;. H^SiB&ttiilUii 76 but if a child does that, it is unobserved, because there is little yet with which to make a contrast, and the life of the book is received as freely and unthinkingly as the air that it breathes. And it is this very fact that ought to make parents and guardians exceedingly careful that only good books shall be read by the children. But what kinds of books are good books ? Answering generally : books that are pure in thought, and that will quicken in their minds high, noble and generous conceptions ; books that are wise and true, and that will give to them right views of the world, and healthy views of life and duty ; books that are full of life and instruction, and that will inspire them with courage to act manfully and worthily and heroically in the presence of difficulties and antagonisms. Every book they read ought to be a fount of inspiration to do right, to think wisely, to speak truthfully, to live well^ and at length to die happily. Isaac Walton, of the *' Complete Angler," felt this when he inserted in his will this clause : *' To my son Isaac I give Doctor Sibbes' * His Soul's Con- flict,' and to my daughter his ' Bruised Reed,' desiring THEM TO READ THEM SO AS TO BE W^LL ACQUAINTED WITH THEM." Books for children must have a charm about them, to win them, and to keep them reading. They must interest ; hence the wonderful magic a story has upon the minds of both young and old. It chains them fast. What books excel in this the Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe ? Would that all the children read had the same charm ! Dr. James Hamilton, of London, had for a long time in his mind a scheme of writing the history of the Church of Scotland, something on the plan of Sir Walter Scott's . '* Tales of a Grandfather," for young people. ** For," he said, ** if that history could be learned in the nursery, or at school, it might do something to forestall the present 77 5oe lirm ! |e in irch lott's he or ksent spirit of indifference or hostility towards our kirk, and, perhaps, something more." This scheme, we regret to say, was never carried out. Had it been done, it would have been very attractive, as much so as a fairy tale. Mrs. Charles, in her Schonberg Cotta Series, has done good service in this department. She has with great taste and tenderness and skill dealt with the times of Whitfield and Wesley, Luther, Oliver Cromwell and the Pilgrim Fathers, and Alfred the Great. Few books are so charm- ing as hers. All the principle events in the history of the Church might be treated of in the same sympathetic spirit and with the same judicious calmness. And all the great doctrines of Christianity, the principles of moral phil- osophy, the discoveries of science, and the most common points of civil law might be so woven into the web of a story that they would find entrance into the minds of the young, and through the fascination of the story be fixed there for ever. With these subjects they ought to have as early an acquaintance as possible. Agesilaus, the Spartan King, when asked what boys should le^irn ? admirably answered : That which they must use when they are men ! That is a sound principle of education, and applies to all children. Jean Paul Richter says in answer to the question : " What is the best kind of stories for children ? Oriental and romantic tales seem the most suitable : such as many of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments," Herder's "Palm Leaves," and Krummacher's "Parables." Children are little Orientals. Dazzle them with the wide plains of the East, with brilliant dew-drops and bright-tinted flowers. Give them, at least in stories, the impulse which shall carry them over our cold northern rocks and north capes into the warm gardens of the south. Let your first miracle be, like Christ's, a turning of water into wine, of fact into poetry." This is being done, more than ever before, iiiiiiiMii 78 by many excellent writers ; done slowly but with amaz- ing success. For it must be remembered that writing to children is like talking to children, one of the most difficult undertakings, Yet, take as a sample of successful writing to children, and that too, on the most abstract and momentous themes, these little - books of Frances Ridley Havergal, entitled : " Morning Stars, or Names of Christ for his Little Ones." " Little Pillows, or Good Night Thoughts for the Little Ones." '* Morning Bells, or Waking Thoughts for the Little Ones." These are little talks, so sweetly said, so plain, so pointed, altogether so winsome, that we can think of nothing better for the chil- dren as a Christmas box, or a New Year's present, or birth- day gift, with a request to them to read them, as they were written to be read, daily. Children's books of the right kind are multiplying fast ; the London and New York Religious Tract Societies, and many first-class publishing houses are doing their best to supply the demand for wise, loving, truthful, wholesome literature for the little ones. There is no doubt that many miserably poor, and often actually poisonous stories have been written for children ; stories full of wrong views of God and life and duty and human relations ; stories which have debased the mind, and hardened the heart, and embittered the life ; stories which have fallen on their souls like a blight. Watch has to be kept against any such being read by them. The discovery that Bismarck made on his way to Paris, of school-books filled with lies, which he called the saddest sight he saw in France ; and the discovery Joseph Cook made in Boston of the same character, school-books full of the boldest violations of historical veracity, and passages plainly intended to inflame uneducated readers — all by Roman Catholic priests — are but instances of a work that i^SS^i^i 79 is wide-spread — the falsification of all the great truths on which our life and hope are bdilt ; and which are set forth in the most charming way. Parents must watch zealously against the entrance of any of these, in whatever guise, into the home. They are destroyers of spiritual life and peace. This work is done most effectually when good books are selected and commended by the parents them- selves. Children should not be at liberty to read anything and everything. The motto should be, " Only choice food for mind and soul." Chapter XVI. — Some Mistakes in Training Children. It has always been an exceedingly difficult duty to perform with entire satisfaction, to train up children as they ought to be trained. And that arises, mainly, from what children are ; they are persons, they have a mind, and a heart and a will of their own, which give them each an individuality which must be recognized. The potter can shape the clay upon the wheel into whatever form he chooses ; the cabinet-maker can make anything he pleases out of the walnut or pine ; the blacksmith can forge the iron or steel into any pattern he desires ; and the sculptor can fashion the marble block into the image of man, or beast, or flower as he list ; but it is altogether different in training up a child. These all work upon dead, inert matter that is utterly passive under their hands ; but in forming a child to nobleness and virtue, spirit, free, volatile, wilful spirit has to be controlled and conformed to the ideal character in the mind of the parent. And that requires the exercise of every Christian grace ; thoughtful consideration, to •I lil Hi 80 adapt means to ends ; love, to draw out the heart with its mighty affections ; prayer, to engage help from on high in securing the object sought ; faith, in the grand possibilities open to God for the child, though far beyond the power of man ; and patience, that the seed sown may have time to grow. But in the very best, how much is wanting, and with them how many mistakes are made. Mistakes often comparatively small, yet exerting an evil influence on the lives of their children. Some of those we purpose pointing out, and offer what may assist in correcting the evil. A very common mistake that is made is this : For- getting that they are only children, and not men or women. Great injustice is done to them in this, for so much is expected of them that they are incapable of performing or realizing. What they really are must always limit, and in a great measure determine, what we may look for from them. To expect a joyous, lively, happy-hearted child, that skips about quite careless of all surroundings, like the lambkin on the lea, to be staid and sober like one with tha weight of sixty summers on his head is quite unreasonable. It is unnatural. And to fi^ht against nature is always to lose the day. Yet many parents, and these chiefly among the cultivated classes, put their children under such restraint that the child-nature loses its freshness, and sweetness and bloom. Goethe, in his " Autobiogr.'xphy," calls this *' a great contradiction," and adds : " I refer to the fact that they are urged and trained to deport themselves moderately intelligently and even wisely, to give pain to no one from petulance or arrogance, and to suppress all evil impulses which may developed in them ; but yet, on the other hand, while the young creatures are engaged in the discipline, they have to suffer from others which in them is lepri- manded and punished. In this way the poor things are brought into a sad strait betv/een the natural and civilized wmmm 8z states, and after restraining themselves for awhile break out according to their characters into cunning or violence.'* Augustine, in his " Confessions," speaking of his child- hood, says very truthfully and with much force as to the grievousness of the mistake of which we are speaking: '• Our sole delight was play ; and for this we were punished by those who yet themselves were doing the like. But the elder folks' idleness is called ' business ' ; that of boys being really the same is punished by these elders, and none commiserates either boys or men. For will any of sound discretion approve bf my being beaten as a boy bef ause, by playing at ball, I made less progreF in studies which I was to learn, only that, as a man, I might play more unbe- seemingly ? Anti what else did he who beat me, who, if worsted in some trifling discussion with his fellow-tutors, was more embittered and jealous than I when oeaten at ball by a play-fellow?" Let the children be children, and speak and act as children. He who is never a child is not likely ever to be a man. Another mistake often made is this ; A vacilating enforcement of nnthonty. That is a very serious matter, for none have sharper eyes to note any weakness than children, and when they see any relaxing of the rein they quickly take advantage of it. It is with the authority of parents as with any chain, it is no stronger than its weakest link. A cool, firm tone of command is most influential and most salutary. Boisterousness is always a proclama- tion of weakness, while quiet, low speech always betokens force and reserved strength. Sometimes orders are given and laws laid down thoughtlessly which are not enforced^ either because they cannot be or because they never were intended to be, and in either case this is an evil done to the child and parent alike. The parent loses his power over the child, and the child loses his respect for the 82 parent. Hence it ought to be a principle constantly acted upon, never to command the doing of any thing but what musf be carried out. Let the authoritative word, spoken after much thoughtful consideration of all the circumstances and of all the requirements of the case, be law, with which there w'll not and cannot be any trifling and of which there cannot be any evasion. This is one of the highest and best moral lessons the child can have. As Rev. R. W. Dale, of Birmingham, properly observes : " Parental com- mands and parental discipline are of the nature of an external revelation of moral law." And " what was a mere parental law to a child of ten, comes, through the child's obedience to it, to shine out in its own light and to carry with it its own authority by the time the 'child is fifteen." Many things contribute to lessen the parental authority, and none more than the lack of that manly character that takes an interest in all that affects the children. Character is felt within the home as well as without the home. This is one of the principal sources of efficient authority. It seems to be hinted at in that Word of God respecting Abraham : " I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment ; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." Dr. Thomas Guthrie, in leaving Arbirlot for Edin- burgh, determined not to lose his command over his children by totally neglecting them, hence he laid his plans as described in the following passage : ** Living in the parish, on the very borders of sin and misery, the hours of the day were exposed to constant interruption from my poor, wretched parishioners when I was in the house- But most of the day was spent outside among them ; and by evening I was so tired and exhausted that I was fit for nothing but the newspaper, light reading, or the lessons or 83 It for fns or play of my children. Any way, I had resolved, on coming to Edinburgh, to give my evenings to my family ; to spend them, not in my study as many ministers did, but in the parlour among my children. The sad fate of many minis- ter's families warned me to beware of their practice. Spending the whole day in the service of the public, they retired to spend their evenings within their studies, away from their children, whose ill-habits and ill-doing in their future career showed how they had been sacrifieed on the altar of public duty. This I thought no father warranted to do." Would that many ministers and merchants would follow in the steps of Dr. Guthrie ! It would make many homes, renew others that languish, and fill all with a presence and a power strong as life, and fragrant as new blown roses or new mown hay. It' would give them warmth and attractiveness beyond all conception. Another mistake made in training the children is this : Not insisting on the perfect doing of what is commanded . Allowing things to be only half done. Passing over disobedience. Is that not the true description of wilful disregard of any commands ? And what habits grow out of it ! habits that are the ruin of bright hopes and great abilities. All admire perseverance as an element of character ; but all are not careful to note that it is devel- oped chiefly by doing everything as completely as it can be done. By always doing the very best we can do. The highest happiness in life, and not unfrequently the greatest success, springs out of the heart of this fact, as an oak out of an acorn. Goetl s father saw clearly what danger lay in imperfect doing. Goethe says: " My father was particu- larly pertinacious on this point of completeness. What was once undertaken must be finished, even if the incon- venience, tedium, nay uselessness of the thing begun were plainly manifest in the meantime. It seems as if he regarded X ■ i 'a \-$% l'li:iil '. ;V^l*;-'W*ri'.'i!i.iil"»3SIi,"!(:^r.' J i 1 84 completeness as the only end, and perseverance as the only virtue. If, in our family circle, in the long winter evenings^ we had begun to read a book aloud, we were compelled to finish, though we were all in despair about it and my father himself was the first to yawn. I still remember such a winter when we had thus to work our way through Bower's ♦'History of the Popes." It was a terrible time, as little or nothing that occurs in ecclesiastical affairs can interest children and young people. Still, with all my inattention and repugnance, so much of that reading remained in my mind that I was able in after times to take up the threads of the narrative." Goethe's experience is common to all who have gone right through to the end of any book or of any duty ; whatever the difficulties, disagreeableness, after it has been done, the mere doing has developed and strengthened an element in the character which is of inestimable value in this work-a-day world. The mistake we are speaking of makes children and men molluscous creatures ; the correction of it makes them strong, stalwart vertebrates. Justice to them demands that they shall by all means be inspired with desires after the noblest possible character. And that they shall be taught that it is largely the result of faithful and self-denying toil. This will save them from vain expectations and sad disappointments, and nerve them to noble effort. « 'I 85 Chapter XVII. — Other Mistakes in Training Children. The mistakes made in training children are very numerous, but we do not intend dealing with them all, only with a few of those of such broad and striking character as are open to the eyes of all observers. In addition to those already referred to, we would instance as another, the not checking and correcting extravagant speech. Jean Paul Richter speaks like a philosopher on the *' Truthfulness " of children. He says, after speaking in the strongest way possible of " Lying, that devouring cancer of the inner man " ; — *' During the first five years they say neither what is true, nor what is false — they merely talk.' Their talking is thinking aloud ; and since the one half of thought is fre- quently a *' yes," and the other a " no," and both escape them (though not us), they seem to lie when they are merely talking to themselves. Further : at first they find great pleasure in exercising their new art of speech, and so they often talk nonsense only for the sake of hearing their acquisitions in language. They frequently do not under- stand some word that you have said — little children, for instance, often confuse together to-day, to-morrow, yester- day, as well as numbers and degrees of compaiison, and so give rather a mistaken than a false reply. Agam, they use their tongiies more in sport than earnest, as may be seen in the long discourses they hold with their puppets, as a minister or an author does with his ; and they easily apply their sportive talk to living people." No doubt, there is much truth in all this. Much clear insight. But are they to be permitted to go on without being helped to see the cor- rectness or incorrectness of what they utter ? Surely not. Jean Paul's correction is exceedingly judicious, though 86 1 1 ); we venture to think he does not go far enough ; he says : •' In all these cases, when the form of a lie is not to be shown in any dark glass, say merely, — don't talk nonsense,, speak seriously." It is not well rashly to criminate the children, to pronounce against them when much may be questionable ; it is always well to give them the benefit of the doubt, lest they be hardened to evil. But, often knowingly, purposely, they speak aside from the truths reporting the facts incorrectly with intention to deceive — and between such times and others parents must distin- guish — and when they do, they must be corrected with all the wisdom at command. Dr. Samuel Johnson on one occasion when the education of children was alluded to said : ** Accustom your children constantly to this (strict attention to truth even in minute particulars) ; if a thing happen at one window, and they when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them ; you do not know where deviation from truth will end." Boswell : '* It may come to the door ; and when once an account is at all varied in one circumstance, it may by degrees be varied so as to be totally different from what really happened." Our lively hostess, whose fancy was impatient of the rein, fidgeted at this, and ventured to say ; *' Nay, this is too much. If Mr. Johnson should forbid me to drink tea, I would comply, as I should feel the restraint only twice a day ; but little variations in narrative must happen a thousand times a day, if one is not perpetually watching." Johnson : '* Well, madam, and you ought to be perpetually watching. It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world." This course pointed out by Dr. Johnson is the safest for all interested to pursue. It leaves no treacherous exceptions open. It is a direct dealing with the evil. •Pass^- 87 Another mistake is : in not meeting the need of their minds. Christian culture demands necessarily the exclu- sion of much, but it admits more than it excludes. It banishes the bad, it brings in the good. This fact cannot be too distinctly recognized and acted upon, that the growing nature of the child is ever crying out for food ; it must be fed. It is not sufficient, therefore, merely to take away the harmful, we must put in its place the healthful. When the mother sees her babe playing with the scissors or the fork or any dangerous thing, what does she do ? she does not rudely pluck it out of the babe's hand ; no, that would only the more endanger the child ; she presents it with an orange or a peach, and almost unconsciously the dangerous thing is dropped and the more delightful object seized. What provision, then, shall h6 made for the grow- ing nature of the child ? In a letter of Charles Kingsley's,. full of sage advice, he says, to whom is not very clear, but evidently to a boy : " If you wish to be like a little child,, study what a little child could understand — nature ; and do what a little child could do — love. Use your senses much and your mind little. Feed on nature, and do not try to understand it. It will digest itself. It did so when you were a baby the first time. Look round you much."" This is excellent, and no doubt under the guidance of Mr. Kingsley ample provision would be made for the mind's need. And may not all who have the charge of children do the same ? There is publ shed a series of science primers that place the grand outlines boldly and clearly before the mind, so that with a little study great treasures of knowledge might be opened to the children. Treasures in which they would revel, and in their joy enrich them- selves for all time to come. There are science primers on Botany by J. D. Hooker ; Chemistry, by Prof. H. E. Roscoe ; Physical Geography, by A. Geikie ; Physiology, iiirl m " iiiyiiii ii(')i||| lit ! ^ 88 M. Foster ; Astronomy, by J. N. Lockyer ; Physics, by Prof. S. Balfour ; Geology, by A. Geikie. The facts found in these, the incentives they give to further study, the wholesome, healthy influence they would exert on the minds even of the youngest is beyond calculation. Another book may be mentioned as giving answers to many ques- tions that children ask, namely, Dr. Brewer's " Science in Familiar Things." That is in itself an invaluable repertory. Another mistake is : not cultivating in them the sense of God's overshadowing presence and love. This becomes easy, if the course we have indicated be pursued for meeting the need of the child's mind. God can then be seen in His handiwork everywhere. As a Living God, as a Loving God, as an Omnipotent God, as an Omni- present God everything speaks of Him. Rightly instructed, every beautiful flower, every growing tree, every glancing river, every smiling field, every gireat mountain, every moving cloud, every peal of thunder and flash of light- ning, every shower of rain, every human face, every indi- vidual thing will call up the thought of God and give a new impression of his presence and character. Charles Kingsley, in the letter from which we have already quoted, says: "Read geology — Buckland's ' Bridgewater Treatise,' and you will rise up awe-struck and cling to God." The sense of God's presence brooding over men is imparted best through His works. Afterward faith in His word, and a conscious realization of the promises strengthen this sense. In the case of grown men who have remained godless till late, this last mode comes first, but with rightly trained children, last. From the works of God to the Word ; especially through those intermediatory passages descriptive of God's woiiderful works, thereby sealing all that has been seen, is easy. God who has been seen 89 !1 working there, is heard speaking here ; speaking only as He can speak, and how much to children of their life and duty ? He regards the reality of their faith, the genuine- ness of their love, the sensitiveness of their souls to the highest and purest motives. He says to them : " Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour 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." When this consciousness of God's presence in nature and in revelation is awakened, then is all the life hallowed. Every bush is like the bush Moses saw, aflame with God, and every occurrence and event under the guidance of His hand. He is the ruler over all. His presence overarches and interpenetrates and upholds all things. By Him all things subsist. The last mistake we shall mention is : a lack of con- sistency. This is to the sharp eyes of the child specially noticeable. If the precept is nullified by the example, the child leels it ; through its very nature goes the jar of contradiction. This we conceive to be one of the most awful mistakes that is made. It has a most tremendous neutralizing influence all along the line of instruction and prayer and hope. It falls like a blight on all. Nothing escapes its moral death. The parent, therefore, must walk ever thoughtfully and circumspectly, seeking to keep in close accord the word and the dee^l, the precept and the example, saying with David in Pi aim ci., 1-2 • "I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O, when wilt thou come unto me ? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart." Prof. W. G. Hoge, in his *' Blind Barti- meus," has this apposite paragraph : " Professing parents often lay plans for their children directly opposed to the spirit's work. Let one example illustrate my meaning. In your morning devotions you ask God to convert your go l|i i children — even on the next Sabbath to send His word with power into their hearts. Surely you should pray so, and I will suppose you do. But, before the day is over, yield- ing to the tide of corrupt worldliness around you, or the pleadings of your unconverted children, you arrange for a dancing-party the next week, and issue your invitations. '• Only a children's dancing-party, and only with the piano you know," you say patronizingly and cheerfully to conscience, though somehow conscience looks a little blank at these nice distinctions, and does not return your smile. But let that pass. Suppose, however, God answers your prayer on the Sabbath, and one of these children weeps under the sermon, and comes home downcast and distressed ; what will your condition be ? To say the least, will you feel no embarrassment ? no temptation to seem not to have observed it, until your scheme is carried out ? no regret even that these feelings should come just then ? How awkward that when you had meant your daughter to be so bright and beautiful in the dance on Monday, that she should be convicted of sin, and fleeing from God's wrath and weeping so, on Sunday ! On the other hand, will you have no fear, lest the excitements of the giddy scene shall quench the Spirit, and harden the heart forever. And, besides all this, would not these convictions take you by surprise, and send a guilty pang to your heart ? Could you be, as you ought always to be, expecting in strong faith the answer of your prayers, and ready to bless God with a clear heart, and go in secret with this dear anxious soul, and mmgle your tears, and together beseech God for mercy ? " This is a prime inconsistency, and perhaps in the bright, white light of it, others may be seen more clearly, and henceforth avoided. We all know that tenfold force, aye, an hundred-fold force is given to teaching when it is well 91 supported and illustrated by example. While without example, it is weak ; but with an example in direct oppo- sition to it, it is ruined utterly, and the credit of the teacher at the same time. The strength and active energy of every word of the parent upon the heart of the child lies in an example con- formable with it. What a grand thing it is to be able to say, as Sir Matthew Hale does in his letters to his child- ren : " I have been careful that my example might be a visible direction to you." This is the sure seal of all instruction. Chapter XVIII. — Sabbath in the Home. How is Sabbath spent in the home ? is a question that embraces far more than at first sight appears. It means; What is the true character of the religious life of the home ? What value does it attach to God's Word ? How does it regard its solemn commands and warnings ? What awe does it inspire it with ? What spiritual power does it communicate to it, and invest its life with? What sense has it of the presence of the Holy? How does it realize the spiritual and unseen? All this it means, and much more. The manner in which the Sabbath is spent in the home tells out in an unmistakeable v;ay what the essential nature of home piety is. It is an unconscious revelation of the reality and completeness, or of the unreality and nothingness, of its faith and love and obedience to God. It gives an exact and minute account of them all. On other days excuses may be made for the neglect of religious duty, and for the exercise of a worldly spirit, because of I ; !?'|i i %. dV. V'^V.i o^. \^Ts% IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I MS. IIIIIM 141 IM 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 ^ 6" — ► v^ <^ /a VI c^" el ^1 C? />^ .^ ■% / / >^ Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. 14580 (7)6) 872-4S03 4is ^ #J i?< t 92 the urgency of business engagements; but not so on the Sabbath — the world-whirl ceases awhile that we may de- vote ourselves to the worship of God, in a time solemnly set apart for His service. The Sabbath is a day of high and holy religious solemnities in the Church, in the Sab- bath School, in the home. It is the day when the way- worn and weary *' draw water out of the wells of salvation " with joy. It is a bright, ^^ladsome, cheery day in church and school ; what should it be in the home ? The brightest and best of all the seven. One full of the feeling that George Herbert has filled the chalice of that poem with, entitled " Sunday "— " O day most calm, most bright, The fruit of this, the next world's bud, Th' endorsement of supreme delight. Writ by a friend, and with His blood ; The couch of time : care's balm and bay ; The week were dark but for thy light ; Thy torch doth show the way." The whole poem is too long to quote, else we would fain do it, it is such a grand outpouring of happy and thoroughly appreciative feeling of the priceless value of the sacred day. The Sabbath day is the key to the week. The week takes its distinctive character from it, and is either strong or weak, joyous or gloomy, according as the day has been sanctified or profaned. God encircles with promises and blessings of the highest kind the honouring of the Sabbath day. (See Isaiah Iviii. 13, 14; Iv. 2.) The experience of the Jews, as read in their Chronicles, was in accord with this. And not the Jews only, but the Christians also ; for the seventh-day rest is not a mere Jewish institute, but an institute for man as man. This is the testimony of the Truth: "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." The witness of Sir Matthew Hale to mfssmmm 93 the blessing attending strict religious observance of the holy day shows that these promises hold true for the Gen- tile as well as for the Jew. He says, in one of his letters to his children, ** I have, by long and sound experiencey found that the due observance of this day and of the duties of it hath been of singular comfort and advantage to me ; and I doubt not but it will prove so to you. God Almighty is the Lord of our time, and lends it to us ; and as it is but just we should consecrate this part of that time to Him, so I have found, by a strict and diligent observation, that a due observation of the duty of this day hath ever had joined to it a blessing upon the rest of my time; and the week that hath been so begun hath been blessed and pros- perous to me; and, on the other side, when I have been negligent of the duties of this day, the rest of the week hath been unsuccessful and unhappy to my own secular employments ; so that I could easily make an estimate of my successes in my own secular employments the fol- lowing week by the manner of my passing of this day; and this I do not write lightly or inconsiderately, but upon a long and sound observation and experience." A grand testimony that ! And to impress this on the children's minds, what is better than this stanza: — "A Sabbath well spent brings a week of content, And strength for the toils of the morrow. But a Sabbath profaned, whatever be gained, * Is a certain precursor of sorrow." A great injustice, a far-reaching injustice, is done to the children when they are robbed of the Sabbath day by any use of it for othfer purposes than those for which it was set apart. In that way they are prepared for being willing and obedient servants of him whom Charles Lamb calls "Sabbathless Satan." Let the Sabbath be sanctified in the home ! How ? That is a question of the greatest f |i iiil ' ||j m m m ii 'f i: I !l> 94 importance, to which no better answer can be given than that of the Westminster divines — " By a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recrea- tions as are lawful on other days, and spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of God's worship, except so much as is to be taken up in works of necessity and mercy." That is a most wise answer, and a most comprehensive directory. It is thoroughly Biblical. It breathes the best spirit of Puritan theology. It is not necessarily gloomy. God's worship is not gloomy. Its character is given in this call of the one hundredth psalm : *' Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing." James Anthony Froude in his ** Bunyan," speaking of the Sabbath of the Puritan period, says, " The gloom of a Presbyterian Sunday was, is, and forever will be detestable to the natural man." The same is equally true of an Episcopalian, or a Methodist, or a Baptist Sunday that is gloomy. Gloom is not gladsome, neither is it godly nor religious. Mr. Froude speaks as if gloom were essential to a Presbyterian Sunday. Having had the great privilege of a strict Presbyterian home training in Scotland, within sight of its capital, we can affirm that, though it was sacredly observed, it was not gloomy. The very opposite of that. It was a day of family joy. All the members of the household were together. The father was the priest, and there were instructions and catechizings and praise. There were no idle sports, no dancing, leap- ing, archery, no empty, foolish laughter, but there were serious thoughtfulness and meditation upon sacred things and the singing of Bateman's beautitul hyriftis. The mem- ory of it is green still, and will forever be. We could say of it as George Herbert does, using the words in their best sense : — •• Thou art a day of mirth." 95 This is the experience of Dr. Guthrie, surely a competent witness: "The Sabbath was very strictly observed in my father's house; no fun, or levity, or week-day amusements were allowed : and we would almost as soon have thought of profane swearing as whistling on the Lord's Day. We were trained very much after the views (though the story presents these in an exaggerated form) expressed in the rebuke an old woman administered to the late Duke of Argyll. His Grace, then Lord John Campbell, had come to Edinburgh in command of a corps of Fencibles about the time the first Napoleon threatened to invade our island. He was an accomplished whistler, and had the habit, when absorbed in thought, of whistling some favourite tune. Quite unconscious of it, he was so engaged as he lay over the window of an hotel in Princes Street one Sundav morning before church time. He was suddenly roused from his reverie by the sharp tones of a person on the pavement below, and there stood an old woman with her Bible in one hand, shaking the other at him, and giving expression to her indignation in these words: "Eh! ye reprobat, ye reprobat ! "... I feel certain that stat- istics, which have no bias to either side, would show that the good old Scottish way of hallowing the Lord's Day is most favourable to morals and health and length of days ; that Sabbath-keepers have happier houses and longer lives than Sabbath-breakers; and that in this, as in other things, " godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come." It was the Puritan Sabbath that obtained at Kidderminster in the time of Richard Baxter, and that made its streets at night, through the recitation of sermons, the singing of psalms, the quiet of contemplation, like the aisles of a vast cathedral. The gloominess of a religious Sabbath must come from its being void of interest, naked of all that can engage Hi ■111 ■ (1- •hi :l t Hi', 'J Ml,, I'll* m I I':'! 96 mind or heart, not certainly from its proper and legitimate exercises; these wisely and judiciously carried out may become far more attractive than anything any " Book of Sports " may give liberty to do or license to indulge in. To make the •• Sabbath a delight " in the home, the parents must enjoy it themselves. Their spirit and feeling will diffuse themselves, and charm the hearts of the chil- dren. The old-time plan of having a preparation for the Sabbath is an excellent one. It not only marks off the day from all others, but it fits us for the enjoyment of it. And then, all the exercises of the day must be such as children can take part in and understand. If they are not, a dislike will grow in the mind and a distaste in the heart to the Sabbath day. Dr. Samuel Johnson says of this very treatment: "Sunday was a heavy day to me when a boy. My mother made me read " The Whole Duty of Man," from the greater part of which I could derive no instruction. When, for instance, I had read the chapter on theft, which from my infancy I had been taught was wrong, I was no more convinced that theft was wrong than before ; so there was no accession of knowledge. I fell into an inattention to religion, or an indifference about it, in my ninth year." Mr. Moody tells us of the aversion his bx)y expressed to the Sabbath, and how he said to Mrs. Moody, *' We cannot have our boy grow up to hate Sunday in this way ; that will never do. That is the way I used to feel when I was a boy. I used to look upon Sunday with a certain amount of dread. Very few kind words were associated with the day, etc." And then how the aversion was removed : ** My wife went to work and took those Bible stories and put these blessed truths in a light that the child could comprehend, and soon the feeling of dread for the Sabbath with the boy was the other way. "What day's to-morrow?" he would ask. Sunday." "I am glad." (( 97 This is the only way to make the Lord's Day attractive to children, by providing for them what they can enjoy. What stories may be told ; what sacred songs may be sung; what grand instructions may be given; what feel- ings awakened, and what impulses imparted if the day be rightly used. It will then become a birthday of all that is best in human life. A fountain that will send forth a perrenial stream of living water. And together they will be as Henry Vaughan so sweetly sings : — " Bright shadows of true Rest ! some shoots of bliss ; Heaven once a week ; The next world's gladness prepossest in this; A day to seek Eternity in time ; the steps by which We climb above all ages ; lamps that light Man through his heap of dark days; and the rich, And full redemption of the whole week's flight! " m !■' ai!l! i';ii and boy do. I used iad. letc." rent jssed I soon the ask. Chapter XIX. — The Play of the Children. Children play as lambs gambol and as birds sing. It is an instinct of their nature. If they are in good health they iniist play, it is a necessity to them. The vigorous and growing faculties of the mind, and powers of the soul must act through the physical frame. The mental and spiritual natures use the physical nature as their instru- ment ; and the play of the children is the ov::irflowing joy of a happy heart, embodying itself in numberless forms, but generally in imitation of what they see in their elders. We agree most heartily with Isaac Taylor in his concep- tion of a child's joy. He says, opposing the idea that it is merely animal and sensual: " A child's happiness is the happiness of the soul, much more than of the body ; his ■I 98 joys instead of staying in the sense, go through and through him ; and just as a babe of three months old smiles all over, when it smiles at all, and kicks with merri- ment, so does a child enjoy what he enjoys, with a throb of his every faculty." The children's play, while their strength lasts, is an unremitting exercise. This is the rule with children of a healthy habit ; the exceptions are exceedingly few. Among the exceptions we may place John Foster and John Milton and their like. John Foster is spoken of as being in " his childhood thoughtful, silent, and shunning the company of unreflecting boys." He ob- tained from his sedate behaviour, and intelligent observa- tions upon characters and events, the appellation of '* old- fashioned." He himself said in his early life, " I turn disgusted and contemptuous from insipid and shallow folly, to lave in the stream, the tide of deeper sentiments. There I swim, and dive, and rise, and gambol with all that wild delight which would be felt by a fish after pant- ing out of its element awhile, when flung into its own world of waters by some friendly hand." John Milton is, according to the French critic, Dr. H. A. Taine, regarded as describing his own childhood in these lines in ** Paradise Regained : " " When I was yet a child, no childish play To me was pleasing ; all my mind was set Serious to learn and know, and thence to do, What might be public good ; myself I thought Born to that end, born to promote all truth All righteous things." Children by force of nature play. And the real character of their play should be distinctly understood, that out of it may be brought something good and worthy. Play is the real business of their lives, they live for it, and in it, and through it. It is no occasional recreation with them, it is the gieat work of their early days. Montaigne says : 99 *' The play ot children is not really play, but must be judged of as their most serious actions." In play the children go through all the business of their little world with very much the same trials and triumphs, the same sorrows and joys, anxieties and cares, so far as their capacities go, as their elders. There is to them an intenr-e reality in it all : aye, a transcendant importance attachable to every act. Through their lively imagination the exceedingly small takes on the character of greatness, and the dead play- things become invested with life and motion. And in the use of them all the powers of the soul play in their full strength. And prosperous events fill the air with light, while adverse events fill the sky with the blackness of darkness. J. G. Whittier speaks with the wisdom of a keen observer when he says : " We are kpt to speak of the sorrows of childhood as trifles in comparison with those of grown-up people ; but we may depend upon it, the young folks don't agree with us. Our griefs modified and restrained by reason, experience, and self-respect, keep the proprieties, and, if possible, avoid a scene ; but the sorrows of childhood, unreasoning and all-absorbing, is a complete abandonment to the passion. The doll's nose is broken, and the world breaks up with it ; the marble rolls out of sight, and the solid globe rolls off with the marble." And through their play a wonderful development goes forward, both of the physical and the mental : both grow together. They are so closely related, — the avenues of impression, information and communication 1 ing in the physical — that whatever touches the one must influence the other. We speak in the truest way, when we say, as the mind is cultured, its tools, the senses, become sharper and better fitted for use. And through the full and perfect freedom enjoyed by the child, both improve rapidly and unconsciously. And knowing this the wisdom of the iii I M li lOO il parents is seen in guiding the children in their plays, turning them all, as far as may be possible, to good account. For this must never be forgotten, that since their play is really an expression of the unreserved and unhidden nature of the child, it takes on a moral character. It may seem to many to be of small consequence to over- see the play of a child, and correct any improprieties or mis-statements or ill habits into which it may be falling, but it is of the greatest consequence ; if the principle enunciated by Milton is true : " The childhood shows the man As morning shows the day." A child that deceives in play will deceive at other times, a child that is sterling and honest and incorruptible in a game will be so in other things. We may entertain no doubt of this. As John I.ocke in his book on education observes : " Nothing that may form children's minds is to be overlooked and neglected, and whatsoever introduces habits, and settles customs in them, deserves the care and attention of their governors, and is not a small thing in its consequences. . . . All the plays and diversions of children should be directed toward useful habits, or else they will introduce ill ones. Whatever they do, leaves some impressions on that tender age, and from thence they receive a tendency to good or evil ; and whatever has such an influence ought not to be neglected." Plato on one occasion was rebuking a boy for playing at some childish game — '* Thou reprovest me," said the boy, " for a very Httle thing." " Custom," replied Plato, " is no little thing." Therein lies the importance and also the incalculable benefit of early correction. In the early acts are the seeds of all habits and the mighty forces of all customs. They seem to be trifles, indeed, mere nothings ; lOI but they are the rills that grow to rivers, the fine gossamer threads that a breath can break, that left unbroken may become like ship's cables that hold them fast 'gainst wind and tide and sweeping current. Great and thoughtful care should be taken, therefore, to bring into the play of the children all the elements of beauty and the principles of righteousness and strength that would be found in the after-life. In it they should cultivate cleanliness (though often impossible, sand and dirt being a favourite article in play), order, number, design, beauty, justice, generosity, truth, patience, forgive- ness, love, etc. All the intellectual and moral powers may be brought into active and healthful exercise. Indeed, this is the great principle on which Froebal's Kindergarten system stands. He believed that the most important period of human education was before the age of seven, and that education to be successfully carried on with the child should not be done under a penalty, but as a play. He studied carefully the child-nature, and found these characteristic features in it, viz. : activity, horticulture or love of gardening, desire for completeness, artistic and imitative exercises, instinct for knowing, social instinct, religious instinct or God-trust. These are the seven stones on which his educational system is built. Taking advan- tage of these tendencies of the child-nature, it is education through well-directed play. Every parent solicitous for the spiritual well-being of his children may find many useful hints in Froebal's system in overseeing and directing the play of the little ones. All children are like Rem- brandt, they carry with them into the great world's work all that filled eye and heart in their early days. Rembrandt was in his youth sent to a Dutch miller, and was always beside the flour-mill. There was often seen against the wall a gleam of sunshine streaming through the mill on its I I fi ^ u I02 dusty machinery. That Hght pouring in on the darkness is painted in all his pictures. An inimitable chiaro- oscuro. The vision of his early days is rejected and perpetuated in all that he afterwards did. So is it with all. The direction taken in childhood appears in all after-life. i Chapter XX. — The Mother's Knee. The one truly and enduringly sacred spot on earth is the mother's knee. More sweet and tender memories, that moisten the eye, and gladden the heart, and regulate the life, cluster about it than any other spot, however dear and holy. That is the dearest and holiest of them all. It abides forever, like the Church of God, the symbol of preaching, and prayer and discipline ; the symbol of man's spiritual relations and of his soul's necessities. It is this first house of God, where he is taught divine things, where the revelation of the unseen first steals in upon his heart ; it is his first oratory, where he is instructed how to draw near to God, where he learns the prayers that he never forgets, and that never cease to charm him with their beautiful simplicity and loving directness ; it is his first school, where he is made subject to another will, that learning to obey he may be fit to rule. Hallowed spot ! fountain of untold blessings for the life of man. Usually it is first of all a place of prayer. There the lisping lips learn to lift up the heart to God, and the golden chain is forged that ever after is to bind the being to the Unseen ; a chain that holds even in the greatest stress of weather ; a chain charged with unspeakable good to the soul. John Randolph, of Roanoke, tells us that at one I03 time he might have become a French infidel but for the memory of his mother's hand upon his head as he knelt at her side to repeat after her the Lord's Prayer. Frances Rid'iey Havergal, in her brief autobiographical notes, gives us unmistakable evidence of her pious mother's training. When recording what she remembers of her soul-life after she was six years of age, she says, ** One sort of habit I got into in a steady way, which was persevered in with more or less fervour according to the particular fit in which I might be, every Sunday afternoon I went alone into a little front room (at Henwick) over the hall, and there used to read a chapter in the New Testament, and then knelt down and prayed for a few minutes, after which I usually felt soothed and less naughty." Her mother once said to her : " Dear child, you have your own bedroom now, it ought to be a little Bethel." When she was twelve years old her mother taught her this wise and beautiful prayer : " Pre- -pare me for all that thou art preparing for me.'' And a few weeks before her own death she referred to this saying . ''The words mamma taught me in 1848 have been a life prayer with tne." And so it ever is with all devout and thoughtful ones. The mother's knee is also the place of instruction ;. instruction of all kinds that bears upon the practical side of life — instruction in righteousness. Often it is poured into apparently heedless ears ; but being heard it is remem- bered arid acted upon with heroic bravery. The Rev. Newman Hall says : " The first thing that I can remember is sitting on my mother's knee and learning from her lips that glorious declaration, ' God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' I can still feel her hand on my head and see her earnest face, and hear the music of her sweet voice. The great truth tlliii 11 I! 111 104 I which was so precious to herself she desired her children to know, at least in words, from their earliest days." Mr* Hall, in giving his experience of the truth, says : " How dear that text has been to me ! " It moulded his life. But a mother's training goes all round the circle of the soul's wants, and touches upon all that the life will need in its world-faring journey. What careful training the following incident shows: "One day in London, when Thomas Carlyle was within a few months of eighty, he was walking in company with an American stranger who had that day called to see him. They approached a street crossing. When half way over Carlyle suddenly stopped, and stooping down picked something out of the mud, at the risk of being run over by one of the many carriages that were rushing past. With his bare hands he brushed the mud off and placed the white substance in a clean spot on the curbstone. ' That,' said he, in a tone as sweet and in words as beautiful as his companion had ever heard, * is only a crust of bread. Yet I was taught by my mother never to waste, and above all bread, more precious than gold, the substance that is the same to the body that the mind is to the soul. I am sure the hungry sparrows or a hungry dog will get nourishment from that bit of bread.' " Oh ! consider well the fact that lies beneath that. Carlyle about eighty years old, and his mother's early teaching is guiding him and controlling him still ! It has not faded out of sight ; it is as fresh and as clear in the heart as the day it was spoken, only far more deeply felt and realized. The teaching has passed out of the bare word into a living puissant principle. It has in the deepest sense become life. The mother's knee is also the place of correction. This is, though the last, not the least important of its functions. It symbolizes discipline. And happy is the man who has 105 the great gift of a mother who knows how to use the rod. Thomas Carlyle's aphorism will stand much testing : " No able man ever had a fool for a mother." The wisdom of the mother is seen in her discipline ; loving, tender, but firm and forceful it ever is. It is strong and steady. As the quaint Thomas Fuller puts it : " Our wise parent both instructs his children in piety, and with correction blasts the first buds of profaneness in them. He that will not use the rod on his child, his child shall be used as a rod on him,'' And what does one wiser than Thomas Fuller say on this pomt ? *' He that spareth the rod hateth his son ; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes." " Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying." ** Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child ; but the rod of correction shall drive' it far from him." That is God's teaching, and many parents are wise enough to act consistently on it, and with the best results. Who can tell how much the discipline of Gertha did to make Luther hate the deceit and evil symbolized by indulgencies ? He tells us himself that one day, for merely stealing a hazel-nut, his mother beat him till the blood flowed. That is believing action on the part of Gertha, the virtuous, chaste. God-fearing pride of Moerha. Boswell tells us that once when Johnson saw some young ladies in Lincolnshire who were remarkably well-behaved, owing to their mother's strict discipline and severe correction, he exclaimed, in one of Shakespeare's lines a little varied : '* Rod, I will honour thee for this thy duty." Consider it how we may, it is at the mother's knee that the foundation stones of all beautiful, noble, worthy and endur- ing characters are laid, in words and acts of no great importance, apparently, at the time ; yet by the steady enforcement and reiteration of them they are remembered, I'll m io6 regarded and acted upon to the enriching of the Hfe with qualities that are everyway desirable. The culture that the children need is mostly received here. And, therefore, no attention, no painstaking, no denial of one's own feeling is too great to attain the end that all should seek earnestly and continuously, namely, a lovely Christian character in children. Chapter XXI. — The Mother's Kiss. ' When Benjamin West was about seven years old he was left in charge of his eldest sister's sleeping infant while his mother gathered flowers in the garden. As he sat by the cradle watching, with the fly-flap in his hand, the child smiled in its sleep ; he was struck with its beauty, and seek- ing some paper drew its portrait in red and black ink. His mother returned, and snatching the paper, which he sought to hide out of sight, exclaimed to her daughter, " I declare, he has made a likeness of little Sally?" Then she took him in her arms and kissed him fondly. Long afterwards when West had become famous, and the companion of governors, and cardinals and kings, he was heard to say, •* It was my mother's kiss that made me a painter." No doubt that was true. His mother's approval was stamped with this seal of affection, and this determined the course of his after-life. This simple incident opens up to us a very interesting subject, namely, the effect of parental approbation in turning the stream of life-energy into one channel or another. West's mother only kissed him, but in that act lay a whole heaven of approving love. It declared more than words could utter. It transformed a I07 tendency of his nature into a dominant principle and made it rule. It was an act completed in a moment, but its influence endured ; it abode with him as a guardian and inspiring angel throughout his life. Parental approbation takes on many forms, according^ to the diverse character of the individuals. It finds expres- sion in all the appointments of the house. It is breathed by the pictures on the walls, by the literature on the tables^ by the furnishing of the rooms, by the flowers of the garden, by the demeanour and deeds of the parents; in a word, by all the ordering of home life. And it has this singular character, that it is more eflective than all the words, teachings, prayings, purposings of the parents com- bined — it works constantly. It falls upon the child-nature as the sunlight falls upon the flowers, and sinks into them, and colours them, and gives them their distinctive beauty^ It exerts a continued, quiet and prevailing influence, against which nothing can stand. The living faith in the Living God that Thomas Carlyle saw in his father and mother in the home at Ecclefechan forged for him the sheet anchor of his life — an anchor that held amid all the tempestuous, tossings of intense and terrible spiritual conflicts. Thomas Carlyle's faith in God was like that of the old Hebrew pro- phets, vital, strong and unquestionable. Whatever else he believed, he believed in God, and in God as the law- maker and law-executor of the universe, And therein lies the unconquerable might of his writings. One of the grandest parental gifts conceivable this ! An instance of the opposite character is given by the worthy tutor of Queen Elizabeth, Roger Ascham, in his " Scholemaster." ♦* This last summer," he says, ** I was in a gentleman's house, where a young child, somewhat past four years of age, could in no wise frame his tongue to say a little, short grace, and yet he could roundly rap Tf W i io8 out many ugly oaths, and those of the newest fashion, as some good men of four score years old hath never named before; and, that which was most detestable 0/ a//, his father and mother would laugh at it." Then Ascham observes; " I much doubt what comfort another day this child will bring unto them. This child using n^uch the company of serving men, and giving ear to their talk, did easily learn, which he shall hardly forget all the days of his life hereafter." This observation of the noble tutor is sound philosophy. The unreproved evil in the child, confirmed by a thoughtless laugh, is a leaven that will never cease to work, and that can only fill his days with misery. As a rule, what the parents approve the children will exemplify, and they find their approbation in their entire environment., They see it in form and substance, in the shining beauty and sweet chasteness, or in the unlovely and repulsive objects all about them. Mainly through the eye the earlier education goes on, and afterwards the things seen do much to awaken and influence thought and form judgment, and mould the character. It was because of this that Bronson Alcott, when he opened his school in the Masonic Temple in Boston, in 1834, provided for it a spacious room, handsomely fur- nished and beautifully ornamented, '* with such forms as would address and cultivate the imagination and heart." This is the account that Miss E. P. Peabody gives of it in her intensely interesting " Record of a School" : "In the four corners of the room, he placed, upon pedestals, busts of Socrates, Shakespeare, Milton, and Scott ; and on a large table, before the large Gothic window by which the room is lighted, the image of Silence ' with his finger up ' as though he said, beware ! Opposite this window was his own desk, whose front is the arc of a circle. On this he placed a small figure of a child aspiring. Behind was a log very large book case, with closets below, a black table above, and two shelves filled with books. A fine cast of Christ, in basso relievo, fixed into this book-case, is made to appear to the scholars just over the teacher's head. The book-case itself is surmounted with a bust of Plato. On the northern side of the room, opposite the door, was the table of the assistant, with a small figure of Atlas bending under the weight of the world. On a small book- case behind the assistant's chair were placed figures of a child reading and a child drawing. Some old pictures, one of Harding's portraits, and several maps were hung on the walls Great advantages rise from this room, every part of which speaks the thoughts of genius. It is a silent reproach upon rudeness." There was profound wisdom in tnis arrangement; it declared a true insight as to the nature of the child, and it made an excellent provision for it. The choice made ' spoke out clearly and unmistakably what he approved, what he thought worthy of reverence and imitation. And so do all the surroundings of the children, so far as they are under the control of the parents. It is, therefore, a matter of great importance to recognize and remember that whatever is loved, prized, honoured in the home, or despised and avoided, shall be so with those bred up in it. The spirit of the place penetrates the heart, and lays its spell upon it for long days to came. The spirit of Hamil- car's hatred of Rome embodied itself in his son Hannibal, and made him sweep with the storm of war over all the Italian cities, and keep the Romans in alarm for the weary, wasting period of sixteen years. The fine musical taste of the Rev. W. H. Havergal that made his home full of sweet symphonies, filled the soul of his daughter Frances and made her a composer of equally beautiful hymns and music with her father. And so of a § no thousand others. The approved in the home is potent in the Hfe of the children. No doubt there are exceptions to this rule, if the steady working of a principle may be so called, but they are only exceptions. Sir William Jones, the famous Orientalist, rose up out of the midst of exceed- ingly unfavourable conditions. John Berridge, of Everton, the earnest evangelical preacher, had solittle sympathy with the farming life of his father, that even the spirit of the farm house, and the charms of the market, where the sale and purchase of cattle was carried on, that his father said, with what feeling we may not say: "John, I find you are unable to form any practical idea of the price of cattle, and, therefore, I shall send you to college to be a light to lighten the Gentiles." And he did in God's good provi- dence become one of the greatest lights in England in his day. These are samples of exceptions, and only establish the rule. In the home life, and in the environment of the children, let the mother's kiss of approbation place its seal on all that is true, beautiful, noble, worthy of good report. All that shall live for ever. Chapter XXII. — The Illustration of the Lesson. We all love pictures. Children love them with all their hearts, and grown men are not a whit behind them in this, proving the truth of Dryden's verse : •' Men are but children of a larger growth." This love of pictures being inherent in the child-nature, the lesson as far as possible should be a picture ; shaped and fashioned and artistically wrought as much as it can p III be into a picture ; something that the mental eye can see and delight in, and carry away with it ; something har- moniously beautiful and lovely. Although the teacher knows nothing of colour, of fore- ground, middle-distance or background, of foreshortening or the laws of contrast, yet by his own instinctive sense of the becoming he may work up his lesson into a picture very rich and enchanting, one that may live in the imagination through youth and through manhood, and through old age, into the eternal hereafter. This is the true mode of teaching so far as it can be attained. Thomas Carlyle with deep insight into the nature of this fact, says : " Would'st thou plant for eternity, then plant into the deep infinite faculties of man, his fantasy and heart; would'st thou plant for year and'day, then plant into his shallow, superficial faculties, his self-love and arithmeti. cal understanding, what will grow there." How shall this be done ? Largely by a thoughtful and judicious illustration. As every picture is made up of a number of smaller ones disposed under the law of some ruling idea, so every mental picture has many smaller ones gov- erned in the same way, and these smaller ones may be illustrations, bringing out the thought into clear outline and with full proportions, so that it stands forth to the eye of the understanding, attractive and winsome and irresist- ible. This picture-making each teacher must do for him- self according to his gift. We turn, therefore, to the consideration of these questions : How shall we get illus- trations ? How shall we use them ? How shall we not use them ? The consideration of these questions is of interest to all who seek to train the young. I. How shall we get illustrations ? We shall get them by honest search for them, and by earnest endeavour to make them. Sometimes they will flash upon the mind : r I'i' ij '■I ■'M -J. If^P ?^1 ;i ■ 112 like lightening by the operation of the law of the associa- tion of ideas, that is, one thought suggesting another, or giving birth analogically to an illustration, usually pro- ceeded by " like," but ordinarly they have sought for, searched out, and gathered, And how many wide and rich fields there are for th"s — the fields of biography, history, science and art, and the ever-open and inexhaust- ible field of nature. To find the illustrations they must be sought for, the mind must be trained to recognize them. To do this we often need to read between the lines, and to see deeper meaning than lies in facts and experiences. It is only when the mind is roused and fired by some subject, and therefore intensely active, that figures are poured forth profusely ; so it is only when the mind is energetic and fully alive that it creates comparisons, and sees simili- tudes, and finds illustrations. Read science or biography or history with a quickened mind, and every fact is a symbol. And in the same mood walk forth into the fields, and there shall be found : " Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything." Emerson speaks thus sugges'ively of this matter: "The first care of a man settling in the country should be to open the face of nature to himself, by a little knowledge of nature, or a great deal, if he can, of birds, plants, rocks, astronomy, in short, the art of taking a walk.'' There are volumes of illustrations ready for use, such as Mr. Spur- geon's *' Feathers for Arrows," which may meet the wants of those pressed for time, or without a supply of books ; but it is a universal experience that what one's own mind has not fashioned and shaped lacks living interest, and takes to itself little force, unless there is a very cordial appropria- tion of the matter that is prepared for use. That appro- "3 o- priation may penetrate it with the spiritual magnetism of the soul, and make it reallv o'le's own. But illustrations are not only got by search, they may also be .made. It is well to employ the imagination one has in working out an illustration, in building up a mental image that may body forth a truth. At first it may be imperfect in outline, and rough in finish, but every well directed effort will cultivate this important faculty. We thoroughly agree with Dr. Joseph Parker, that a good deal can be done to improve the metaphorical faculty, and that in the line of his advice: *^Insist upon your mind giving you something in the way of illustration. Look for figures ; work for them ; take them in their rudest outline and improve them." The best master any one can have in this line of effort is the Master himself. Read the Gospels, and observe closely how he works out his illustrations from the most common material. How simple, and forcible and beautiful they are ! They are so true ; they have an imperishable splendour. At a great distance from the Master Jeremy Taylor ma}- be studied with this end in view, in his " Holy Living " and " Holy Dying," and also Latimer in his select sermons. When illustrations are found, or made, keep them, treasure them up in note-books. Mr. Spurgeon says : " Whenever I have been permitted sufficient respite from my ministerial duties to enjoy a lengthened tour, or even a short excursion, I have been in the habit of carrying with me a small note-book in which I have jotted down any illustrations which have occurred to me by the way." Dr. James Hamilton, in his life of Bishop Hall, whose quaint and wise sayings have long been admired and qi:oted, says : *' Many of his most striking and original remarks are the result of sagacious noting, and dexterously applying what passes before the eyes of other men too often to appear uncommon ; that is, to appear in any way remarkable." liil I'' ^,p-- 114 II. How shall we use them? ist. To lighten up dark places. What is self-evident needs no illustration. Who would expect light even from an electric lamp when the sun was shining in a cloudless sky ? The illustration is used only to explain, to make clear and easy of apprehen- sion, what is difficult to see and take up. It need hardly be said that there must always be something to illustrate. Without that, the illustration has no force. It is a dis- traction, p piece of unreason in a t-eacher. 2nd. To fix truth in the mind. A plain statement of important doctrine may not be very rememberable ; and a story, a picture before the mind, may bear into the memory all its precious teaching, and fix it there. This serves as a recapitulation^ and often effectually preserves the truth, just as the amber preserves the bit of moss or the quartz rock the frond of fern. 3rd. To adorn and make attractive the subject on hand. Then the illustration is like the bloom on the peach or the perfume-laden blossom on the rose tree. They are not merely attached, they are part of the tree, full of its life, and bearing to the eye its most beautiful expression. They are native to it. So must the illustration be in its adorning quality. Otherwise it is an unsightly appendage, a dark blot, rather than a delightful beauty. 4th. To gather up truth and tie it into one rich statement. As buildings are often crowned by handsome ornaments that complete their fine appearance, so illustrations may be used in teaching to crown and complete the lesson. Suppose the theme of the lesson has been, ** The import- ance of immediate decision for Christ " then the story of the Sibyl who came to Tarquin, king of Rome, with the Leaves of Destiny, may fitly gather up its teachings and apply them. Or suppose the subject has been, "God's patience with the sinful," this may be enforced by way of contrast by the fine Rabbinical story with which Jeremy 115 Taylor closes his treatise on the "Liberty of Prophesying," of Abraham and the thankless stranger. III. How shall we not use them. ist. Overmuch. Too many illustrations cover up the subject from sight, and defeat the object in view. Instead of enforcing it they enfeeble it. They, rather than the lesson, become the principal thing : and through their multiplicity they only distract the mind, and do not solidly inform it, or move it towards any specific end. 2nd. Away from the subject. Every story or illustrative quotation looks in some particu- lar direction. It points somewhere. It has a lesson to teach in a striking way. In using it, respect must be had to that. It must lead the mind in the same direction as the subject in hand. It must speak it out more clearly and impressivly ; if not, then it illustrates away from the sub- ject. And as it does so it is an evil — a destructive agency. 3rd. With false localization. Every illustration should be truthfully used. Sometimes illustrations are localized in an immediate neighbourhood, where they never happened. This is mischievous falsehood. Sometimes they are given as from the speakers own knowledge, to whom they are foreign as unknown regions and things. This, too, is a great evil, and should ever be eschewed. Every story and illustration should be honestly used and accredited to whoever is its author. By the kind of illustration indicated here, the lesson will be one harmonious whole, consistent, complete, beautiful, impressive, rememberable ; for as Keats sings : " A thing of beauty is a joy forever Its loveliness increases ; it will never Pass into nothingness." f V ii6 Chapter XXIII. — How to Read to Children. \\pi . i There are many fine arts cultivated with great assiduity to-day, that are well worth all the attention bestowed upon them, because they refine the feelings, educate the taste, embellish the life, and stimulate the soul to a higher, nobler, purer existence. But among these there is one sadly overlooked, and one, too, that ought to be cultivated with diligence and conscientious application, because it is a grand preparative both for the appreciation and prosecu- tion of all the others, and that is the fifie art of reading to children. This is not usually regarded as a fine art, but it unquestionably is ; for does it not open the eyes of the mind to see ? and does it not discover beauties in the object to be seen ? Is it not in the truest sense an inter- preter ? Does it not open up a new world to the soul ? Certainly ! Then it is a fine art, and as such it ought to be studied and employed ; and there is this considera- tion touching it that ought not to be overlooked, namely : both parents and friends, both young and old, all who desire to be useful in this line of things, may without much effort become proficient in it ; and exercising themselves in it there is endless encouragement, for none so well repay work on their behalf, nor are so truly grateful as the children. All who know anything of the little ones know that they love to be read to. They have an innate hunger for it. Their cry on every occasion when there is the least likelihood of it being complied with, is : "Tell us a story ! Read us something !" And they will sit still eagerly and patiently listening to even a very long reading. Many may object, and many do object to reading to children because they say they are not able to interest them, they are not good readers ; they cannot hold their 117 attention. But what conception have all such of reading to children? In nearly every case only the dramatic. They think only of making the reading as natural and life- like and vivid as possible, which is right ; but is this enough? Not quite. Something is wanted in addition to this. What is it ? It is that furnished in the educational course of Bronson Alcott, as described so graphically by Miss E. P. Peabody in her " Record of Mr. Alcott's School." In a recent visit to Boston, we were searching the shelves of the booksellers on Cornhill, and we came across the book just named in its " Third Edition, Revised 1874," and knowing frorri the judicious praise of Mr. Alcott's school by Joseph Cook, as " a school full of subtle thought," that it would well repay perusal, we eagerly seized it, bought it, and read it ; and we have not been disappointed. It is worthy of a place alongside Jean Paul Richter's " Levana," Locke, " On Education," "Home Education," by Isaac Taylor ; *' Education as a Science," by Alex- ander Bain, LL.D., *' The Science and Art of Teach- ing," by George Victor LeVaux, Roger Ascham's " The Schoolmaster," and Baroness Marenholtz-Biilow's ".Con- tribution to the Understanding of Frobel's Educational Theories." It reveals in Mr. Alcott a profound knowledge of child-nature, and an ability to deal with it on philosophi- cal principles, and a very encouraging success in the work, we would say a notable success. The book cannot help being to every reader of it a fount of inspiration. Among its many important teachings is found pre-eminent, this one, namely : How to read to children. We would give a few illustrative selections as the best that we can do with this hope that many of the friends of the children, may learn from them the secret of a grand educative power, and the source of an undying pleasure. " Mr. Alcott thinks," observes Miss Peabody, *' that every book read ii8 !*.- should be an event to a child ; and all his plans of teaching kept steadily in view, the object of making books live, breathe and speak ; and he considers the glib-reading which we hear in some schools as a preventative rather than an aid to his purposes. He has himself no doubt as to the ultimate result, not only upon the intellectual pow- ers, but upon the very enunciation of the words, which cannot fail to borrow energy and life from the thoughts and feelings that awaken within the soul of the reader." Here is a handful of illustrations, " He read from Thom- son's * Winter' * The Freezing Shepherd,' and asked, what was that about ? One said, about a man freezing to death in a snow-storm. Another said, about winter. What pic- tures came up in your minds most vividly ? A very little boy said, a cottage of little children crying. And so the rest. Mr. Alcott then be; .in to read the same story again, in a paraphrase, as most of the children seemed not to have taken clear ideas or pictures from the poet's own words. They all expressed afterwards how much better it was in the paraphrase." The ** Faery Queene " was opened, and Mr. Alcott be- gan : '* Goodness may be said to be at war with Wicked- ness, and Spencer has pictured out Goodness as a knight who goes forth into the world to combat with enemies. When I read about St. George, you may understand that he represents Goodness ; his enemies are the enemies of goodness. I shall first read about St. George's combatting with Error, one of the first enemies that Goodness meets in the world. He then read or rather paraphrased the description of Una, and told them that she represented Truth. She * inly mourned' because wickedness and error existed ; she was ' in white' because truth is pure, bright and innocent. He read the account of the Wood of Error and the adventure in it, in a very free paraphrase 119 nterweaving the explanatinn of the allegory. They list- ened with the most intense interest, and could not help exclaiming, as they sympathized in the various turns of the battle. At the end of the battle he stopped and asked them if he should go on, and the)' all exclaimed, go on ! go on ! He went on and read of the meeting with Hypocrisy, up to the scene in the House of Sleep. When he had finished, he asked, what has this taught you? One boy said, to resist evil. Mr. Alcott then went on to speak of the conflict of good and evil within themselves, and made individual applications which brought the subject home to each one's own experience. *' Mr. Alcott read in • Frank,' and he asked the children what pictures certain words brought up to their minds, and had several interesting answers. One boy said Try shaped itself as a strong man. And'another of five gave quite an elaborate picture of Day. He said he thought of an angel sitting on the fioor of heaven which was our sky, and letting down through an opening a cross in which was the sun. When he lets down the cross it is day, and when he draws it up it is night. He made appropriate gestures as he described this. Where did you get that picture 1 It came into my mind all of itself. When? Why, now. Did you ever think of that picture before to-day 1 No. In regard to some other particulars which were asked in order to ascertain if it was distinct and steady before his mind, he answered without hesitation." These will show how Mr. Bronson Alcott read to the children in his school in Boston, over forty years ago. And- we are sure a better system never obtained anywhere. It calls into play self-control ; and the active powers of the mind, the memory, the imagination and the judgment. It furnishes the mind with good, it sharpens the judgment, it stores the memory, it awakens and exercises the imagina- I20 tion. What far-reaching cuUure lies in it ! and it has this recommendation, that being pointed out, explained, it lies within the reach of any ordinary intelligence. If thought- ful preparation is demanded to read such authors as Mr. Alcott read, no true lover of the children will grudge it. ;jlu Chapter XXIV. — Spiritual Growth as a Source of Teaching Power. The Sunday-school teacher's work is not easy. It is not a holiday occupation that calls for no earnest thought, no good judgment, no effective execution. It is arduous, laborious and exacting ; demanding the best use of every faculty and of all treasured knowledge and experience, that there may be both freshness and fullness in it through all the Sabbaths of the year. It is a work calling for abundant supplies of material ; new material for exposition, illustration and application of the passage constituting the lesson. The text is given, it is true, but what can be made of the text ? It is a mine of gold ; how deeply can it be wrought ? It is a heaven of glory ; how far into it can the eye pierce ? It is a divine revelation ; how thoroughly can it be comprehended ? The text shall tell little or much according to the character of the interpreter. And that character is formed not only of a cultured intellect, a sound judgment, a vivid imagination, but also of an experience gained by living the truth. This last element is one of the mightiest as a source of teaching power. It goes far beyond all that is merely acquired, because it is inwrought ; it is of the soul itself, of its feeling, seeing, knowing. To live the truth is to grow in the knowledge of it, and at the same time it is to grow up into Him who is the truth. il 121 Growth brings its own revelation ^ith it. It is with the teacher as it is with our flowering house-plants — ^as they grow they bloom ; growth must go on, to produce the beautiful and fragrant blossoms ; if the ministering growth fails, power to bring forth bloom fails also. The crowning glory of the plant is its blossoms, and these proclaim its abounding vitality and perfect growth. A growing Christian shall be rich in wisdom, heavenly wisdom ; because of the advances he shall make into realms of light unknown to those who stand still ; because of his experi- ences of truth, through which he shall enter into sympathy with widely-separated orders and classes of people, indeed, with all classes, and so he shall see the truth as they see it, diversely, with "the eyes of common men, of the wicked and abandoned, of the weak and the strong, of the learned and the unlearned, of working men, of meditative women, and of little children." As the Christian grows up into Christ in all things he sees, and feels, and thinks and sympathizes with Christ's spirit and in Christ's spirit. And this teaches him more than all the schools. The devout and saintly George Herbert, whose joy it was to celebrate Christ's dealings with him in song, for he ^^ relished versing,'" sings of Christ's teaching thus; " How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean Are thy returns ! e'en as the flowers in spring." Then, having told us how his shrivelled heart recovered greenness, he goes on in this way : "These are Thy wonders, Lord of power, Killing and quickening, bringing down to hell And up to heaven in an hour ; Making a chiming of a passing-bell. We say amiss, This or that is ; Thy word is all, if we could spell." 121 W \