On Taking Things for Granted
The cliff-scaler, who lowers his comrade down the precipice, does not
take for granted the fastening around the tree or the stoutness of the
rope; but the Sunday-school teacher too often throws his young people
into the treacherous depths of thought and life with little care for
their life-rope's integrity or moorings. More than once or twice or
thrice in my own experience, after weeks and months of supposedly
thorough intercourse with my scholars, an awkward question, better
aimed by Heaven than by myself, has disclosed some fatal doubt, some
fundamental misconception. I had been taking for granted that my boy
really believed Christ to be divine, or that he had at least the
beginnings of a conception of the Saviour's mission to the earth, or
that he knew by experience the meaning of prayer, or that he actually
had confidence in a future life.
I have in mind a fine, thoughtful fellow, graduate of a famous college
and a church-member, whose very thoughtfulness, and the knowledge of
his religious activity in former years, led me, when he entered my
class, to take for granted his Christianity. After weeks of teaching,
it was only a chance question, in private conversation, that led him
to the frank admission that skeptical college friends had absolutely
destroyed his faith in Christ and the Bible, leaving him with only a
sad and bewildered hold on the God of nature. What Sunday-school
teacher has not been startled thus with disclosures of his own
carelessness in taking things for granted?
It is a mistake constantly to advertise skepticism by warning our
scholars against it, but it is no mistake to arm them against it. No
teacher has mastered his lesson until he has mastered every doubt
regarding it that any of his scholars is likely to entertain. "Will
this punishment seem unjust? this event fabulous? this person
mythical? this doctrine unreasonable? this miracle unreal? this author
apocryphal? these men and women mere creatures of imagination?" Such
questions as these are important for the teacher to consider,--_to
consider_, not ask in the class. Because to the teacher the account is
more true and vivid than an extract from yesterday's newspaper, he
takes it for granted that his scholars so regard it. They may put the
lesson story in the same category as Baron Munchausen or "The Ancient
Mariner," and such a teacher would be none the wiser.
I know of nothing _in the way of study_ that is so capable of firing a
Sunday-school teacher and class as Christian evidences. Remember that
this also is a study of the Bible. Why is it ordinarily thought so
dull? It is full of snap and point. Professor Fisher's short "Manual
of Christian Evidences," published by Charles Scribner's Sons at
seventy-five cents, stands next to my Bible as an aid and inspiration
in teaching that Bible. I keep several copies, and all of them are
usually in the hands of earnest scholars. Often when they are returned
the compliment is, "That book helped me so much that I have bought a
copy of my own." That means the conversion of a doubting Thomas.
"Why!" exclaimed one such reader, "I never knew before that there was
anything to prove Christianity but the Bible, or anything but the
Bible to prove the Bible."
A teacher that is not in the habit of questioning persistently and
searchingly can have no idea of the depth and at the same time the
shallowness of the religious thinking of the average scholar. Far too
many teachers prove everything by quoting the inspired Bible, taking
it for granted that their scholars accept the Bible as inspired; or by
referring to our divine Saviour, taking it for granted that their
scholars believe Christ to be a divine Saviour. Our scholars are more
shrewd than that. Their answers will be proper, but skepticism often
lurks beneath, ready to spring up in open infidelity, secret scorn, or
fruitless, formal morality.
Skepticism should never be anticipated, but it should _never_ be
neglected. It should never be dealt with before the class, if it can
be dealt with in private. But it is a teacher's first duty to _know_
the great truths of Christianity, and know _why_ he knows them. It is
his second duty to make certain that each of his scholars knows them,
_and can prove them_.
"But we cannot cover the ground without taking things for granted."
_Cover the ground!_ Superficial area, and superficial teaching!