come; foretells invasions of Sennacherib and Shalmaneser, the
dispersion of Israel, destruction of Jerusalem and Assyria,
and the birthplace and kingdom of Christ.
#Nahum#
A _consoler_ from Jehovah, foretelling the downfall of
Assyria, and repeating Jonah's denunciations of Assyria.
#Habakkuk#
Foretells destruction of the Chaldeans; utters song of praise
for the power and mercy of Jehovah, with confidence in his
mercy on his people.
#Zephaniah#
Prophetic warnings against Judah, and the Baal and Moloch
worship, ending with reproofs to Jerusalem, and promise of
final restoration.
#Haggai#
An arousement of the people to support Zerubbabel and Joshua
(the high priest) in building the Temple.
#Zechariah#
Encourages the Jews to push on in building the Temple;
foreshadows national history and the coming of the Messiah.
#Malachi#
Reproves the profanation of the priests in the New Temple,
and foretells the appearance of the Messiah to purify the
Temple.
The New Testament--Historical Books
#Matthew#
The nature of the Kingdom of Heaven; the miracles to
illustrate Jesus' teachings; the opposition of Pharisees;
Jesus as the kingly Messiah.
#Mark#
Emphasizes the deeds of Christ, the mighty Saviour.
#Luke#
Sets forth the redemptive character of Christ.
#John#
Emphasizes the deity of Christ.
#Acts#
The history of the founding and extending of the Christian
Church--under Peter and Paul.
The Epistles--Pauline
#Romans#
The summary of God's dealings with mankind, from first
adoption to sonship, showing sinfulness of human race; the
way of salvation; the Christian's duty and privileges; the
development of truth; personal messages.
#1 and 2 Corinthians#
(1) The church as it was at that time; reproof of the
factional spirit; intercourse with heathen; words about the
Lord's supper; resurrection of the dead. (2) The model
pastor; thankfulness for the removal of evils against which
Paul had written in the first letter; indignation at the
arrogance of his opponents.
#Galatians#
The "magna charta of Christian liberty." Contains details of
Paul's life. Salvation impossible through works of the law.
Brief outline of plan of salvation as given in Romans. Its
argument makes Christianity not a Jewish sect but a world
religion.
#Ephesians#
On the Ideal Church. Written to strengthen those who had left
heathenism, contrasting their present higher life with the
former degradation.
#Philippians#
On the Ideal Christian. Written during Paul's first
imprisonment in Rome--a letter of grateful affection, of joy
over the Philippian Christians, and comment upon his
imprisonment and prospects.
#Colossians#
On the Ideal Saviour. The supremacy of Christ as the source
of all spiritual blessings; the stimulus of Paul's own
example in pressing on to the truth; a warning against false
teachings; the effect of sharing in Christ's resurrection.
#1 and 2 Thessalonians#
(1) Gratitude for their acceptance of the Gospel; the glories
of resurrection and of the transformed body; (2) To correct
an impression that the resurrection was near at hand;
exhortations to perseverance, and appeals for the prayers of
the Thessalonians.
#1 and 2 Timothy#
To counteract the Judaizing influence at work against Paul's
views of Christianity, and to encourage Timothy in his
duties, with directions as to public worship, and friendly
counsel to Timothy.
#Titus#
Advice as to the course to pursue in helping the church in
Crete to overcome degenerate state; church organization,
qualification of elders, suppression of false teachers;
personal words to Titus; the importance of good works.
#Philemon#
A letter of reconciliation on behalf of Philemon's converted
slave Onesimus, by whom the letter was taken to Philemon.
#Hebrews#
Showing the superiority of the Christian over the Jewish
dispensation, because its Author is superior to Moses;
because the Old Covenant was incomplete; and warnings against
relapses into Judaism.
The Epistles--General
#James#
An Epistle of Faith. Addressed to Jewish Christians, on
sincerity and patience; against hypocrisy, self-deceit,
adulation of the rich, and contempt of the poor; on ruling
the tongue; on false charity; and warning against trying to
serve God and Mammon.
#1 Peter#
The first of two Epistles of Hope. As to earthly trials; a
holy life; duty as citizens, slaves, husbands, wives; pastors
and their duties.
#2 Peter#
Perseverance in faith and good works; punishment of the
impenitent; certainty of the Second Advent.
#1 John#
The first of three Epistles of Love. A doctrinal discourse,
especially to Gentiles in Asia Minor, aiming to show the true
doctrine as to the Person of Christ, and communion with him
as necessary to a holy life, and intended to confirm them in
their faith.
#2 John#
"To the elect lady" (of whom nothing certain is known) and
her children--an exhortation to love, faith, godliness, and a
warning against false teachers.
#3 John#
To Gaius, of whom nothing certain is known, commending him
for hospitality and piety, warning him against Diotrephes,
and asking his help for Demetrius.
#Jude#
Remarkable for an otherwise unrecorded saying of Enoch (v.
14). Warns against false teachers. Cites examples of
impenitence, and affirms certainty of judgment and punishment
of the wicked.
Prophetical
#Revelation#
The only prophetical book of the New Testament. The visions
of John the Apostle on the Isle of Patmos, in his old age.
THE PUPIL
ANTOINETTE ABERNETHY LAMOREAUX
LESSON PAGE
1. Knowing the Pupil 139
2. The Beginners Age--Three to Six 143
3. Beginners Age (concluded) 147
4. The Primary Age--Six to Nine 151
5. Junior Age--Nine to Twelve 155
6. Junior Age (concluded) 159
7. The Intermediate Age--Twelve to Sixteen 163
8. The Intermediate Age (concluded) 167
9. The Senior Age--Sixteen to Maturity 171
10. Maturity 175
Teaching Hints
Leaders of classes, and individuals pursuing these studies
apart from classes, are urged to read the chapter entitled
"Teaching Hints," on page 259, before beginning this
section
Lesson 1
Knowing the Pupil
#1.# There never was a time when so many people were students of human
life as to-day. Professional men, business men, politicians,
educators, parents, indeed the whole thinking world has apparently
matriculated in a college of life. What is it, how does it develop,
how may it be influenced, how led to action? These are typical
questions to which answers are sought. There would be no value in this
study were it not for the fact that life, like all other of God's
creations, is under law, and the laws are unchangeable and universal.
Certain causes will always produce certain results under normal
conditions.
#2.# Since these laws of life may be known, two conclusions follow:
first, results which are desired in a life can be intelligently
planned for; second, haphazard, ignorant work with a life becomes
culpable in proportion to the issues at stake and the opportunity for
acquiring skill in the work.
#3. Why the Sunday-school Teacher should know the Pupil.#--Next to
fathers and mothers, the duty of understanding life is laid most
imperatively upon Sunday-school teachers. Four unanswerable arguments
present themselves as proof.
(1) _The issues are the most vital in the world._ The case the lawyer
seeks to win is important, but the case the teacher seeks to win
involves character, not reputation, and the outcome is eternal.
(2) _A mistake with a life cannot be wholly rectified._ There is a
best time for each phase of work with a life--a time to form habits
and store memory, a time to shape ideals and to crystallize life
purposes, a time to broaden sympathies and to lead to service; if this
best time be passed, the results, if obtainable at all later, come
with greater effort and with less success.
(3) _The time is short._ Measured on the dial, an hour in a week or a
lifetime out of an eternity is too brief to allow of one wasted
moment, one experimental or ignorant touch upon a soul. But measured
by the duration of a given opportunity the time is shorter still.
Conditions in the life are constantly changing, never to return in
the same way again. What is done in "buying up the opportunity," must
be done quickly.
(4) _Success is largely conditioned upon obedience to God's laws._
Only the Holy Spirit can make spiritual work effective, but he always
operates in accordance with God's laws. There are conditions between
the teacher and God which must be met before he can work, and
conditions between the teacher and the pupil. These conditions or laws
are not hidden and mysterious, but may be definitely known, and in
proportion as they are obeyed will God have access to the soul of the
pupil.
#4. What the Teacher Should Know about the Pupil.#--Every teacher owes
to God and to the life he seeks to touch a twofold knowledge: first, a
knowledge of the general laws in all life, and second, a knowledge of
the individual life of each pupil.
(1) _General knowledge._ Since the purpose of this study of the pupil
is to afford a general knowledge of life, four preliminary statements
will suffice in this connection.
(a) Life is constantly changing. This change is evident in
growth or increase in size and development or increase in
power. It occurs not only in the body but the soul as well,
or that part of life which is not physical, and is a result
of nourishing food and proper exercise. The Sunday-school has
recognized this fact of change by its division of the life of
the pupil into six periods, Beginners, Primary, Junior,
Intermediate, Senior, and Adult. These periods mark different
stages in development.
(b) Each period has certain predominant characteristics and
out of these characteristics arise definite opportunities and
needs. To meet these opportunities and needs is the goal of
work for each period. The final goal of developed Christian
character can be attained only through reaching the goal of
each period.
(c) Development is gradual, constant and progressive. The
soul comes into the world containing infinite but undeveloped
possibilities. The unfolding is gradual and constant as the
possibilities are called out by the needs of the life. There
is also an order in unfolding. The soul develops power for
simple mental processes first and for the complex later:
interest in self first and in others later; consciousness of
the natural first, the spiritual later. The teacher who knows
God's order, obeys his laws and waits his time is the teacher
whose seed sowing is reaped in the hundredfold harvest.
(d) It is impossible to ignore the physical and mental side
of the pupil and be successful in spiritual work with him.
The lesson cannot reach the soul save by way of physical
senses and a physical brain and mental processes identical
with those necessary in apprehending a history lesson. The
Holy Spirit applies the truth to the life but he has only so
much to apply as has been received into the mind. Therefore
pure air and bodily comfort, acute senses and obedience to
the laws of the mind are as surely linked with spiritual work
as prayer.
(2) _Specific knowledge._ Though all lives possess the same general
characteristics and are under the same general laws, no two lives are
identical. Some unfold more rapidly than others, some have larger
capacity and more latent possibilities than others and all are in
differing circumstances. It is this variation that makes
individuality, and the more perfect the adaptation of the teacher's
work to the individual the greater the teacher's success.
Again, each life is immeasurably influenced by its environment. No
teacher can understand a pupil without knowing what has entered into
his life. "I am a part of all that I have met." The home and the daily
surroundings are the explanation of what the pupil is and an index to
what he needs. This specific knowledge can come only through close
personal observation and sympathetic intimacy with the pupil. In this
intimacy is revealed the pathway to the heart, as it winds through
ambitions and interests and love. Unless the teacher find this path to
the tender, responsive place whose gateway each soul keeps for itself,
the seed must fall on the stony ground where germination is
impossible.
Test Questions
1. Since laws of life are known, what two conclusions follow?
2. Give four reasons why the Sunday-school teacher should know the
pupil.
3. What twofold knowledge about the pupil should the teacher have?
4. How has the Sunday-school recognized the changing life of the
pupil?
5. Give three characteristics of development.
6. How may specific knowledge of the pupil be gained by the teacher?
Lesson 2
The Beginners Age, Three to Six
#5. General Characteristics#
(1) _Absorption._ The Beginners period, together with the Primary,
Junior, and Intermediate periods, is pre-eminently the absorptive time
of life. As the possibilities of the soul begin to awaken, curiosity,
imitation, imagination, feeling and all the manifold expressions of
its power, they require food and exercise just as the body requires
them to develop strength. Hence these years of most rapid development
are the years of greatest hunger, physical and mental, of greatest
capacity to receive and assimilate, and of greatest activity.
(2) _Rounded development._ These periods are also the years of rounded
development. Every part of the body is growing and every power of the
soul. While development is not perfectly symmetrical and balanced, as
for example, feeling developing strength before reason, imagination
before self-control, it is nevertheless all-sided and requires in
consequence nourishment and activity in every part.
Conditions change as maturity approaches and development becomes more
and more narrowed to a special line. The muscles of the blacksmith's
arm increase in strength, the fingers of the violinist grow more
flexible, the imagination of the poet more beautiful, the analytic
power of the lawyer more keen, until physical and mental power begin
to break; but, outside of the specialty, growth and development
practically cease because of the cessation of nourishment and activity
on other sides.
#6. Special Characteristics#
(1) _Restlessness_. This is the most restless period of all the
Sunday-school life. A surplus of activity is generated in the body,
and it must be expended if the child is to be in a healthy condition,
as well as in a normal, happy mental state.
But the outgo of this activity should do more than merely reduce
pressure, as the escape of steam from a safety valve. It is a law of
life that we both understand and retain most thoroughly the thing we
do. This abounding activity is God's great provision for enabling the
child to make his own that which he is receiving through his senses.
It is handling and eating the apple that makes him understand what it
is. It is playing that he is the father or the Sunday-school teacher,
performing the act of helpfulness and love that enables him to enter
into the meaning of these relations and duties of life.
The problem of the Sunday-school teacher then is not "How can I keep
the child still," but "How can I make this activity teach the child;"
for, re-emphasizing the thought, "The child understands and remembers
the action far better than the admonition."
(2) _Imitation._ The activity of this period is distinctly imitative.
Just as the child must learn to form letters by copying them before he
can develop an individual style of writing, so he must learn right
action by imitating it before he can be independent and original.
Every time a child imitates an action he understands its meaning
better, he fixes it more securely in memory and he also makes its
repetition so much the easier.
It is important, therefore, to note what he naturally imitates. In
this period it is some definite act, not the spirit nor life of the
actor. He does not aspire to resemble the character of the teacher,
but he does try to speak and move and look as she does. As the action
is performed, the life unconsciously but surely becomes like the one
who is imitated.
(3) _Curiosity._ Because the child has everything to learn God has
made him want to learn everything. As physical hunger arouses an
effort to supply the need for physical food, so mental hunger or
curiosity arouses an effort to supply mental food. It is most active
in the period of greatest absorption, when the life must store for
future use. There are two points in relation to curiosity which it is
important for the Sunday-school teacher to remember.
(a) Its field of operation, or that toward which it is
directed. Curiosity is selective, going out only toward those
things in which the life is interested. In this period the
child's interests are in activities in Nature and everyday
life and in the things about him; but he desires to know
only the simplest facts concerning them. What the object is,
where it came from, and what it will do, usually satisfy his
curiosity regarding it. The teacher, therefore, is guided in
the selection of what shall be given the child in a lesson.
(b) Its channels of operation or that through which it acts.
The channels through which curiosity reaches out for
knowledge and brings back the results of its search are the
senses. Every waking moment finds them taking in sensations
which are carried to the brain through the nervous system.
The more perfect the senses in their working the more correct
the message they bring. Failure to learn and inattention are
usually caused by some defect in the senses or other part of
the body.
While an adult can arrive at new ideas through other ideas,
the child must receive practically all his ideas through his
senses. This guides the teacher as to the method of
presenting the lesson.
(4) _Fancy._ This is the early form of imagination, unleashed and
untrammeled, which transforms objects, gives soul to inanimate things
and creates for the child his own beautiful play world.
(5) _Self-interest._ The beginner himself is the center of his little
world. His thinking and his feeling revolve around his own
personality, and his own advantage is the thing he constantly seeks.
This is God's order of development. The consideration for others will
follow later, but even now the child may be led into loving, unselfish
acts through imitation and personal influence.
(6) _Faith._ Perhaps the better term in the beginning would be
credulity, for faith is confidence which has a basis in knowledge, and
knowledge does not necessarily enter into a child's belief. Anything
an older person tells him is accepted unquestioningly, no matter of
what sort it may be.
This means a great responsibility and an unequaled opportunity in the
matter of religious instruction. The stories of God's power and the
love of Jesus Christ are absorbed into the life, neither proof nor
explanation being necessary nor indeed comprehensible. As the stories
multiply in the home and the Sunday-school that which was credulity at
first becomes genuine faith. The child does not reason that God will
do because he has done, but a feeling of the Divine strength and love
grips him and out of this feeling grows loving confidence in the One
who first loved him. If a child passes through the Beginners
department without this response, his teacher has been out of touch
with her Lord.
Test Questions
1. What are the age limits of the Beginners period?
2. What are the general characteristics of the Beginners Age?
3. What are some of the characteristics of these years of absorption?
4. What is meant by rounded development?
5. Name six special characteristics of the Beginners Age.
6. What is the purpose of a child's abounding activity?
7. What is gained by a child when he imitates an action?
8. What two points about a child's curiosity is it important for a
teacher to know?
9. Who is the center of the little child's world?
10. By what means is true faith developed in a child?
Lesson 3
Beginners Age (Concluded)
#7. Opportunities of the Beginners Age.#--(1) _Shaping character
through influence._ There are two ways of touching a life--the one
through definite instruction, which must be understood to avail
anything; the other through unconscious influence which is felt, not
necessarily comprehended. The mind of the beginner is awake and
active, but he can grasp little instruction beyond simplest facts
about concrete things. Right and wrong, unselfishness, love, all the
abstract standards and principles of life, he cannot comprehend
intellectually, but he absorbs the influences that go out from them,
and what is felt is always more powerful than that which lodges only
in the head. During the first six years of life the child is
peculiarly sensitive to every influence that comes to him out of his
environment, and these,--not instruction,--determine what he shall be.
No amount of teaching upon the subject of flowers and birds and trees
can arouse the joy and gratitude which a drive through the country on
a glorious spring morning awakens. No number of lessons upon
self-control will make the impression upon the heart which the sight
of it in another makes. The child cannot understand the nature and
necessity of reverence, but he will feel it, if that be the influence
of the Sunday-school hour.
(2) _Shaping character through imitation._ The actions in this period
which result from instruction are few compared to those which come
from the instinct of imitation; therefore what the teacher is unable
to do through precept she can accomplish through the power of example
and story.
(3) _Imparting simple spiritual truths._ These must be truths with
whose earthly likenesses the child is familiar. This will make
possible stories of God's power as Creator, his love and care as
Heavenly Father, stories of Jesus as the loving Friend and Helper of
little children, and the necessity of obedience to his commands.
#8. Needs of the Beginners Age.#--If the opportunities of this period
are to be realized, four things are necessary:
(1) _A Christlike teacher._ While influences go out from
everything,--people, circumstances, conditions, even inanimate,
senseless things,--a human life radiates the strongest influence. It
has a twofold effect upon a little child: he not only feels the
influence, but it also moves him to imitate the person. He may forget
the lesson, he may not have comprehended it at all, but he has
absorbed the teacher during the hour and he will try to reproduce what
she has said and done even to her very tone, expression, and manner.
If his model be a gentle voice or a loving word, the very act of
imitating it makes him gentler and more tender, and what exhortation
may not secure, influence and imitation will bring. Therefore a
teacher will do her strongest work with a beginner by being like Jesus
Christ.
(2) _A suggestive atmosphere._ Atmosphere represents the sum total of
all the influences at a given time. The soft music of the organ, the
dim light, the stillness, the attitude of prayer, all create an
atmosphere to which reverence and worship are the natural response. In
confusion and bustle, with loud voice and impatient movement on the
part of the teacher, there could be only restlessness and irreverence
and inattention on the part of the child. The atmosphere must suggest
to the pupil that which the teacher desires from him, be he beginner
or adult, for feeling and action are more influenced by atmosphere
than admonition. The greatest work for the hour will have been
accomplished if the child shall feel that the Lord was in that place,
though he knew it not, intellectually.