No pastor can be permanently successful if not in sympathy with the
young. He must be the pastor of the children, accessible and attractive
to youth, and must give a cordial recognition and a kindly word as he
meets them. As an aid in this, make a register of their names and a
careful study of their faces, so as readily to recognize them; and
carry with you cards with Scripture mottoes or other little souvenirs
of a pastor's love and interest to leave with them. The most successful
ministers of the present age are, as a rule, active Sunday-school
workers. Of several eminent pastors it was written some years ago: "The
venerable Dr. Tyng, as is well known, attributes his great success
largely to his long-continued and unwearied personal attention to his
Sunday-school. He is never absent from his home school. Rev. S. H.
Tyng, Jr., uniformly conducts the closing exercises of his home school,
and also the Friday-evening meetings of the teachers of all his four
schools, thus by indirection reaching the twelve hundred children who
in turn are taught by these teachers. Dr. Howard Crosby takes up the
lesson on Wednesday evening, and preaches regularly to the children on
Sunday afternoons. Dr. Richard Newton, who has an almost world-wide
reputation as a children's preacher, takes up the Sunday-school lesson
at his weekly service, attends his teachers' meeting, and preaches
regularly to the children of the parish. Dr. John Hall goes each Sunday
morning into his home school and believing in 'hand-shaking as a means
of grace,' takes each teacher and scholar cordially by the hand. He
lectures each Wednesday evening on the Sunday-school lesson to a
well-filled church, the audience having long since outgrown the
lecture-room. He conducts in person a monthly review in his home
school, questioning each class on the lessons of the preceding month.
He presides at the monthly or bi-monthly sociable of the teachers of
his four schools and conducts on Saturday afternoon a ladies' Bible
class which the lecture-room is too small comfortably to hold." These
are, indeed, rare men, but they show the wonderful power that pastors
may wield by sympathy with the young, and by wisely-directed Bible
study among them. Indeed, the preparation of a Sunday-school sermon, by
compelling simplicity of statement and aptness of illustration, is a
valuable discipline for the preparation of ordinary services.
_Hints._--1. In public address or prayer let your appreciation of the
Sunday-school as a sphere of church work and religious power be always
manifest. Make it prominent among the subjects of prayer both in the
pulpit and in the prayer-room. Exhort and instruct the church
respecting the necessity of securing for it cheerful, attractive rooms
and an ample apparatus in music, library, papers, maps, etc. The
interest and liberality of a congregation in this depend greatly on the
interest manifested in the pulpit. 2. Use careful effort to form the
adult members of the congregation into Bible classes, and thus connect
them personally with the school. This can be done to a much larger
extent than is supposed, and the results are of the highest value. It
enlarges the biblical knowledge and enriches the experience of the
adult part of the church. It brings to the school the moral support and
influence of this class. It is a means of holding the young as they
become men and women and preventing their abandonment of the school as
having become too old for it. And it secures a permanent, living
sympathy between the church and the school, thus avoiding that
isolation of the school which, in many instances, makes it practically
a separate interest outside of the church rather than within it. 3. The
pastor should let his presence and personal influence be constantly
felt in the school; but if he have two sermons on the Lord's Day, he
should neither superintend it nor, if possible to avoid, consent to
take a class in it. It will exhaust him often before the second sermon,
and in the end may destroy his nervous power. But he should be often
present in the school, talk to it occasionally, and make the personal
acquaintance of teachers and scholars, moving among them as a friend
and helper. 4. The pastor should, if possible, meet the teachers weekly
for instruction and counsel, carefully studying with them the lesson
for the Lord's Day. The teachers' meeting will afford opportunity for
the consideration, not of the lesson only, but also of all the
interests of the school. As a preparation for this he should make
himself familiar with the best methods of Sunday-school work, that he
may wisely inspire and direct improvement. Or if it be thought that the
helps for the study of the lesson given in papers accessible to the
teachers are sufficient, the pastor's instruction in the teachers'
meeting might take a wider range, embracing courses of lectures on the
Christian Evidences, the Introduction to the Books of the Bible, the
Scripture Doctrines, Sacred Geography, and kindred subjects. In this
case the sphere of the meeting might be enlarged, making it also a
normal class, in which the more advanced scholars, as well as the
teachers, might be prepared for the teacher's work. 5. Great care is to
be exercised respecting the books introduced into the library; for,
while much advance has been made in the style and adaptation of books
for the young, there are many which are not merely trashy but are
positively pernicious. The Sunday-school library is an instrument of
great power in forming the tastes, the opinions, and the habits of the
people, and it is of the utmost moment that the books be pure in
doctrine and healthful in moral and religious tone. 6. The
Sunday-school concert, in which the exercises are prepared chiefly by
the school itself, will be of great value if wisely conducted; but care
is needed to exclude exercises introduced for sensational effect which
may not befit the Lord's Day. Indeed, it is all-important that the
exercise should not be degraded into a mere exhibition, awakening on
the part of teachers and scholars only a desire to produce a popular
sensation and draw the crowd, and on the part of the people a desire to
be amused. The devotional spirit should always be dominant. But in
addition to such exercises, it will be profitable to preach a sermon
statedly--once a month, or at least once in three months--expressly to
the Sunday-school, adapting the whole service to the young. It brings
the pastor and school together publicly and directly and recognizes the
relation of the pastor to it as its chief instructor and guide. But in
the sermon, as in every Sunday-school address, he should be careful
that in attempting to be simple he does not become childish; the former
is necessary to success, the latter is a common and fatal mistake.
Finally, the hearty co-operation and sympathy, above suggested, of
pastor and people with the school will ordinarily avert all difficulty
on the question of the relation of the Sunday-school to the church; for
any school, whether home or mission, which finds itself thus enclosed
within the living sympathies of the church will instinctively recognize
its position as belonging to the church and under its watch-care and
guidance. Nor will the other evil, so widespread and unfortunate, of
the non-attendance of the school on public worship be likely to be
experienced; for the scholars, won by the pastor's personal interest in
them, will be attracted to him and to his ministrations in the pulpit.
+SECTION VII.