Transcriber's Notes:
Italicized text is rendered as _text_, bold text is rendered as
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[Illustration: The book's cover]
=The
Gospel Object
Book=
_By_
REV. CLARENCE H. WOOLSTON, D.D.
The RODEHEAVER
HALL-MACK Co
28 East Jackson Boulevard
CHICAGO
124 North Fifteenth Street
PHILADELPHIA
COPYRIGHT 1925 BY W.P. BLESSING CO.
Printed in U.S.A.
=Dedication=
THIS book is dedicated to the wonderful children of the Cedar Falls
(Iowa) Bible Conference. They have seen these lessons during the
summers of 1923 and 1924. Many of them thus seeing have entered the
Glad Game of the Christian.
I wish also to acknowledge the brotherly kindness of Rev. Parley E.
Zartmann, D.D., the spiritual director of the Conference which made my
meeting with the children possible.
This book is now sent forth on its mission, every lesson crowned with
the smiles of the Happy Children of Cedar Falls, Iowa.
C. H. Woolston, D.D.
_Study of the East Baptist Church,_
_Philadelphia, Pa., U. S. A._
=PREFACE=
JESUS said to Peter--Lovest thou me--and when Peter had given his
answer Jesus said "Feed my Lambs." The Master told him first to Feed
the Lambs, afterward he said "Feed my Sheep." Jesus put first things
first. Did Peter obey this command? We have no record of him giving
especial attention to the Lambs. I imagine he was like the most and
best of us--he forgot the Lambs. Let us try to remember what Jesus
said. Feed the Lambs. The best way is to get them through the eye.
Children see 18 times more through the eye than they hear through the
ear. Eighty per cent of all the knowledge we receive from the cradle
to the grave comes through the eye. It is the Big Highway with wide
gates ever open to the heart of a child.
The moving pictures of the day are visited daily in the United States
by six million of little children. This one, thing they are doing for
the children: they are training them to look and see things; they are
learning to be good lookers; they come to us in our Sunday Schools and
children's meetings with eyes trained to look and happy is the teacher
if he can show them truth. This he can do by object lessons. I have
talked to over a million and a half of children by the use of objects;
many of them have grown into adulthood and often when I talk to them
of other days, they rehearse these lessons to me and I can thus see
how well they remember and how deep and lasting is the impression made
when truth enters the eye. It enters to stay. These visual lessons
outlined in this book will help you to Feed the Lambs.
Somewhere I read the other day, about the boy who was present when
Christ was feeding the multitude and this was the analysis that the
teacher made of the boy with the loaves and fishes. First you will
always find the boy in a crowd. Second, he always looks out for his
stomach and so brought with him his lunch. Third, he can be worked and
won if he is approached in the proper way, and to find the proper way
is to find the golden key which unlocks a golden heart that will
welcome the entrance of the golden truth of Jesus. One of the first
principles of the knowledge of a child is that he is all eyes.
Psychologists tell us that we see eighteen times more than we hear,
but no psychologist has ever been able yet to figure out how much a
boy can see. It seems to me that he sees fifty times more than he
hears. That has been my experience, as I have labored with a million
and a half boys and girls. Hence it is the first principle of the art
of knowing children, the quickest and best way to teach them is
through the eye, and so the use of pictures and objects and all things
which appeal to the child's eye are master keys that unlock hearts.
They receive the impressions through the eye, and these they seldom
ever cast away. In discovering a child, always remember what a child
may be and what he is now. We must have this long look into the future
or we won't be able to look into the present, He is a whole congress
of possibilities. Possibilities are the seeds that may germinate into
a mighty force for good or evil.
There was once a teacher in old New England who taught a little
district school, who had the gift of reading the possibilities of her
children and trying to develop those possibilities. Her name was Miss
Crochet. She could easily tell whether the disorderly boy was vicious
or suffering from an overdose of animation. She understood children.
One day while she was at prayer, a little boy in her class laughed out
loud. After the prayer she said, "Who was that laughing while I was
praying?" A little bit of a fellow held up his hand and said he did
the laughing. The teacher said, "What were you laughing at?"
"Something that Billy said, who sits next to me." "Billy, what did you
tell him that caused him to laugh?" "I saw a little mouse." "What did
you say about that mouse, Billy?" He said, "While Miss Crochet was
saying her prayer a little gray mouse ran down the stairs." Of course,
all the children laughed and the teacher said, "That was very bright,
Billy. I think you have got the making of a poet in you. At least I am
going to satisfy myself on that point." So Billy was called to the
front. Miss Crochet, wanting to find out something about the boy,
looked down at him and said, "I wonder if there is a possibility of
making a poet out of this child." It certainly sounded so when he
composed his first lines of poetry. So she said to him, "I will see
whether you are a boy of mischief and interrupted my prayer as a
disorderly act, or whether it was simply an overflow of an
unrestrained impulse to say words poetically. I will give you three
minutes to compose another line. If you do it in that time, and it is
as good as your first lines, I will not punish you, but if you do not,
I shall bring my rod down over your shoulder." So she said to him,
"Compose your lines in three minutes or take your punishment." One
minute passed, the second minute passed and there was no response from
the boy. The teacher said, "There is only one minute left, now speak
or be punished." The little fellow lifted up his head and said, "Here
I stand by the side of Miss Crochet, when she brings down the rod, I
intend to dodge it." She laughed, they all laughed, she said he would
make a bright boy. She encouraged him in the writing of lines and he
afterwards became a poet of fame. She understood Billy and so made
Billy great.
Don't forget the boy is all eyes. Fill them full of truth. What you
tell him may "go in one ear and out the other" but what you show him
will not go in one eye and out the other eye. What does go in the eyes
will stick in the head. And so the truth is carved in with it. The boy
likes to see things, so show him Bible truth. That is the way to
interest him, It is a sin to make Bible truth uninteresting. Know the
child, and that will go a long way to prevent you from committing this
sin.
C. H. WOOLSTON
_Philadelphia, Pa._
=CONTENTS=
PAGE
INTRODUCTION ...................................................... vi
CHAPTER
I. THE TEN DEMANDMENTS ............................................ 1
II. OBJECT TEACHING IN THE BIBLE .................................. 4
III. UNDERSTANDING YOUR OBJECT .................................... 7
IV. INCENSE LESSONS ............................................... 9
V. THE BURNING OF THE IDOL ........................................ 10
VI. EARS OPEN TO GOD'S CALL ....................................... 11
VII. IT WILL ALL BE RIGHT AT LAST ................................. 12
VIII. THE MAKING OF A CHRISTIAN ................................... 13
IX. THE HAND OF FAITH ............................................. 16
X. BEFORE AND AFTER ............................................... 17
XI. WHY I SHOULD JOIN THE CHURCH .................................. 18
XII. SEEING THE SERMON ............................................ 19
XIII. THE BIG SIX ................................................. 20
XIV. HOW GOD SEES THINGS .......................................... 21
XV. JOHN 3:16 IN COLORS ........................................... 23
XVI. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE MAGNET ........................... 25
XVII. THE STAR BOX ................................................ 26
XVIII. HOW MARY LOST HER BEAUTIFUL DOLL ........................... 29
XIX. THE PRODIGAL SON IN RAGS ..................................... 31
XX. WHAT CAN TAKE AWAY MY SINS .................................... 35
XXI. THE GOSPEL COPY BOOK ......................................... 37
XXII. IN HIS KEEPING .............................................. 38
XXIII. A CANDLE LIGHT LESSON ...................................... 40
XXIV. THOSE TEN FRIENDS OF MINE ................................... 42
XXV. THE HEAVENLY MAIL FOR THE DISCIPLES .......................... 44
XXVI. THERE'S A MESSAGE IN THE CANDLE ............................. 46
XXVII. THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT ................................... 48
XXVIII. PULLING OUT THE NAIL HOLES ................................ 50
XXIX. THE BURIED BIBLE ............................................ 51
XXX. THE CHRISTMAS CANDLE ......................................... 56
=INTRODUCTION=
WHEN the disciples were concerned as to precedence and position in the
Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus took a little child, and set him in the midst
of them. The act was in itself full of significance; and the teaching
He gave in connection therewith, abides for all time, a clear
revelation of Kingdom conditions and obligations.
It is only as men and women become as little children that they can
enter into that Kingdom; and the measure in which they approximate to
the child spirit, is the means of their greatness therein.
Further--any one receiving a little child receives the Lord--the child
is forever the ambassador of the throng; rather than cause one such to
stumble, it were preferable to pass out of life by a violent way.
These little ones are to be held therefore in high honour--never
despised.
To gather and hold the children it is necessary, not only to
understand the child, but also to be of the child spirit. The study of
child psychology is fascinating, and of great value; but one may be an
expert therein, and never attract a little one. To do that, the very
tone and temper of childhood is necessary.
The writer of this book, Dr. C. H. Woolston, fulfils these conditions
in the most conspicuous way; and is fulfilling the obligations with
the most radiant success. He has dedicated the book to The Children of
Cedar Falls. He might have dedicated it to children in every centre
where he has worked among them. It is fitting, however, that I should
be privileged to write a brief foreword to this book because it is
here, at Cedar Falls, that I have seen most of him at his work, though
I have seen his work also at Winona Lake.
I am certain that I speak, not only for myself but for all the
speakers at this Conference, and for those who have attended it, when
I say that one of the supreme things of delight and of light has been
Dr. Woolston and his bairns.
The children gather about him, and follow him round, not only to their
own meetings, but to adult gatherings like bees about the flowers.
Moreover, when he is at work, there is invariably a fringe of children
of an older growth at his meetings. In his eyes are the dancing lights
of childhood yet, and he radiates the child spirit.
What wonder then that the bairns love him, and God uses him so
wonderfully to shepherd and feed the lambs of his flock.
The reader of these talks will not have the wonderful personality of
the writer, but they will surely find much of the charm of his
remarkable ability to talk to children, not patronizingly as one apart
and aloof, but in close comradeship, as one of themselves, gleeful in
their glee, tender in their sorrows, sympathetic with their trials,
representing to them the Lord and Lover of them all.
With unbounded affection for the man, and confidence in his work, I
commend this book to all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity
and truth, and who therefore perforce are lovers of the little ones.
G. CAMPBELL MORGAN
=CHAPTER I
"THE TEN DEMANDMENTS"=
_A Chapter to be often read as we study the art of object teaching.
Follow these 10 Rules--they are Ten Steps to the Palace of Success_