CULTIVATION OF THE MEMORY IN SABBATH SCHOOL TEACHING. DISCOURSING on the aspects of Sabbath school work at a County Sunday School Union in the United States, the Rev. E. M. Rollo made the following sensible remarks on a topic which is, to some extent, overlooked or misunderstood by many teachers:— "In one respect we need to return to the better practice of former years. I am so old-fashioned as to believe that synthesis should generally precede analysis; that it is better to commit to memory one well-stated truth,—dogma, if you please to call it so,—or one verse in the Bible, than to spend a whole hour in picking to pieces a word or simple fact, into infinitesimal fragments, which will never be gathered up and intelligently connected into one harmonious whole. For in our feeble and untimely attempts at analysis, we almost necessarily neglect to gather up the parts that we have examined into one clear, definite statement. There is a good deal of fallacy in the prevalent notion, so often repeated, that children cannot understand general statements, like those of the Catechism, and much of the New Testament. It is true, that these statements may need explanation-analysis-minute and careful, with numerous illustrations; but let these follow, and not precede memorizing. This is the process of nature; first, synthesis, then analysis, with reasons and illustrations. The full powers of analysis can be developed only as the mind grows up towards maturity. The memory, on the other hand, is early developed and easily cultivated in childhood. No other power of the human mind is so capable of improvement in the very dawn of being. This fact is of paramount importance, both in scholastic training and in the Sabbath school. For it is closely connected with another fact,—viz., that this same memory, in maturer years, becomes quite unimpressible, unsusceptible to improvement; that whatever enlargement of capacity or retentiveness it acquires, must be acquired mainly in youth, which retains to old age with wonderful tenacity the impressions and memories of early years. Hence we insist that it should be filled with the precious truths, with the beautiful illustrations and images of Scripture in the morning of life, in the exact words of inspiration. Let the more important passages be thus made a part of their permanent intellectual endowments. In this exercise, I subscribe with all my heart to the ipsissima verba doctrine, however absurd it may be as relating to human creeds." THE BOYS WHO are too Big.-Gather them all into a class by themselves, and put them under the care of the kindest and most judicious man that can be found. Not a long-winded man, who will weary them with tedious preaching; not a dismal man, who will drive them away with his doleful exhortations; not an austere man, who will shake his head and make grim faces at them: but a good, warm-hearted Christian,—a man of tact and enterprise. One who remembers that he was once a young man, passing through this critical state, will do better than one of the stately sort, who never was young. LIFE FROM DEATH. On the brink of death I stood, There I felt my lot should be, Jesus bade my terrors stay, With His own most tender hands, Of His aid, and wiped my tears; Opened heaven before my eyes, Every fear and doubt was stayed, Father, let thy will be done." Warm into my chilling heart I shall live, for thou hast died! CHRIST AND THE POOR.-The highest circles of society and influence were open to Him, if He only desired to enter them. Still He adheres to the poor, and makes them the object of His ministry. And what is more peculiar, He has visibly an interest in their society, which is wanting in that of the higher classes, perceiving, apparently, that they have a certain aptitude for receiving right impressions which the others have not. They are not the wise and the prudent, filled with the conceit of learning and station; but they are the babes of poverty, open to conviction, prepared by their humble lot to receive thoughts and doctrines in advance of their age. Therefore He loves the poor, and without descending to their manners He delights to be identified with them. He goes about on foot, teaching and healing them, occupying His great mind, for whole years, with details of labour and care-insanities, blind eyes, fevers, fluxes, leprosies, and sores. His patients are all below His level, and unable to repay Him, even by a breath of congenial sympathy, yet He appears to be supported by the consciousness of good which attends His labours. -Bushnell. DOCTRINAL PREACHING. IN these days, I fear that good, sound, old-fashioned, stout doctrinal preaching is going out of vogue. I beg of you, do not yield to this unhappy drift-no! not for an hour. Sound doctrine is the backbone of truly successful preaching. The mightiest discourses that have shaken vast assemblies, and sent sinners trembling to the Cross of Christ, have been vitalized by some stupendous "doctrine," or revealed teaching of Almighty God. My brilliant neighbour, Beecher, has unwisely said, that "doctrine is only the skin of truth set up and stuffed!" Just imagine St. Paul writing to Timothy, "Give attendance to-the stuffed skin of truth!" If you are ever dry, never be dry in your doctrinal sermons. Always preach with intense emotion. Heat your argument red-hot. Introduce all the lively and picturesque illustrations you can into your doctrinal discourses; it will make them interesting, and the truth will become pictorial to the mind's eye, and to the memory. This was our Saviour's method. What a matchless discourse on the doctrine of God's mercy to the sinner is the parable of the Prodigal Son! A good minister is nourished in the words of faith and of good doctrine. The successful preacher must always have a method of his own. Find out your forte, and then stick to it. Study Lyman Beecher; study Griffin and Addison, Alexander and Spurgeon; but don't try to be either. Be yourself. The worst form of plagiarism is to attempt to stand in another man's shoes. As to the methods of preparation for the pulpit, no rule is the best rule. God made some men to write, and some to extemporize. Dr. Chalmers wrote every syllable of his sermons, and then delivered them like a tornado. Spurgeon never writes a single sentence for the pulpit. Both these men used the best method. If I may be allowed to refer to myself, my own custom is to use all methods. Sometimes I use no manuscript; sometimes I write two-thirds, and sometimes only one-half of the sermon. The remainder I deliver under the heat of the moment. I change, too, the words of my manuscript as I go on; I make them shorter and sharper. If in my study I wrote the word “avocations,” when I come to preach I say business; if I wrote “this commercial metropolis," I shorten it into "this great city;" and never, either in writing or speaking, do I use two fashionable words, so puzzling to the common people-objective and subjective.—Cuyler. RECOGNITION ON EARTH.-The following is suggestive of an evil which exists in certain city churches. A city minister says he once preached on "The Recognition of Friends in the Future," and was told after service, by a hearer, that it would be more to the point to preach about the recognition of friends here, as he had been in the church twenty years and didn't know any. "He only breathes, but never lives, Who much receives, but nothing gives. HAVING GIFTS DIFFERING. ONE Sunday school teacher has one gift, another another. But each teacher has some gift. We mean that Christ never suffers a man or a woman whom He has counted worthy, putting him or her into this ministry, to be without some advantage of endowment or acquirement by which success may be commanded. One teacher will have by nature a specially engaging manner. Sweetness of voice, sweetness of eye, a smile that conquers, it may be a nameless grace in expression that you cannot locate in any feature-this is the gift of God to one teacher, by which young hearts are to be lured along to Christ. A second teacher, possessing no such advantage, will have a certain inward force of will that gives him easy and almost unconscious ascendency over other minds. His voice does not win exactly, but there is a tone in it which enforces a wholesome and ungainsaid authority. It thrills through and through his pupils with a quiet sense of power that it is not best to challenge. The influence of such a teacher may be better over the moral development of some classes than it would be, if, without this spell of command, he were far more gifted with aptness to teach. A third teacher may possess an unusual facility in imparting knowledge. Clear conception, full information, fluency of language, a vivid enthusiasm, will with him be alone sufficient to animate a class, and make their Sunday school exercise a weekly source of profit and delight to them. A fourth, without a single weapon of the equipments thus described, may nevertheless be so simply good, so unselfish, so religiously free from every repellant trait of character, that his naked goodness will be his perfect panoply. A fifth may succeed by the overflow of vital earnestness. The contagion of his own interest in the lesson and in the CHRIST of the lesson will communicate itself by a law of personal magnetisms of which we can give no account. A sixth will prove his fitness to teach by an unfailing resourcefulness of invention, which keeps his class constantly whetted in appetite to the edge of a keen curiosity to know what novelty in presentation their teacher will this time produce from his inexhaustible trea sury. We do not mean to make an exhaustive enumeration. Our purpose is merely to draw this practical lesson, that each teacher should strengthen himself at his own strongest point, and not too eagerly covet the gift of another; while the superintendent should make it an object of observation to discover the respective fortes of his teachers, and, like a good general, assign their positions accordingly. And let each remember, that whatever his several gifts, he is answerable to God as a steward of His manifold grace.-Rev. W. C. Wilkinson in the Sunday School Journal. BORROWED TROUBLES.-There is a little insignificant weed, which creeps into some of our rivers and canals, and is thought at first of but little consequence. But by-and-by it is found to have grown so rapidly, and spread out its rope-like roots and stems so far and wide, that vessels are tangled in it, and unable to go on until it is cleared away. Just so it is with these little borrowed troubles. They grow so fast, if we nurse them, that they seriously hinder all the good we might do. TO A YOUNG SABBATH SCHOOL TEACHER. 66 You are endeavouring to feed Christ's lambs. Always remember that He watches you with intense interest; that for every thrill of love toward Him or them, there is a corresponding one in His infinite heart. How much greater is His love for you or them than yours toward Him or them! For every trembling fear and shrinking sense of unfitness, you shall have His sympathy; and how great is His sympathy! Also, you shall have the promised aid, even the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge," which is given "by the same Spirit," (1 Cor. xii. 8.) I believe in the undying influence of moral and religious instruction, even when apparently vain. The seed may require years to germinate; but it is not lost. Remember this in your instructions to your pupils. A child of a good minister grew up irreligious, and apparently regardless of all that had been taught him. He went to sea against his parents' wishes. While on the coast of Africa he, with some others, had been amusing themselves with looking at some curious things made by a little native boy. After a while the boy said, "Now I must go: this is the hour that the good man comes to tell us about Jesus. I love to hear it, and I want to learn more about Him." These words sank into the heart of the minister's son. He thought how this little heathen boy received and loved those truths to which he, with all his good instruction, had turned a deaf ear. The seed so long buried in his heart by pious parents sprang to life; and the love of Jesus bloomed there, and influenced his future life. No good word or thought can die. Even if it do not find a lodgment in the souls you would benefit, its reflex influence will benefit you. And the nearer you keep to your great Model in imparting instruction, the more likely are you to succeed. As He did, so do you,-endeavour to associate every religious principle or grace with some object in Nature, or illustration drawn from common life. If you ask Him respecting this, He will teach you. He will talk with you by the wayside, or in your silent hours, when you sit at work, or muse upon your bed. A teacher in a mission school used illustrations such as these in her class; and in after years more than one spoke of them, saying, “I can never forget them." One said, "I never look at the sunset clouds without remembering what you taught us when pointing to them." Another said, "I never see the trees in blossom but I think of what you said,— that God looked for more beautiful blossoms in my heart, even love to God. This led to my conversion." Above all things, my friend, always seek to present Christ to them in some way, either in His character or teachings.-The Christian Banner. you. TRY KINDNESS.-There is nothing that touches the heart like kindness. Deal kindly with children, and they will soon learn to love Gain their love, and you can lead them whithersoever you will. Be unkind, and they will fear and distrust you. And once this fear and distrust gains a foothold, it requires "prayer and fasting" to root it out. |