THE

Sabbath School Magazine.

NO. IX.]

SEPTEMBER 1, 1884.

[VOL. XXXVI.

The Sabbath School Teacher,

BEFORE SCHOOL; IN SCHOOL; AFTER SCHOOL.

By the REV. DUNCAN CAMPBELL, B.D., Rosemount Parish, Aberdeen. I ASSUME that all Sabbath school teachers have undertaken the office because honestly anxious to help in advancing the cause and kingdom of Him who said to Peter, "Feed my lambs," and who himself took little children in His arms and blessed them. Without further preliminary words, therefore, I pass to consider the first head of my subject,

THE TEACHER BEFORE SCHOOL.

The time, I think, has gone by when it could be imagined that the teacher's work before school consisted in putting on his hat and gloves. It is recognised now, that the Sabbath school teacher must prepare—that the "happy-go-lucky" style of teaching—the standing before a class and saying what comes uppermost, is no longer permissible. If there are teachers who still indulge in this sort of thing, they must be made to understand as quickly as possible that they represent a species that the 'survival of the fittest" law of being is killing out. If future generations come upon the trace of them in a fossil state, they will regard them, I feel convinced, as most curious specimens, and marvel how ever such poorly furnished creatures were able to exist.

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It is the custom in many schools for teachers to meet weekly, fortnightly, or monthly, to talk over the lesson. In my own church we meet for fifteen or twenty minutes at the close of the Sabbath school, when, after prayer for blessing on the work already done, we discuss the lesson for the following Sabbath, I myself, or some one of the teachers, or a friend from outside, taking the lead for the day, and suggesting a mode of treating the lesson. In fifteen or twenty minutes it is, of course, impossible to do more than supply the skeleton of a lesson; the filling in -the clothing with flesh and blood-needs many twenty minutes.

I

But now to give a few brief hints as to the preparation of lessons at home :

I. See that you understand the lesson yourself. Use for this end the best helps within your reach. Compare Scripture with Scripture until the leading facts and doctrines of the passage lie clear before you. Work at the lesson, think over it, pray over it until you have grasped it; or, better still, until it has grasped you-entered into your blood.

II. Make ready to explain all difficult words and peculiar customs. Remember that many of the Bible words have changed their meaning. Try and get a clear picture in your own mind of any custom, scene, or incident referred to, that you may describe it to your scholars in as living a way as possible. If you can use your pencils you might make a rough sketch-of the Lake of Galilee, for instance, if your lesson referred to it, or of a river's course, or of an Eastern home, or of some article of Eastern dress; the roughest sketch would help to stamp the lesson on the children's minds. Or you might procure a vine or palm leaf, a lily, a piece of cedar wood or myrtle, and by a simple device of this sort give point and vividness to your teaching.

III. But do not mistake me. It is not enough to make the Bible lesson intelligible and interesting. I can imagine a clever well-informed person keeping his class rapt for an hour over the lesson, and conveying to them a great deal of valuable, antiquarian, historical, topographical information, yet failing utterly to discharge his function as a Sabbath school teacher. Our business in the Sabbath school, be it never forgotten, is not to cram the children with facts, nor even to stimulate their thought-though these are both good objects-but to reach the heart, to touch the springs of conduct, to awaken true reverence and love; above all, to persuade the young to believe in and to follow Jesus-to take Him as Saviour, Lord, Life. In order to do this it is not necessary that teachers should repeat the same appeals every Sabbath. There is, indeed, danger in doing so the danger of making the child regard such appeals as stock formulas, which, through very familiarity, lose force. A teacher, however, should aim at making each lesson carry home to his class at least one quickening spiritual truth. But the difficulty of the lesson is always here. It is comparatively easy to keep children's attention unflagging while describing a scene or explaining a metaphor; it is by no means so easy to do so when drawing out the spiritual application. George Eliot, in one of her finest sketches, describes the Rev. Amos Barton preaching to paupers on unleavened bread: "nothing in the world," she says, more suited to the simple understanding than instruction through familiar types and symbols. But there is always this danger attending it, that the interest or comprehension of your hearers may stop short precisely at the point where your spiritual interpretation begins. And Mr. Barton this morning succeeded in carrying the pauper imagination to the dough tub, but unfortunately was not able to carry it upwards from that well-known object to the unknown truths which it was intended to shadow forth."

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IV. In preparing your Bible lessons try to vary their treatment as much as possible. Do not get into a stereotyped method of putting it before the children. One day you might have two or three formal heads

and an application, another day be more discursive; one day you might talk a good deal yourself, another day make the scholars do the talking and question you; one day you might go straight to the heart of the passage, and group texts and illustrations round a given central truth, another day you might work up to the principle you wish to enforce. By this variety you will vastly increase the interest and effectiveness of your teaching.

V. In addition to the Bible lesson, you ought to look over the text, the hymn, and the questions to be repeated in class, that you may be able briefly to explain, illustrate, or practically enforce them. A single remark, a little anecdote, may change a mere rote performance into a seed of living thought. Suppose, for instance, the question in the Catechism was about the Trinity-the three Persons in the one God, you might not a little help your children-not, indeed, to comprehend that great mystery, but to apprehend it-by the illustration said to have been used long years ago by St. Patrick to an Irish king who was in a difficulty about that doctrine :-"I do not understand you," the king said. "You say the Father is God? "_"Yes." "And you say that the Son is God? "_"Yes." "And you say that the Holy Ghost is God?"-"Yes." "Then there

must be three Gods?" St. Patrick stooped down, instead of answering, and picked a clover leaf which grew at his feet. He held up one of the lobes and said, "This is a leaf?" Yes," said the king. He shewed the second lobe and said, “This is a leaf?"- Yes," ," said the king. He shewed the third lobe, and said, "This is a leaf? "- "Yes," said the king. Then St. Patrick held the entire leaf up by its long stalk before the king, and said, "What is this?"-"It is a leaf," answered the king. "So learn from a humble plant the mystery of the Trinity," said the saint.

VI. But when the lessons are carefully prepared, is that all the teacher has to do before school? There is something else to be attended to. The most careful preparation will go for little unless mind and body are in such a state that you can give effect to that preparation. If you go into school worried and distracted, physically exhausted, dull or heavy, as we are all apt to be in certain circumstances, you cannot do justice to your work in the Sabbath school. As far as possible, therefore, see to it that all your faculties are at their brightest and best. As far as possible, avoid anything that would vex, or distract, or destroy the vivacity of your mind in view of that work. To shew that those who know about speaking try to guard against anything that would distract, it is told of the wife of one of the greatest orators and statesmen of the century, that as she was entering the carriage to accompany her husband to the House of Commons, where he was to take part in an important debate, the door of the carriage caught her hand. The pain was excessive; but this brave and noble woman, fearing that if she made known what had happened, it might unnerve her husband and lessen his force in the debate, bore it without a sign.

VII. Never forget that your best efforts will fail unless blessed by God. BEGIN, THEREFORE, AND END YOUR PREPARATION WITH PRAYER.

THE TEACHER IN SCHOOL.

Time will only permit me to outline a few suggestions on this head :— I. Be early at school.