| <Christian Remembrancer Vol 36 1858>
| <Sunday Schools>
| <pb n="368">
| WHILE the press teems with the theory and practice of 
| national education; while learned men descant and 
| dispute on the one in substantial volumes, and school 
| inspectors unfold the other in works equally large and 
| heavy; while the school books and lesson books of 
| different societies leave no detail unexplained, setting 
| each rival system in exact distinctness before us, one 
| great institution, the only education of universal 
| application within reach of the poorest, would seem to 
| the casual observer, ~~ the chance inquirer, to be 
| without a literature. Which of our readers, desirous to 
| know something of the working of Sunday Schools 
| beyond his own parish or town, would know where to 
| look for information? whom to apply to? how to get 
| at any trustworthy facts? At first it seems as if there 
| were no books, no exposition of a system to be met 
| with. In his own experience he sees no community of 
| practice; one school is no guide for another; nobody 
| can tell him anything beyond his sphere of immediate 
| observation, which, perhaps, differs so completely from 
| his own, as to induce a doubt of his informant's 
| discernment, till a third witness has a totally different 
| history to disclose, and has arrived at quite contrary 
| opinions from both. He concludes, then, that it is a 
| system without organization beyond the simplest one 
| of teachers and learners; each school a close 
| borough, a distinct society jealously watchful of its 
| independence, and resenting all alien inspection. 
| Strangers may enter our National and British Schools, 
| nay, are invited to witness examinations on stated 
| days. The timid mistress and pupil teachers are liable 
| any moment to be called
| <pb n="369">
| upon to exercise their craft before a chance curious 
| visitor; but who ventures into the Sunday School to 
| stand behind the chair of the Sunday School teacher? 
| Each teacher's system and doctrines may, if he 
| chooses, be a secret between himself and his 
| scholars. We doubt ~~ for here we speak without 
| sufficient general information to be confident ~~ if the 
| boldest pastor ever ventures on a tour of inspection 
| round his Sunday School room, listening to the course 
| of instruction as it is carried on in his absence.
| For want, then, of positive data, our inquirer’s 
| discoveries in this department only teach him that the 
| institution has chameleon-like qualities, and varies in 
| its aspect with every fresh locality, and even in every 
| school-room. And so it does, but not quite for want of 
| a literature and a system, ~~ at least we, who are 
| fresh from the perusal of the works at the head of our 
| article, would feel it impossible to ignore efforts, 
| views, and plans, set forth with such confidence of 
| tone and in such lofty flights of language. A system 
| has been set forth with force and precision enough, 
| and with sufficiency of detail. Nor has it wanted 
| readers and disciples; but the fault seems to be, that 
| all that is said authoritatively flies over the heads of 
| those who are expected to carry it out, and thus, we 
| must suppose, fails in affording practical direction or 
| guidance, and leaves the teacher virtually to his own 
| discretion, such as it is. Not that we wish to raise 
| alarms on this score; though it is curious to note the 
| liberty, nay licence, that may exist, unsuspected, side 
| by side with the most inquisitorial investigation, and in 
| the very same field; to contrast the trained, 
| catechised, sanctioned teacher of the week-day 
| scholar, the creature of system, whose mind has been 
| in the hands of an active, watchful superintendence 
| for years, over whose opinions bishops and 
| committees have presided and perhaps sat in 
| judgment; with the substitute Sunday supplies to the 
| same learner; with the Sunday School teacher whose 
| qualifications have probably never been tested by the 
| simplest examination beyond perhaps that for 
| confirmation, who has gone through no ordeal 
| whatever, who has been accepted solely on his 
| application for the office, accepted and generally 
| welcomed eagerly, his disinterested good-will being 
| taken as guarantee for all those other requisites, 
| which, probably, can never be investigated. This 
| voluntary offer of service, and ready, unconditional 
| acceptance, is, we believe, the ordinary mode of a 
| Sunday School teacher's election in our Church; we 
| suspect it to be the same with Dissenters, from 
| certain casual admissions in their books; indeed, our 
| own small experience points to an absolute 
| indifference to qualifications or fitness, which, we trust 
| is never paralleled in our own communion. It is to a 
| body thus
| <pb n="370">
| constituted that the works before us, Church or 
| sectarian, are addressed, and the task imposed on 
| them, whether by man or woman, Englishman, 
| Scotchman, or American, is one and the same, and 
| expressed uniformly in the same formula, ~~ the 
| conversion of their scholars. Neither sex nor age 
| mitigates the burden of the commission, or clothes it 
| in less awful, overwhelming language. A girl of 
| fifteen, who wishes to help little children to learn to 
| be good, has her task put before her in no lighter 
| colours. Then and there she must <p> 'convert' </p> 
| those infants, and <p> 'save their souls.' </p> Any 
| humbler aim, any notion of doing good short of this 
| supreme result, is denounced as unfitting her for the 
| work. And, moreover, she is taught to consider the 
| task an easy one.
| Now, of course, there is a point of view ~~ 
| abstracting ourselves from time and looking only at 
| the ultimate end of all our labour ~~ in which it may be 
| said that there is no good clone, and no happiness 
| worth a thought, separate from the accomplished fact 
| of salvation. But we, who cannot read the heart, must 
| work step by step, and rejoice in small hourly 
| conquests over evil, and aim at certain immediate 
| effects, and labour to instil a true faith, and right 
| principles, and good habits, without presuming to 
| anticipate the end, nor to grudge our labour in 
| improving the present hour, leaving results to a 
| higher disposal. At first the more ambitious tone of 
| these books seemed to us assumed as a stimulus to 
| exertion, as though boys and girls would be excited 
| to greater efforts by being put on this elevation, and 
| set impossible tasks, and taught to think their small 
| service one with the preacher's and missionary's work, 
| in call, in authority, in responsibility, in magnitude of 
| result; and we felt how sad it was that every impulse 
| given to youthful devotion should be a stab at 
| Christian lowliness and humility; but we are inclined, 
| on further thought, to attribute this line of argument to 
| a different and sincerer cause. The recognised 
| authority in this branch of study is the Reverend John 
| Todd, Pastor of the First Congregational Church, 
| Philadelphia: to him all our writers defer, and quote 
| especially from him on this subject of conversion. Our 
| readers might, perhaps, wonder how his dictum 
| came to have such weight, so that thoughtful 
| practical men slip into his words when they approach 
| this topic; but, probably, the very weaknesses of his 
| style have won him a standing amongst the class to 
| whom he especially addresses himself, for young 
| readers of circumscribed education and ambitious 
| aims are likely to be at once taken with high-sounding 
| language, and attracted by what their elders would 
| pronounce puerilities; and he has, moreover, the 
| advantage of having formed a distinct idea on the 
| subject, which he develops with considerable 
| ingenuity and consistency.
| <pb n="371"> 
| Every ardent zealous sectarian must acutely feel the 
| want of a 
| centre of unity. He is cut off by his principles and 
| practice 
| from a visible Church, i.e. a recognised paramount 
| body with 
| peculiar gifts; this delightful image is forbidden to him.  
| His 
| own communion is, even to himself, only one of 
| several bodies, 
| of exactly equal authority and religious privileges, and 
| he feels it 
| has been almost a chance with him in which 
| denomination he 
| enrolled himself: therefore, whatever latent Church 
| feeling he 
| may possess as a social being finds no vent there. 
| But still it 
| is a craving of his nature which very generally must 
| have some 
| relief; he must picture to himself some universal 
| brotherhood 
| where all band themselves together under one name, 
| where all 
| are united in one common society that offers salvation 
| to its 
| members. With many the Bible Society is their 
| Church; with 
| others, the Temperance cause. Mr. Todd's Church is 
| the 
| 'Sabbath School,' and a very complete Church he 
| makes of it, 
| answering in all its gifts, and members, and offices, to 
| the most 
| rigid definition of the fold of Christ. It is represented by 
| him, 
| and by the writers who follow in his steps, ~~ amongst 
| whom we 
| would particularise the author of a Prize Essay 
| entitled 'The 
| Sunday School,' issued and warmly sanctioned by the 
| London 
| Sunday School Union, ~~ as an institution of Divine 
| origin, with 
| rites of sacramental power, served by a priesthood 
| set apart for 
| the work of prayer and preaching, to all whose efforts 
| is attached 
| a supernatural efficacy, who are also empowered to 
| probe the 
| heart and conscience of their flock by private 
| individual close 
| question and scrutiny, for which purpose they are 
| enjoined to 
| make themselves acquainted with each member a 
| domestic ties 
| and private life; and who are, lastly, pastors and flock, 
| blessed 
| with periodical visitations of the Holy Spirit in their 
| corporate 
| capacity, as being all members of the privileged body. 
| All 
| these points are more or less elaborated, but the 
| question of the 
| conversion of the scholar, with the more obvious 
| means to this 
| end, are necessarily the most prominent.
| We are not aware of having encountered the word 
| Baptism, or anything that can be interpreted into an 
| allusion to that sacrament, in any of the volumes 
| before us. The rite is absolutely ignored, but, with 
| some points of difference, admission into the Sunday 
| School unquestionably takes the place of that 
| ordinance in the minds of all these writers; the main 
| difference only being that, whereas unworthy 
| ministers may duly administer the Sacraments of the 
| Church, the minister of the Sabbath School, i.e. the 
| teacher, works not so much as a channel as by his 
| own conscious instrumentality. Most of our authorities 
| are Dissenters. It may, not improbably, be the case in 
| America, that few of the children under discussion 
| have been received into
| <pb n="372">
| Christ's Church, and we know that this is also the 
| case with large bodies in England. But even in Mr. 
| Collins' work (dedicated to Canon Dale), which is 
| sensible and practical whenever he writes from his 
| own experience, the same tone is thought necessary, 
| and Mr. Todd's formula quoted. In the Church of 
| England Sunday School Magazine we find the same 
| phraseology. Every child admitted into the School is, 
| in their sight, a heathen: we never meet with another 
| contingency as far as the child is concerned, though 
| we do find Mr. Todd guarding against the natural 
| inference from this fact with regard to the parents, by 
| saying: <q> </q> But this implies what is the practice; 
| while parents who keep back their children from very 
| early attendance at the Sabbath School are regarded 
| in a darker light than that in which we view those 
| indifferent people who withhold their children from 
| Baptism. Take the opinion of the Sunday School 
| Union, as put forth by Mrs. Davids, on this point: ~~ 
| <quotation> </quotation>
| And again, the argument of parents teaching their own 
| children is thus set down; a parent is supposed to say: 
| ~~ <quotation> </quotation>
| Again: ~~ <quotation> </quotation>
| We cannot wonder at the earnestness of these 
| invitations to
| <pb n="373">
| this ark of safety, <p> 'this heaven-born system' </p> 
| (as the Essay expresses it), <p> 'the glory of our age, 
| the bulwark of our faith,' </p> when we see the 
| promises attached to it, and the wonders wrought 
| there. <quotation> </quotation>
| When we next quote statements of actual 
| conversions, and the means used for this end, we 
| would wish to guard ourselves most carefully from any 
| suspicion of want of faith in the efficacy of prayer in 
| the lowliest servant of God, or in the grace of the Holy 
| Spirit to apply those prayers to the salvation of the 
| object prayed for. It is unquestionably the duty of all 
| engaged in the service of others, to pray for them with 
| hope and fervour, and to apply all the powers of their 
| mind and soul to furthering their highest interests. But 
| what we object to in the following extracts is, the 
| sacramental efficacy of prayer as applied to one 
| exclusive peculiar field of labour. There is no Scripture 
| sanction for the following tone of promise. It is placing 
| teachers ~~ a young, inexperienced, frequently ignorant
| class, in a false position, to buoy them up with 
| these unfounded expectations; it is turning them off 
| from their legitimate employment, which is to teach 
| the children put under their
| <pb n="374">
| care, not to pry into their minds and curiously probe 
| their consciences. If this inquisitorial investigation is 
| thought unsafe in the hands of experienced ministers 
| of God, what must it be when the questioners are 
| boys and girls who can know nothing of character or 
| human nature, who are urged upon a task for which it 
| is impossible they should have any aptitude, who, raw 
| and untried as they are, are expected to interpret 
| expression, to read hearts, to follow all the inner 
| conflicts of feeling? What mischief to the scholars if 
| these examples ever prompt to imitation; what far 
| greater mischief to the teachers. For after all, we 
| have confidence in the stolidity and impenetrability of 
| English childhood, whatever American children may be.
| It is not so easy to work on an ordinary Sunday-school
| child either for good or harm. But youth is a 
| more excitable age, and those young persons who 
| undertake the gratuitous office of instructor, are likely 
| to have minds open to impressions, and eager for 
| stimulants to keep them up in a difficult and perhaps 
| irksome duty. What effect must it have upon many of 
| these to be told that on them devolves, instead of on 
| fathers and mothers, the task of instilling into the 
| infant mind the first thought of religion ~~ on them 
| devolves, instead of the pastors of the church, the 
| ministry of reconciliation; to hear themselves 
| addressed over and over again as ambassadors of 
| Christ; to be told that they are the mediums of 
| conversion; that they must receive every scholar as a 
| child of wrath, that they are to make it a child of 
| grace. We do not profess to have much experience of 
| the working of schools where this strain is enforced, 
| but it hardly needs experience to know what must be 
| its fruits, so far as it bears fruit at all, so long as it is 
| not mere unintelligible talk read by young people 
| without thought, comprehension, or intellectual 
| acceptance of any kind. So far as this perversion of 
| natural order works at all, its effects must be injurious. 
| To ordinary minds you can hardly do a worse service 
| than indoctrinate them with an undue sense of their 
| importance. You cannot turn a girl of sixteen into a 
| minister of the gospel, as these books try to do; but 
| you can make her a very insufferable girl. You cannot 
| by high sounding exhortations change a young 
| apprentice into a steward having in his treasure 
| things new and old; but you can, perhaps, impregnate 
| his fancy with the notion that he is one, and so upset 
| heart and brain, unhinge and spoil his whole nature. 
| And if clergymen find a spirit of insubordination rife in 
| their schools, as we know is the case sometimes, this 
| is a literature which may well produce such results, 
| though very far, we believe, from the writers' design, 
| who, on the contrary, have to labour to give the pastor 
| his right place in this anomalous system, which, in 
| fact, puts him on one side altogether, and,
| <pb n="375">
| according to their view of the subject, secures the 
| eternal salvation of each child, before his work and 
| influence can be once brought to bear upon it.
| But we must give our readers examples of the tone of 
| exhortation common to all these publications, even the 
| most practical; the universal inculcation of the principle, 
| that the teacher is to accomplish a certain work, the 
| greatest change that can befall an immortal soul, 
| without reference to any other instrumentality or 
| teaching whatever.
| <quotation> </quotation>
| Prayer is put forward as one main means by which 
| these mighty results are to be obtained; prayer in a 
| sacerdotal capacity, stimulated by a promise of 
| success, peculiar to this sphere of labour, which one 
| and all of these writers guarantee, on we know not what 
| warrant; certainly not by the example of Apostles.
| <quotation>
| <pb n="376">
| </quotation>
| <pb n="377">
| Another instrument of conversion is close personal 
| scrutiny into the heart and conscience. How this is to be 
| effected by such agents as the system has at its 
| command we cannot divine, nor are we ever told. The 
| matter is really never contemplated as a difficulty; every 
| teacher, as such, is supposed to read the hearts of his 
| scholars.
| <quotation> </quotation>
| Mr. Inglis, a Scotchman, while pressing this point, 
| excludes sentiment from his plan of searching 
| investigation: ~~ <quotation>
| <pb n="378">
| </quotation>
| There is some truth in all this; but on what a hopeless 
| pursuit does he send the young teacher, who is not to 
| rest till the exact state of the soul, before God is 
| ascertained. While speculating on the presumption, 
| and even cruelty, of this remorseless probing into the 
| hidden mind of childhood, and on the clumsy nature of 
| the instruments by which it is proposed to perform the 
| delicate operation, our readers will hardly be in a 
| humour to believe that there is much both useful and 
| practical in Mr. Inglis's book.
| Another instance of this close handling of a child's 
| conscience, painful and almost ludicrous to us from 
| the fallacy of the reasoning, certainly implies a very 
| dangerous practice in ignorant inexperienced hands. It 
| is clear that the child was not convicted from any 
| natural pangs of conscience; she had not been doing 
| anything naughty, but was called upon to consent to 
| an abstract principle beyond her feelings and 
| comprehension. <quotation>
| <pb n="379">
| </quotation>
| To place a little child's love of its earthly father thus in 
| opposition to heavenly love, when, in fact, it is 
| endowed with the natural sentiment to train and guide 
| it to higher affection, is 'surely a monstrous perversion 
| of the true lesson to be drawn. The same writer 
| quotes <p> ‘a beautiful testimony' </p> from a 
| teacher's diary to the efficacy of this inquisitorial 
| system of operation: ~~ 
| <quotation>
| <pb n="380">
| The necessarily practical character of these manuals, 
| and the actual knowledge they exhibit of the working 
| of Sunday Schools as they exist, contrast strangely 
| enough with these spiritual 
| experiences, and produce some startling effects. 
| There are deliberate plans and measurements, as it 
| were, for bringing about miracles of grace. When Mr. 
| Todd, through inadvertence and want of taste, in 
| detailing his method in certain teachers' meetings <p> 
| 'abundantly blessed,' </p> gives prominence to the 
| fact that the table was in the shape of a T ; when, 
| again, Mrs. Davids gives her testimony to the 
| refreshment of tea as affording excellent opportunities 
| for dropping words in season, they are only examples 
| of the material machinery employed to bring about 
| great ends.  
| Mr. Todd, in enforcing the advantages of a taste for 
| reading, says: ~~ <quotation> </quotation>
| The superintendent is directed to form a separate class 
| of those who are anxious about their souls.
| In some sensible remarks in 'The Sunday School’ on 
| the evils of noise in a school-room, we meet with the 
| following picture: ~~ <quotation> </quotation>
| <pb n="381">
| Again: ~~ <quotation> </quotation>
| Again: ~~ <quotation> </quotation>
| In discouraging the habit of some teachers to gossip 
| the minutes away before business begins, a solemn 
| contrast is instituted between two schools, in one of 
| which the strictest order prevailed in all taking their 
| places at once, while, in the other, the teachers 
| lingered for a few minutes in cheerful talk with one 
| another.
| <quotation> </quotation>
| In the midst of all this management there is betrayed 
| an ignorance of children's natures and capacity, absurd 
| if it were not melancholy. On the question of choice of 
| books, Mr. Todd announces a discovery: ~~ 
| <quotation> </quotation>
| <pb n="382">
| After expatiating on the necessity of amusing 
| children, and giving them as something to look 
| forward to from Sabbath to Sabbath the prospect of a 
| new book, what he first and most cordially 
| recommends, are the works of Doddridge, Baxter, 
| Edwards, and Richmond; and when he wishes to 
| account for a child's liking to hear the same story over 
| and over again, he has no wiser or better suggestion 
| than that it may be pride, as there is undoubtedly <q> 
| </q>
| Mrs. Davids, alike forgetting the Sabbath as a day of 
| rest, the limited powers of attention with which 
| children are endowed, and their bodily restlessness, 
| would keep them all day .in the school. It makes the 
| heart ache to read the following demand on their time 
| on the clay which should be a happy season of 
| refreshment for mind and body: ~~ <quotation> 
| </quotation>
| Any relaxation of this hold is represented as producing 
| fatal results: ~~ <quotation> </quotation>
| Amidst all these questions arises the natural difficulty 
| as to the spiritual condition of the teacher who is to 
| bring about such results. A good deal of space is 
| given to the point how far unconverted teachers are 
| admissible, on which there exists considerable 
| difference of opinion; though here again we are never 
| let into the test ~~ whether it be through the 
| confession of the applicant, or the practised judgment 
| of the superintendent ~~ by which the condition of the 
| candidate's soul is so accurately arrived at. Mr. Todd 
| is against their employment, which is certainly 
| reasonable, considering the work assigned to them. 
| He reasons, <q> 
| <pb n="383">
| </q> but his fellow-countryman, Mr. Packard, has 
| certain practical experiences which make him 
| unwilling to lose an able instructor, and he boldly 
| decides: ~~ 
| <quotation> </quotation>
| And here the precision of information attainable on 
| these subjects comes out in one of those exact 
| calculations for which this whole class of writers is 
| distinguished : ~~ <quotation> </quotation>
| Mrs. Davids follows on the same side with the English 
| estimates: ~~ <quotation> </quotation>
| And she treats the question as so absolutely within 
| the compass of human investigation, that <q> </q> 
| Elsewhere Mr. Packard writes in support of the less 
| exclusive method: ~~ <quotation> </quotation>
| Now, monstrous and irreverent ~~ we might say 
| profane ~~ as all this sounds to our ears, there is a 
| vein of truth in it all. Only view teachers as instructors, 
| not preachers, and substitute
| <pb n="384">
| the idea of edification for conversion, adopting the 
| less ambitious language which will naturally follow on 
| a lowering of pretension, and the whole are rational 
| subjects for discussion. There is a vast deal of 
| practical, useful experience in all these books, but 
| being made to bear on a false theory, it only gives a 
| low and material tone to the investigation, and throws 
| an air of ridicule over it to all unaccustomed to the 
| solemn frivolity induced by treating high and spiritual 
| subjects in a narrow conventional spirit. The simplest 
| truths become absurd under this handling. What must 
| be the habitual attitude of thought, for example, what 
| the declension of taste, of the mind which can enforce 
| the advantage of early piety after this fashion? ~~ 
| <quotation> </quotation>
| or clench an argument by the following illustration? ~~ 
| <quotation> </quotation>
| And all this to force on young, ignorant, unprepared 
| minds a sense of responsibility, to make them do their 
| best by inspiring a notion of the magnitude of their 
| work. Under this perpetual course of inflation, 
| everything becomes absorbed in the one idea. The 
| Sabbath School is the great regenerator; ~~ every 
| other means of grace recedes from view; this fills the 
| whole range of vision; it is to occupy the whole of 
| every day, the whole of every life. The teacher is 
| never to see the end of his work; home is to give way 
| to it; church is to give way to it. All his thoughts, all his 
| reading, all his prayers, are to centre in it. All his time 
| ~~ week-day and Sunday ~~ is to be devoted to it. 
| Not only his scholars are to be on his conscience, but 
| all their parents and families, and even the neighbours 
| of all in this relation. To all of these he is to be paying 
| perpetual pastoral visits, and to hold their conversion 
| ~~ in virtue of his office ~~ as his especial charge. 
| And as with teachers so with scholars, whoever is not 
| the one is to be the other, for the whole of his natural 
| life. Babes are to be taken from their mother's knee to 
| be converted by the Sunday-school teacher, and, 
| according to Mr. Todd, it is nothing but pride which 
| induces the scholar ever to desert his tuition.  He 
| describes villages in New England (as seems also to 
| be the case in Wales) where the whole congregation 
| of 600 go to school. <q> </q> he says, <q> 
| <pb n="385">
| </q> And he exclaims with enthusiasm, <q> </q>
| Regarding Sunday Schools under this monopolising 
| aspect, as taking to themselves all the work and all the 
| glory, it is no wonder that there is evident a lurking 
| jealousy between Sunday Schools and the ministry. 
| Great pains are very properly taken to remove this, 
| while scarcely admitting the fact, but we do not see how 
| it can be obviated. The pastor is earnestly enjoined to 
| instruct the teachers and to visit the schools; the 
| teachers are exhorted to defer to him. But it is clear the 
| system is too strong for this order of things really to 
| prevail ~~ for due recognition of the pastor's 
| supremacy. Mr. Todd has indeed laboured, in his own 
| person, with what he considers complete success; but 
| he writes, <q> </q> and again: ~~ <quotation>
| </quotation>
| Mrs. Davids knows many schools where <q> </q> and 
| elsewhere she laments that in the best works on 
| Sunday-schools so little is said on this subject: ~~ 
| <quotation> </quotation>
| In another place she strongly enjoins all ministers to 
| send their children to the Sabbath School as scholars, 
| as the only means of removing the universal reproach 
| of their children being unconverted: ~~ <quotation> 
| </quotation>
| They are plainly told that preaching is their work, that 
| they
| <pb n="386">
| have not time to attend to their children, that others 
| must do it for them, and that to send, them as 
| teachers only makes matters worse, and nourishes 
| their pride : ~~ <quotation> </quotation>
| On the other hand, ministers have their grudge that in 
| their own sphere they are not attended to, as where 
| Mr. Todd has known <quotation> </quotation>
| The relation of pastors with the Sunday school must 
| really depend on the view taken of the work to be 
| done there. If it is, as Mr. Packard says, ministerial, 
| only differing from the minister's office in some 
| externals, when he writes, <quotation> </quotation>
| And again, where the teacher in. soliloquy thus 
| addresses himself: ~~ <quotation> </quotation>
| If this is the view he is to take of his office, it is 
| scarcely reasonable to expect him to defer to the 
| authority of another in no true sense his superior either 
| in work or commission. He is placed in too responsible 
| a posture, his work is too distinct, and also too 
| complete, too dependent on his own individual 
| exertions, for him to yield to other guidance. The 
| moment a difference of opinion arises he must assert 
| his own, or be faithless to the work given to him 
| especially to do. The youth who imbibes these 
| impressions of his duties may be respectful to his 
| pastor, as one minister is to another, but he will never 
| feel under him, or in any subordinate or dependent 
| relation.
| <pb n="387">
| The whole strain of argument, as regards both 
| himself and his scholars, is against it, and tends to 
| self-reliance. Even the manner he is called upon to 
| assume is to be clerical; and from the same cause 
| that makes a weighty deportment natural to the 
| minister, the feeling that it is expected of him from his 
| profession. He is called upon to reflect what will be his 
| pupils thoughts if they see him light-hearted. <q> </q> 
| each one is made to ask, <q> </q> He is reminded 
| that only on the ground of saving souls, i.e. on the 
| work being ministerial in its nature, is he justified in 
| devoting the day of rest to the task, and under this 
| stimulus he is not to stop short of complete prostration: 
| ~~ <quotation> </quotation>
| And yet, after all this, the more practical portions of 
| these works warn the teacher to be cheerful in 
| manner, and not sepulchral in tone. After themselves 
| indulging in a phraseology of the most ponderous 
| solemnity, and not seldom inventing words where the 
| English language did not furnish them weighty 
| enough for the occasion ~~ after enjoining a <p> 
| 'subduedness of tone,’ </p> an <p> 'engagedness in 
| the great work,' </p> enforcing the truth in its <p> 
| 'totality,' </p> the gospel in its <p> 'entirety;' </p> 
| calling preparation <p> furniture, </p> school meetings 
| <p> exercises, </p> lessons <p> engagements, </p> 
| and so forth, with allusions to <p> 'prayerless teachers’ 
| ‘impenitent adults,' </p> scenes of a <p> 'felt 
| solemnity,’ </p> and the like, the young people for 
| whom these books are written are told to be natural in 
| manner, to beware of prosiness, as in the following 
| emphatic passage: ~~ <quotation> </quotation>
| <pb n="388">
| Writers who can enjoin simplicity in sentences like 
| these forbid a sepulchral tone! How can a poor boy, 
| who acquiesces in what he reads, help being 
| sepulchral? The modulations of his voice are 
| probably the only <p> 'furniture' </p> in his power to 
| produce the immediate impression expected; and 
| moreover, we believe there is a natural connexion 
| between an exaggerated sense of responsibility, a 
| conceited estimate of personal influence, and a 
| whining, sighing, groaning religion. People speak 
| under the notion that every word of theirs has a 
| mission; that it has to go home to another heart and 
| conscience, and the voice is so attuned as to convey 
| a sense of difference between words spoken with an 
| end in view, on which eternal destinies hang; and 
| words that have no aim beyond the present homely 
| use.
| We have dwelt longer than perhaps some of our 
| readers will think the subject calls for on views so 
| opposed to our own, as to what should be the 
| principle of Christian education and the order of 
| training Christ's little ones. But it is well to know what 
| is the tone of the literature of this subject. To us, then, 
| their whole treatment of it is a perversion of the 
| meaning of words. A school is a simple idea. These 
| writers reverse its obvious meaning while using it, and 
| really mean all the while a conventicle. A Christian 
| school should be for the <p> edification </p> of the 
| scholars in the faith; these are avowedly <p> solely 
| </p> for conversion into it. The representative of 
| English dissenters is unwilling that children should 
| ever be recognised as <p> 'Christians,' ,</p>lest they 
| should be made conceited by the title, which is their 
| birthright. In like manner their teacher is properly a 
| preacher. Nothing that he says or does is allowed to 
| have a simply scholastic bearing, but all aims at 
| something beyond and beside the apparent purpose. 
| Perhaps this discrepancy between the apparent and 
| real design may account, in some measure, for the 
| undoubted failure of which now and then we meet 
| with a faint admission, <q> </q> If they invite people 
| to do one thing and set them to do another, the 
| chances are that neither the one nor the other will be 
| well done; if their loftier pretensions fail, the more 
| modest and reasonable are not therefore secured. 
| The mind is so far like the eye that it cannot dwell on 
| foreground and distance at the same time. The 
| teacher has one particular, perhaps minute, thing to 
| enforce; he will not succeed in impressing it if he is 
| mainly occupied in the vast general question of the 
| state of the learner's soul. To be sure, Mr. Packard 
| says, to the contrary of this, that in giving a lesson on 
| Luke i. 20, on Zacharias's office, and the course of 
| Abia, the teacher in his exhortation may be the 
| means of <p> converting </p> a scholar; but we think 
| if this is his aim in the lesson
| <pb n="389">
| he will leave the scriptural knowledge of his class very 
| much where he finds it, and that it can signify very 
| little to him or them what part of Scripture he takes for 
| his text. In like manner, if he is taught to consider that, 
| next to preaching, his duty is to ,p> pray </p> for his 
| scholars, that every other requisite comes far behind 
| these two, the plain work of teacher is made still 
| further to recede from view, and another office is 
| placed before the mind. For we observe a purely 
| sacerdotal character is given to this service. He is not 
| taught to pray that he may teach well, and that his 
| scholars may profit by his instructions, which would 
| be regarded as a very derogatory limitation. The 
| prayer has very little relation to his professed work 
| with the scholar. He pleads for them in a higher 
| capacity, with which teaching and learning has no 
| necessary connexion whatever: and thus even the 
| great Christian duty and privilege of prayer, with 
| which all our labours should begin, continue, and end, 
| is made to obscure the simple lowly work which 
| Providence really puts before him.
| We shall not be misunderstood when we venture to 
| offer our own opinion in opposition to these lofty, to us 
| extravagant, views, that, at least with inexperienced 
| youth, the lower they can rate the worth of their own 
| performances, the soberer their expectations, the 
| humbler their estimate even in prayer of their own 
| influence, the better it will be for themselves and for 
| the task they undertake. That class will be best 
| attended to and best served where the teacher of 
| eighteen or twenty sits down with the simple view of 
| teaching the lesson for the day, its meaning and 
| object, whose mind is so far circumscribed by the 
| present, that his most conscious object is to make his 
| children good and thoughtful while under his charge, 
| to bring them that one step safely on the right way, to 
| awaken their interest, to enlarge their intelligence, to 
| ground and confirm them in the faith they have been 
| taught, through the means of the appointed chapter, 
| and collect, and catechism, and hymn, influenced by 
| the constant sense of being himself under instruction, 
| of only imparting what he has derived, ~~ seeking to 
| fit them, in fact, to join in the services of the Church, 
| and to understand and profit by what they will hear 
| there from one set over them both: without one 
| distinct idea of a solitary responsibility; of a work to be 
| performed by himself and no other on the .souls of 
| his young charge. Such an one, while he knows 
| himself to be a little higher in knowledge than his 
| pupils, never dreams of assuming that the distance of 
| life and death exists between them, but rather 
| believes that in one and all a heavenly spark has 
| been breathed, which, by the divine blessing which he 
| seeks, may be fanned into a flame. Not
| <pb n="390">
| that, in advocating this humbler tone of conduct and 
| expectation, we have any wish to shun the use of the 
| word conversion, which can never be without a 
| personal application to the youngest or the most 
| advanced Christian. Every heart which feels its 
| sinfulness must cry for itself as for others, <p> 
| 'Convert us, and we shall be converted.' </p> Who 
| can feel himself beyond the reach of promises 
| accorded to S. Peter, when, already called by his 
| Lord? We need constant renewal, to be regenerated 
| day by day; but in the way employed in these books, 
| as a change from heathenism to Christianity, as a 
| change once for all from a state of wrath to a state of 
| grace, from alienation from God to favour with Him, 
| as an instantaneous effect to be aimed at in every 
| instance, and which in every instance has yet to be 
| achieved, its use establishes a fundamental 
| difference with all education on sound principles.
| We know that in many quarters there is a prejudice 
| against the institution of Sunday Schools, which 
| probably a perusal of the theoretical parts of these 
| books would greatly increase. It is certain that if such 
| views could be carried out, there would be an entire 
| subversion of existing order. Authority would change 
| hands, and youth be set above age. This is only 
| according to American practice in other things. We 
| recognise a fitness there in the new system; it is 
| simply adapting the rules which sway secular society 
| to popular religion. Age and ancient authority have 
| long lost their hold on those hot impatient spirits. It is 
| only following precedent that youth which takes 
| absolutely its own way, and follows its own bent in all 
| social matters, should assert its claim to self-government
| in the affairs of the soul, and discard as 
| obsolete all antique laws of order and subordination. 
| But in England, in spite of a tendency to adopt the 
| same language, there are influences and prejudices 
| at work even in those bodies most likely in principle to 
| fall in with such ideas, which must prevent their 
| gaining any effectual footing, or in any event must 
| greatly modify them. We cannot but believe that even 
| amongst Dissenters it is mostly mere talk, a 
| phraseology which affects little the actual working of 
| mind with mind. Our concern, however, is not with 
| them, nor does our experience furnish us with any 
| exact knowledge. We are left to conjecture and 
| probabilities, which modify our fears lest these 
| institutions should be working any unfavourable 
| change in the national character.
| For ourselves, we can only regard the Sunday School 
| as an absolute necessity which it is vain to quarrel 
| with; to us it is one of those institutions which we can 
| no more dispense with than we could with education 
| altogether. However subject to abuse or ill influence, 
| the present state of our population, the
| <pb n="391">
| present condition of the whole country, agricultural, 
| and especially manufacturing, requires it. Who can 
| conceive what England would be at this time, either if 
| Sunday Schools had never been established, or 
| were now discontinued altogether. Can any person 
| seriously imagine that, if they had not been called 
| into being, the poor would, as a class, have 
| systematically instructed their children at home in the 
| truths of religion; that fathers and mothers in the 
| class of mechanics would, amidst all the difficulties of 
| their position, have taught their children some hours 
| of every Sunday? Do rich people, with every 
| advantage, do this generally? They, to be sure, have 
| all the week to teach in if they are so minded, so that 
| it may not be necessary; but is a man better qualified 
| whose time all the week is engaged not in teaching, 
| but earning bread for his children in mechanical 
| labour, for the hard work of steady tuition on the 
| Sunday?  What do people suppose would be the state 
| of the children of our vast town population, employed 
| all the week in mills and manufactories if no public 
| effort were made for their education on Sunday? It 
| may, of course, be answered: <p> 'What did they do 
| before Sunday Schools were thought of?' </p> We 
| believe they did very badly but if they were ignorant, 
| so were all about them; the higher classes were used 
| both to the fact and to the necessity of the poor being 
| sunk in ignorance, from which only here and there 
| one superior spirit could extricate itself. Would 
| educated Christian men now endure to return to that 
| state of things? But it would not be to the same state, 
| but to one tenfold worse, if our vastly increased 
| youthful population were now turned adrift, as they 
| certainly would be, into the streets, to follow their 
| own devices; for it is sheer utopianism to suppose 
| that, as a body the hard-worked fathers and mothers 
| of large families of the poorer class should spend 
| their Sundays with their children within doors at 
| stated tasks till the hour for public worship arrives.  
| Their houses are not adapted for it, the street-door 
| stands too temptingly open; and, besides, the 
| Sunday dinner must be considered, which would 
| more than divide the mother s attention. The family 
| saunter in the fields in summer, the fireside circle on 
| winter evenings are not interfered with, their 
| pleasure is rather enhanced by the Sunday School; 
| but there is the whole day to account for, which 
| should be a day of rest, but which would be the 
| hardest day of the week, if those better qualified to 
| teach, and with more leisure, did not step in to relieve 
| them from the charge for a certain number of hours 
| each Sunday, to the equal benefit, we believe, of 
| parents and children  When we are oppressed by the 
| importunate question ~~ the question that will 
| obtrude itself, however, on every scheme undertaken 
| for the good of others ~~ <p> 'What good does it all 
| do?’ </p>
| <<pb n="392">
| when we are disposed to think that things could 
| scarcely have been worse had matters been left to take 
| their course, it is well to revert to such authentic 
| accounts as we have of the condition of children when 
| Sunday Schools were set on foot, at least in some 
| parts of England, and to inquire what were the 
| circumstances which induced thoughtful people to devise a 
| plan of public Sunday-education. We use such 
| authorities as we have at hand, who at least spoke and 
| wrote from experience of what they saw. We first quote 
| Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, the saint of Methodism, who 
| speaks soberly enough on this subject. Somewhere 
| between 1780 and 1790 he convened his parishioners, 
| and urged upon them to build a Sunday School with the 
| following arguments: ~~ <quotation> </quotation>
| Hannah More, who was one of the main instruments in 
| instituting Sunday Schools in country parishes, 
| mentions, as one of her great inducements, keeping her 
| scholars out of gaol. In writing to Wilberforce we find: ~~ 
| <quotation> </quotation>
| Next we come upon her description of 'Shaw's parish:' 
| ~~ <quotation>
| <pb n="393">
| </quotation>
| Of another place she writes: ~~ <quotation> </quotation>
| Her labours were viewed by the fanners of that day in a 
| spirit according to these different tempers. Some had read 
| about Sunday Schools in the Bristol papers, and believed 
| they might be very good things for keeping the children 
| from robbing their orchards. Others, on the contrary, 
| objected to all innovation, and said the country had never 
| prospered since religion had been brought into it by the 
| abbots of Glastonbury. The clergy generally welcomed 
| them, and found their congregations increase, which had, 
| previously, been as low as eight in the morning, and 
| twenty in the afternoon. Some of the mothers mistrusted 
| their designs, and suspected them of trying to get their 
| children into their power, with a view, at the end of seven 
| years, of selling them into slavery. In one tour of inspection 
| through a village, they found but one Bible, and that 
| propped a flower-pot. But it is fair to state that, in her 
| locality, every evil was exaggerated by the non-residence 
| of the clergy, so that no doubt it represents the extreme of 
| degradation to which the poor had fallen when these 
| efforts were made to raise their temporal and spiritual 
| condition. Where the clergy catechized the children of their 
| flock, the state of things must have been different; but as 
| far as we have opportunity of judging, the new plan was 
| generally welcomed by the clergy. At any rate, we think it 
| is clear that the new system interfered with nothing, upset 
| nothing; that there was no existing model in successful 
| operation which it would have been wise to take as an 
| example. The general advance in education, in which the 
| poor had a right to share, indeed indicated the need of 
| some new agency, the want of which had not been felt in 
| earlier times. We suspect that everywhere the evil she next 
| alludes to more or less prevailed: ~~ 
| <quotation> </quotation>
| <pb n="394">
| And this still continues to be one of the great benefits, 
| we will say <p> blessings, </p> conferred upon the 
| nation by Sunday Schools. This leading feature of the 
| system grew out of the necessity of the case. At first it 
| was by no means an essential part of Sunday Schools 
| that the teaching should be gratuitous, nor is it now; 
| but as they became common it would be felt, on the 
| one hand, much too great a strain on the master or 
| mistress of the week-day school, especially where the 
| attendance was large, to confine them to the same 
| routine of labour on the Sunday; and, on the other, 
| next to impossible to raise the needful funds for 
| separate hired assistance on that day. Hence 
| gratuitous help, when once thought of, must be 
| eagerly caught at, and must inevitably become the 
| rule. And in spite of all accidental evils, of all 
| difficulties perhaps inseparable from the plan, we 
| must think it a most happy necessity. The blending 
| not only of rich and poor in regular friendly 
| intercourse, but of every intermediate grade between; 
| the general fusion which takes place every Sunday of 
| the well-intentioned of all ranks; the knowledge of the 
| condition and habits of the poor which is thus spread; 
| the sympathy for their trials which must be thus 
| awakened; the effort to equalise the difference of 
| fortune which is the teacher's especial work, by 
| imparting that superior knowledge which better 
| education has given him to others not favoured with 
| his advantages; the kindly feeling thus generated in 
| the poorer classes to those above ~~ perhaps only a 
| little above ~~ them, not from a sense of pecuniary 
| obligation, which, by itself, does not bring people 
| together, but for that service which can wound no 
| man's independence, namely, care and interest and 
| the highest benefits conferred, naturally, simply, and 
| in the common order of events, on his children; are 
| facts which cannot be denied or disregarded.
| Whether Sunday Schools have succeeded or not in 
| their main design, this collateral benefit of creating 
| good feeling between different classes has been 
| gained. More than one great crisis has passed over 
| the world, and been weathered in England, which can 
| bear testimony to it. As for great good ~~ the greatest 
| ~~ when erring mortals lay plans to accomplish this 
| on a large scale, we do not see but they must expect 
| failure; not complete failure, but failure in regard to 
| the greatness of the design. Even inspired and divine 
| agency, in the course of near two thousand years, 
| has not been permitted to accomplish the conversion 
| of the world: have we a right to be disappointed 
| because Sunday Schools in eighty years have not 
| altered the whole face of society, have not 
| counteracted all evil influences, have not made a 
| religious and church-going population? That they 
| have not done this; that they have hardly, or barely, 
| advanced one step towards it, must be sorrowfully
| <pb n="395">
| admitted; but, to those who therefore quarrel 
| altogether with the system, we would still maintain 
| that they have done good, ~~ that religious principle, 
| as well as religious knowledge, is now in a far less 
| depressed state than it would have been, as far as 
| we can judge, without them. Any change of habit in 
| great classes is gradual; a neglected population, that 
| has been broken of going to church, on whom public 
| opinion on this point ceases to act, may take 
| generations to be restored to the habit, ~~ to that
| unquestioning submission to church, Or, at any rate, 
| meeting-house-going, as a rule ~~ making it as much 
| a matter of course when the time comes as our meals 
| ~~ which governs the respectable middle-classes. All 
| agree that, when the call of pain, distress and 
| suffering comes in later life, those minds are more 
| impressible that have received instruction in youth 
| than such as have been left to middle age in dense 
| ignorance. Our devoted army chaplains found 
| something to work upon, a foundation of knowledge 
| and dormant faith in one case, which furnished at 
| least a starting point for their teaching. The sacred 
| language was not in such cases a dead one. And for 
| our home youth, surely their state is better, less 
| savage, than if all their Sundays from childhood had 
| been spent in following their own devices, even 
| though, when they become their own masters, there 
| is the intolerable regret of seeing the vast majority of 
| them cast aside their teaching and give themselves 
| up to the diversions within their reach, without a 
| thought beyond. Of course, to lookers-on it is easy to 
| argue that, if such is the result, the fault must lie 
| either in the system or those who work it. The system 
| is a human system, and the teachers are full of human 
| imperfection ~~ so far the cavillers have the best side 
| in the argument; but till the magnitude of the evils 
| they have to fight against are understood, till the bad 
| influences of the week are weighed with the good 
| influences of the Sunday, or, rather, those few hours 
| of the Sunday which supply their main opportunity, 
| the question cannot fairly be considered, and the real 
| good done is certain to be underrated. This is so far 
| felt to be true, that it is the lookers-on who are 
| discouraged; those actively engaged in the work of 
| Sunday Schools have always something to call 
| success to cheer them. Some of our authorities 
| endeavour to prove by statistics the value of these 
| institutions. We never attach much importance to 
| such statements, and these before us are some 
| dozen years old, yet we will quote them for as much 
| as they are worth, believing ourselves that the 
| majority of our criminals have been utterly neglected 
| by their parents, and allowed to grow up in ignorance: 
| ~~ <quotation>
| <pb n="396">
| </quotation>
| Not, of course, that we follow this author in her 
| conclusion. It is not because these unfortunates had 
| not been to a Sunday School in their childhood, but 
| because they had bad parents who set them a bad 
| example or exercised no discipline over them, that 
| they grew up depraved; but in fact the two hang 
| upon one another; respectable parents as a rule 
| (unless under peculiar circumstances) send their 
| children to the Sunday School. It is commonly the 
| most careless who do not keep their children at 
| home, but allow them to roam abroad in pernicious 
| liberty on that day.
| Amongst the advantages of a voluntary gratuitous 
| system of Sunday teaching, is the Jess austere and 
| rigid system- of instruction involved. Many persons, 
| especially in theory, regret that the happy day of rest 
| should be embittered by confinement and lesson 
| learning. If we did not sincerely believe that Sunday 
| Schools greatly contribute to the happiness of our 
| youthful population, we should at least hesitate to 
| advocate them. For a happy Sunday is the 
| Christian's birthright. If the schoolboy has to go on 
| Sunday to the room which has been the scene of 
| every-day restraint, and to the master who has 
| administered tasks and chastisement throughout the 
| week, we pity him; there is no idea of holiday 
| attached to the day; but repairing, as he generally 
| does, to another locality, to be under a milder rule and 
| new companions; with the reasonable anticipation that 
| he will hear something to interest him, that his 
| teacher will be glad to see him, and lay himself out to 
| make instruction easy and pleasant; when he finds a 
| total change from week-clay associations, fresh and 
| cheerful faces around him, and something new to 
| observe; then the going, the coming, the agreeable 
| stir, the comparatively short sifting, the variety of 
| occupation, the
| <pb n="397">
| singing, will all contribute to the pleasure of the day. 
| Indeed, where Sunday School is a bugbear, as it is 
| to some unruly spirits, we think it will be found 
| generally that the service at church, with the 
| necessary steadiness and quiet, to which school is 
| the introduction, is the real difficulty. Children and 
| young people are never the happier for being 
| aimless, for having <reg orig=no one> no-one </reg> 
| to lead them. <reg orig=No one> No-one </reg> can 
| desire for them an idle day; no person acquainted 
| with boys can expect them to devote themselves for 
| long together to serious or religious study. They must 
| have <reg orig=some one> someone </reg> to help 
| them, and this is the teacher's office. It should only 
| be in very extreme cases that any severity of 
| punishment should be inflicted on the Sunday-school 
| scholar, ~~ that anything should be done to him 
| which should deprive him and others of the holiday, 
| almost voluntary, idea of the scene. Indeed in our 
| large towns it has almost compulsorily this character; 
| for if a boy does not like one school he can generally 
| move to another. His parents would rarely interfere 
| with positive authority. Attachment to his teacher, or 
| to some favourite companion, is generally the only 
| potent tie, ~~ and that it is so, and that our schools 
| are yet so well filled, is, we think, an answer to the 
| charge of cruel confinement on the day of rest.
| To take a lower view, for which we ought perhaps to 
| apologise, ~~ the act of donning his best clothes the 
| first thing in the morning and making a respectable 
| appearance among his fellows, is to most boys a real 
| pleasure. This is incompatible with his roving 
| propensities, if he has them, and may go far to 
| counteract them. We are convinced that the feeling of 
| looking his best, contributes greatly to that cheerful 
| bright look which belongs as such to the Sunday-school
| scholar, and separates him from the skulking 
| shabby truant from school and church, who makes off 
| to some favourite forbidden haunt with averted eye 
| and dogged look. And if this is so with boys, who 
| have something to overcome, who have a love of 
| adventure and no antipathy to dirt, and who are 
| exposed to temptation and ridicule from wild 
| companions, ~~ what an clement of pleasure, not 
| necessarily connected with vanity, is the toilet of the 
| Sunday-school girl. We do not know a more cheerful 
| sight, or one more pleasant in its way, than the 
| collecting of a girls' school on a fine Sunday morning, 
| ~~ we would say, especially in the manufacturing 
| districts, where the monotonous yet noisy labour of 
| the week adds a peculiar zest to the serene smiling 
| variety of the Sunday gathering.
| The choice of colouring in towns is generally quieter 
| than in the rural districts; the general eye is in better 
| training; there is not often anything particularly flaring 
| or gaudy to offend
| <pb n="398">
| either our taste or our principles. We cannot but be 
| impressed by the care, thought, and judgment which 
| must have been at work in many a humble home to 
| turn out such a number of children, trim, clean, and 
| neat, and often with a certain finish, which, though 
| some may shake their heads over, yet as a sign at 
| once of cultivated taste and parental fondness, we 
| would not be hard upon. The children in these 
| districts, after the age of eleven, work hard; they earn 
| their own living, ~~ it is quite fair that their 
| appearance should be creditable. But there is no 
| doubt that the Sunday School often secures them this 
| privilege from the mother, who might be slatternly and 
| indifferent about .her child, unless there was some 
| stated constant occasion in which she would be 
| brought into direct comparison with others. Conscious 
| then of tidiness, cleanliness, and propriety, the school 
| gathering is a meeting of friends in a state to enjoy 
| each other's society; a look of sprightliness and 
| alacrity pervades the assembly. Teachers greet and 
| are greeted with a kindly smile. Then follow tasks, 
| well or ill said, as the case may be, ~~ for anything 
| like compulsion is out of the question, ~~ it is a matter 
| that must rest with the conscience of the child, her 
| regard for her teacher's wishes, or her appreciation of 
| the small rewards or privations decreed by the rules 
| of the school. Severity, rigidity of any kind are 
| scarcely practicable, unless in some extreme case of 
| contumacy.
| The aspect we are giving to the subject may be 
| considered secular; but there is no doubt that its 
| merely social features are important. The Sunday 
| School has a great influence in directing the channel 
| of youthful feeling, and' forming the habits of our 
| population, apart, we may say, from its direct 
| religious working. For instance, we suspect that 
| contact in the Sunday School forms more friendships 
| than mere neighbourhood. The attachment that 
| studious thoughtful children form for their Sunday 
| School is remarkable. It is often the home of their 
| most poetical thoughts; they are comparatively 
| removed while there from vulgar influences; the 
| romance of their nature comes out in it. In hard times 
| it is often a motive to resignation and content. It is 
| something to look forward to at the end of every 
| cheerless week. We have known young women give 
| up the thought of change, and struggle on through a 
| period of short time, and even total want of work, 
| because they would not leave their Sunday School. 
| The friendships formed, fed, and matured there 
| amongst the girls, always most amenable to such 
| influences, really often supply the place of what is 
| called a tenderer passion; and if touched with a tinge 
| of ridicule to lookers-on, may yet prove of most
| substantial service in preserving young women at the 
| most trying
| <pb n="399">
| age from a vulgar desire for admiration. The fact of 
| grown-up scholars regularly attending a well-ordered 
| school, may be taken to mean that they have no 
| intention or wish to settle early ~~ that they do not want 
| <p> ‘followers.’ </p> In fact, as Sunday is the only day 
| at liberty for cultivating attachments, they really cut 
| themselves noff from such affairs; their engagements at 
| school and the services at church leave them very little 
| time; and as their attendance at school is absolutely 
| voluntary, it would cease naturally so soon as a more 
| absorbing interest found it inconvenient. But apart from 
| these closer ties arising from some real or fancied 
| congeniality, and because a special friend is felt a sort 
| of necessity with some minds: in the drudgery of 
| married life how often does the woman look back to her 
| Sunday-school, her teacher, and her companions in 
| class as the bright happy part of her life. Of course, in 
| the retrospect, the religious atmosphere gives a certain 
| sanctity to the time. <quotation> </quotation>
| But we are forced to detach and separate the two ideas, 
| for if the religious teaching had indeed sunk deep she 
| would not have fallen into the neglect of ordinances we 
| perhaps now find her in. Those who pass from 
| childhood to youth in the same school, never forget the 
| time; rather those Sundays, those weekly meetings, 
| schoolfellows, teachers, superintendent, pastor, are 
| engraven on the heart and memory, are looked back 
| upon after years of separation, ~~ call the emigrant’s 
| thoughts homeward with a pang, ~~ are talked of on 
| death-beds. The opportunities for thought, for peaceful 
| companionship, or warm friendship, the occasional 
| moments of confidence with the teacher, whose station, 
| or age, or sympathizing manner, or gift in imparting 
| religious instruction, or all combined, excite feelings of 
| affectionate reverence; the delightful sensation ~~ to 
| intelligent minds cut off from intellectual occupation in 
| their mechanical labour and too often at home ~~ of 
| acquiring knowledge, the high tone of subject, all 
| combine to excite strong feelings in the higher order of 
| minds; nor are lower incentives wanting where these 
| have no power; the stolen gossip, the mutual scrutiny, 
| the movement; the sights, sounds, novelties, 
| inseparable from numbers, all make up an agreeable 
| change to most children, either from their week-day 
| work, or even from their home, whatever its pleasures, 
| with the cuffing, scolding, nursing of babies, and 
| general disorder, which are not often separated from a 
| large family confined in a small space.
| The scene altogether fits in so exactly with the existing 
| state of things, with the wants of a population brought 
| together, in a manner created, by the great mercantile 
| spirit of our age,
| <pb n="400">
| that as we look on we acquiesce in it as in any fact of 
| nature, though not without experience of its incidental 
| drawbacks. The Sunday School must be, while things 
| are as they now stand; the question with each one 
| concerned must be how to make the best of it, and to 
| make it fulfil its legitimate work.
| We have hitherto dwelt on the scholars in their 
| peculiar Sunday aspect; we now turn to the other 
| necessity of a school, the teacher, who has to adapt 
| himself to this holiday attitude of mind and feeling, and 
| who is often equally served and benefited by the 
| institution. The main staff of teachers in every Sunday 
| School, especially in the boys' department, are young 
| ~~ youths and young men before they have settled in 
| life, and who have been led more by a desire to be 
| useful than by any especial fitness or unusual 
| clearness and accuracy of knowledge to become 
| such. The clergyman is obliged to accept and to be 
| glad of this aid; and he may do so safely, while he 
| holds his legitimate place and influence. Teaching at 
| a certain period of life is the best mode of learning. 
| People thus become aware of the cloudiness of their 
| apprehension of that sort of knowledge which it is 
| supposed everybody knows, which civility always 
| takes for granted, but which, in spite of the universal 
| assumption, is often held in such a fog of uncertainty, 
| that every member of a large company would tremble 
| to be put through an examination upon it. We are 
| afraid that the general knowledge of Scripture is of 
| this character. It is proper to assume that every 
| person of decent English education is acquainted with 
| his Bible, but what average of these have any 
| distinctness or clearness of historical knowledge; how 
| many dare to come to close quarters on questions of 
| either fact or doctrine which have needed comparison 
| and research. Many a youth who offers himself as a 
| teacher has not, and only by the process of teaching 
| has, learned his deficiency, and set about repairing it; 
| for every honest mind will at least do his best to know 
| accurately what it is his business to teach, and thus 
| he benefits as much as his scholars. He learns, and 
| learns with a purpose; the faculties both of headland 
| heart are stimulated; and if knowledge so recently 
| acquired has not the precision which is necessary in 
| the ordinary schoolmaster, there may be the 
| equivalent of greater freshness and interest; the 
| lesson is not given in so perfunctory a fashion; the 
| Sunday teacher and scholar, though not all students 
| together, are at least a little more on a par. This of 
| course applies only to the senior classes. But this 
| state of things, it is scarcely necessary to say, implies 
| a head. These youths are not the persons to feel their 
| scholars a charge in which ,reg orig=no one> no-one 
| </reg> else shares.  They must never forget their 
| subordinate capacity; they should be under constant 
| guidance
| <pb n="401">
| and direction, and only so far as the clergyman 
| maintains this predominant relation with the teachers, 
| and his active present authority recognised by the 
| whole school, is the Sunday School what it ought to 
| be.	 
| Young people engaged in a good work have the 
| temptation to become conceited, and to lose their 
| simplicity. They should be defended from the danger 
| by being held in due subordination.  Where this is 
| wanting, and where due surveillance is not 
| maintained, we know that this evil and other worse 
| ones have often crept in, the school becomes a little 
| society of its own, distinguished by a pert pretentious 
| manner. Under the screen of the school's common 
| interest, the young people of both sexes meet on 
| unrestrained familiar terms, habits of flirtation arise, 
| not as in the gay freedom of ordinary life, but with a 
| certain sanctimonious tinge and flavour, which runs 
| the risk of turning mere youthful folly into hypocrisy. 
| On this ground, and alive to the propensities of youth 
| in this matter of flirtation, prone to break out under all 
| disguises, we cannot enter into the proposals of some 
| of the works before us to teach boys and girls in the 
| game room, though we own that with us the objection 
| to the plan lies much more with teachers than 
| scholars. Not one of these books, in their most 
| practical parts, recognises, even by implication, the 
| danger of bringing young people together in close 
| intercouse in the seasons called amongst them 
| revivals. Mrs Davids, indeed, enjoins that teacher and 
| scholar shall be always of the same sex, but beyond 
| this the religious excitement seems to be supposed a 
| preservative from all other. With these plans, 
| however, we have no direct concern, nor from pur 
| own experience should we feel any warning on the 
| subject necessary; but hints now and then have 
| reached us of another state of things, and we suppose 
| it to be where local circumstances deprive the clergy 
| of their desired influence.
| The predominance of youthful teachers has made us 
| dwell on their needs and services first; but there are 
| never wanting, in the fully developed school, teachers 
| of older standing, and the more there are of such, 
| other things being equal, the better organized will the 
| school be. In the girls' department there will generally 
| be found some teachers of mature age : the 
| clergyman's wife, if her home avocations permit, 
| presides either as superintendent or head teacher; and 
| most parishes furnish some maiden ladies able and 
| willing to give their services. Experience shows the 
| great advantage of the persons of best station in the 
| parish working in the Sunday School Not only is their 
| education better, but rank (we use the word only 
| comparatively) tells, and we think always will
| <pb n="402">
| <pb n="403">
| <pb n="404">
| <pb n="405">
| <pb n="406">
| all these by that mysterious bond of eating and 
| drinking together ~~ a tie, a link of union, and 
| fellowship, and soul too, ~~ the strength of which can 
| scarcely be over-estimated, which, however 
| dependent on our lower instincts, influences all 
| classes, all occasions, all natures, and which is 
| recognised from one end of Scripture to the other. 
| Indeed, it may be said of all fetes given to the poor, 
| that those take a very inferior and superficial view, 
| who, because beef and pudding or tea and cake are 
| with themselves very ordinary things, full of vulgar 
| associations, despise others for looking forward to 
| them, and back upon them, in a different spirit; and 
| suppose that the good conferred by these means 
| upon them is merely an indulgence of appetite. We 
| can sympathise much more with the grave 
| benevolence to be met with in every parish, which will 
| exert itself in earnest, as in an important matter 
| needing their best thought and judgment, to collect for 
| and prepare these good things to the best advantage. 
| Indeed, it is a day to bring out a great many qualities 
| and talents which lie hid in the common routine of life, 
| and to reverse some of our estimates of capacity. It is 
| wonderful how many persons come out in a new and 
| bright light in them. Some emergency, a shower of 
| rain, or other disaster incident to these festivities, 
| elicits sparks of genius in unexpected quarters, and 
| shows who are to be relied on ~~ revealing presence 
| of mind and ready wit in one, in another untiring good 
| humour, in a third some especial power over children's 
| attention. The pastor, thrown by necessity into a 
| scene not much in accordance with his taste or 
| education, may make it a day of profit and interest to 
| himself, by using it as a study of character. It is, 
| amongst other reasons, because a general holiday 
| always furnishes this opportunity, that we have dwelt 
| on it so long, and treated what some think a trifle, an 
| irksome duty only to be forgotten when past, as an 
| important engine to bind different classes together, 
| used and spent as it may be.
| But while dwelling on the accidental features of the 
| system, we may seem to be passing over its main 
| purpose, and its every-day practical use and working. 
| We have not thought it necessary to enter into plans 
| of teaching, for, after all, these are not affected by the 
| day; i. e. a person who can convey knowledge 
| successfully on the week-day will use the same 
| method on the Sunday.
| The works before us ~~ especially 'Collins's 
| Teachers' Companion,' and 'Inglis's Sabbath School,' 
| ~~ contain much good sense on the best way of 
| gaining attention and imparting information; persons 
| cannot be actively engaged in a work, whatever their 
| theories, without arriving at much valuable practical 
| truth. We have, however, purposely confined 
| ourselves to these theories, as we have wished our 
| readers ~~ especially our clerical readers ~~ to know 
| what views are entertained by the popular
| <pb n="407">
| writers on the subject, to prove to them that it is 
| necessary to keep the headship in their own hands 
| if they would have the children under their charge 
| educated in Church principles. Under this condition 
| we cannot see or imagine any other system better 
| suited to the times, or 80 well adapted to bring 
| numbers under his own instruction at once. 
| Sunday-school teaching must necessarily be on 
| fundamentals, for the teachers, as a class, are not 
| equal to more: they are teaching themselves in 
| teaching their scholars; but we think the pastor, 
| when opportunities are afforded of forming a good 
| Sunday-school will find large numbers of children, 
| such as our great parishes, furnish, in better 
| training from his influence than could be brought 
| about by any other means. He can thus, at stated 
| periods or for any particular lesson, bring under his 
| eye, in an attitude of attention as many children as 
| he wishes, and so make his teaching tell on the whole 
| of his parish in a way no other agency can.  This 
| advantage will be particularly felt when it is 
| necessary for him to classify his youthful flock: for 
| instance, when he has to prepare them for 
| confirmation, he has an admirable machinery, and 
| a body of candidates ready to his hand, with 
| examples amongst the elder scholars of some 
| whom the rite has led to regular and devout 
| attendance at Holy Communion. This momentous 
| season which Dissenters evidently seek to supply 
| by their periodical school revivals, should be, and 
| we believe is, a very important time in every 
| well-conducted Sunday-school. Though comparatively 
| few may be of age for the rite, an impression of a 
| solemnity at hand pervades the school; a general, 
| interest is excited; the subject occupies the 
| children's minds, is talked of at home, and awakens 
| thought there; the startling ignorance of Church 
| discipline and practice which prevails in many a 
| Lay locality receives a little light  Let 
| <reg orig="any one"> anyone </reg> use the subject of 
| confirmation, as a test both of Church feeing and 
| general religious intelligence, in districts with and 
| without a Church Sunday-school, and he will at 
| once perceive its effect on the popular 
| apprehension, and, by comparison, realize some of 
| its benefits.
| Perhaps this appeal to comparison of the state of 
| thing with and without a Sunday-school, the superior 
| civilisation, humanity, and intelligence where they 
| prevail, the rudeness and barbarism in the populous 
| districts where they are still wanting is now, and may 
| be for some time longer, one main argument of their 
| good service on any large and comprehensive scale. 
| But we are convinced <reg orig="no one"> no-one 
| </reg> can have been long engaged either in the 
| teacher's office or pastoral superintendence, without 
| having personal experience of their value in a far 
| deeper and more important sense.