RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Evening Star, Issue 21689, 7 April 1934, Page 4

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

[By Forward.) If we work upon marble it will perish; if we work upon brass time will efface it; if we rear temples they will crumble into dust; but if we w ork uiion immortal souls, if we imbue them with principles, with the just fear of God and love of fellow men, we engrave on those tablets something which will brighten all eternity.—Daniel Webster. CHRISTIAN CHARACTER AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. It is sometimes valuable to try to look at any work we are doing from some comparatively unfamiliar point oi view'. It reveals both weakness and hidden possibilities in the work, and it mav point to the need for new developments in it. The purpose of the present article is to suggest that Sunday school policy and methods might be greatly modified and changed if those responsible, asked themselves a few iiuestions as to the part the school is playing in forming the characters of those who attend it. Some may be disposed to reply at once that the school is doing its part fully if it secures for all its children an adequate knowledge of the more important religious truths along with a measure of spiritual mpression. The Sunday school, they would say, takes no thought of the kind of character it produces, or of wavs and means for exercising the activities that tend to produce that character. If the children are led to the point of loyalty to Christ and of pledging themselves to a life of serving Him, all will be well with their characters. We can leave the practical results to take care of themselves. Yet somehow it is not so easy as that. The Sunday school, along with the home, the day school, the playground, and in many cases the street, cannot help playing some part in shaping the habits and ideals of the children who come under its influence. No doubt every good Sunday school moulds character in "the right direction without giving any thought to the wavs and means by which this aim is achieved, but the power of the school in this direction can be greatly increased by taking thought. There are elements, even in the best of our schools, which tend to foster features of character that are less than Christian. There are experiments that might be tried, activities that could be devised. with the definite purpose of creating Christian ideals and habits. What is meant may he made clearer bv a reference to the day schools. Those in authority in the larger and more efficient schools have fairly delinite conceptions of the kind of character they wish to produce in their pupils, and they order their schools so as to produce it. If it is self-reliance and the power of initiative they have before them, then they take every means to stimulate the children to such an interest in the work that the children may partly arrange and carry it on themselves. A school’s discipline reflects itself in the characters of the boys long after they leave it. A bov’s pride in his school remains with him ns a determining influence in his con duct throughout the whole of his after life.

The first question for Christian workers among children is: What kind of character ought we to fry to produce? And the second is, allowing for the silent personal influence of the best Christian example we can give: How can we so arrange our work as to supplement that silent influence in the right direction 9 There is no doubt as to the standard of character we must hold before ourselves and work for in our children. Paul describes it as “ coming unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the fulness of Christ.” " The main emphasis of our teaching is naturally placed on the figure of Jesus Christ as He is given to ns in the Gospels, but this is not enough. We have to help them as far as possible to be followers of Him, by devising ways in which they can be led to practise in their own daily lives, at home and at school, the main elements in His character. The real expression work that should accompany Sunday school teaching is that which takes the form of changes in personal conduct.

There are two lines along which this training in Christian character must piocoed. The devoutness of Jesus is one great part of the pattern and standard He gives for the Christian character. Now we can do much to make reverence and devotion a habit of mind and spirit by accustoming the children to it from the first. A great deal of discussion that goes on about people’s indifference about church attendance avoids the real cause of this indifference. Church worship is an acquired taste. It can never be made attractive to the ordinary man in the street without losing a great deal of its real value. The only people who will enter into it with zest, and a sense of its value and claim ujkui them are people in whom the attitude of worship has become part of their very make-up, and for whom the language and forms of devotion in the denomination to which they belong are charged with meanings and associations. The only way to fill the churches is to train a generation who have been led to understand what the meaning of church services is ; and have been exercised from their earliest years in similar worship suited to their stages of development. This is one of the reasons that lie behind the new insistence on worship in the Sunday school. All who have the interests of both children and the church at heart should ask themselves continually whether increased attention should not be given to this element in character building. Surely, above all, we desire to see the children grow up into a natural and instinctive understanding of what united and individual worship can do to strengthen and amplify their lives, and with the habit of worship deeply ingrained in them. Yet very few schools are taking this part of their opportunity seriously. The other line along which we must develop is that of practical training in service. Jesus went about doing good. His life was the perfect expression of love in action. Therefore we are committed to try to create by our training a generation of children who will put others first and self nowhere, again as a matter of unconscious habit. The question of how this is to be done is too large a one to discuss in detail in the present article Like most work with children, it is done by the accumulated impressions made by a large number of apparently trivial things. It makes a great difference, for instance, to the child’s whole future attitude towards giving if over the whole of his Sunday school life he has been interested in the objects to which the children’s gifts go, if he has been intelligently informed about them, and if he has had some share in choosing them. A small collection that represents real giving on the part of the children is infinitely more valuable than a large one, the most of which has been supplied by parents for the purpose. The selfishness of many people jupipty’ points to a defect in their earlj?

training. They were never given things to do when they were children. It has never become second nature for them to look out for ways of being helpful. The world is needing a generation of burden bearers, people for whom unrewarded public service is an inevitable activity, people who take the unselfish side in questions' of national and international politics, brotherly men and citizens, even though their brotherliness cosis them much, men and women, marked with the distinctive Christian brand, the mark of the Cross. Do we realise how much the little things we can get the children to do maV mould them after this pattern? Wo do well to realise the practical end of our work, and that in great part it can be achieved by getting theffl to do things.